My ex-wife became the victim from hell after our divorce, which she and the kids blamed on my messing around with another woman. The truth is, I’d been eager to get divorced for the past 10 years, particularly because my ex was so good at messing up and then acting like a victim. I didn’t have that or any affair until I had almost put the divorce in motion and the youngest was about ready for college, and my not-mistress has subsequently become my wife. I felt guilty, however, and the kids see me as guilty, so they punish me with silence, or worse, extend an invitation to have a talk so they can hit me with a blast of endless recrimination before returning to silence again. Needless to say, explaining doesn’t help—their anger is endless—so when they call me up, I wonder what to say. My goal is to help them with their pain and restore a normal relationship.

Most good people feel guilty about leaving a marriage, whether or not they’ve done anything wrong. Guilt the emotion, as opposed to guilt the legal state, is never necessarily caused by bad behavior.

You feel guilty because those you love are hurt and disappointed, and happen to blame you. Given the fact that one of the most important reasons that people marry—perhaps the most important—is to have someone to blame, guilt is an unavoidable part of both marriage and divorce that should never, ever be considered proof of criminality.

As natural as your guilt is, it’s dangerous to let it guide you when you’re managing seriously angry kids (or adults, especially when they’re acting like kids). It’s like showing fear to a tiger, or blood to a vampire, or low-hanging comedic fruit to Ricky Gervais. They’ll just keep coming.

Your first job is not to respond to the kids before you’ve decided for yourself whether you’re guilty, and what for. Begin by listing your standards, which should probably include trying hard to make marriage work, giving priority to the needs of the kids, and behaving well in a difficult situation.

They should probably not include being happy or keeping your family happy, because life is often unavoidably unhappy, and looking for marriage to make you happy, though nice when it does happen, is ridiculous.

The question is how dysfunctional your wife’s behavior was and how badly it affected your partnership, as well as your mood and behavior. My guess, from what you say, is that you tried hard, put great importance on raising the kids, but found yourself hating your marriage. If you believe that’s reasonable grounds for divorce (if you were judging a friend), then it’s time to stop apologizing. If not, then figure out what you did wrong (excluding everything that you didn’t control), apologize, and then don’t apologize anymore.

Once you’ve prepared your statement (see sample below), you’re ready to draw the line on receiving punishment you don’t deserve. You and the kids deserve a better relationship, and from your point of view, their anger is the main obstacle. You hope they can stop it, and the first step is allowing yourself to stop feeling perpetually guilty for doing what you believe was necessary.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I failed my first marriage since I’m the one who was unhappy and broke it up, and my kids blame me. After thinking it through, I see my responsibility as limited. If this response doesn’t satisfy the kids, I’m sorry, but I’ve heard their views and accepted their feelings and it’s no good for negative conversations to continue indefinitely. I love them and believe we can have a positive relationship, if and when they’re ready.”

The main thing wrong with my marriage is that we lost the incredible love and closeness we had for the first few years, and a major reason is that my husband keeps his distance. No, I don’t think he’s having affairs, and we still get along very well as partners and parents, but he says he just hasn’t felt comfortable with me since I went through a depressed, nasty period, so he avoids kissing and sex. I’ve told him I can’t go on like this, but I’m not going to beg for sex if he’s not going to give it to me. I don’t mention it most of the time, but it hurts. My goal is to figure out how to get the old love back or decide whether the current situation is good enough for me to want to stay married.

The trouble with mixing sex and love in a marriage is that sexual withholding feels like a loss of love, and a loss of love causes deep pain, which causes sexual withholding, and around it goes, flushed down the marital toilet.

If you think sex might bridge the gulf between you, then don’t request it as evidence of his love, or as satisfaction of your needs. To do so is to make the issue more wrought, personal and emotionally explosive. Of course you have those feelings, but expressing them won’t clear them up—it will make them worse.

Instead, propose sex as an activity that might reduce the distance between you by having a positive effect on your emotions. Now that your nasty period is over, you’re confident it will be a good experience, and, if repeated, it might build trust, as well as reducing an issue between you. As long as you don’t emotionalize sex in terms of love and intimacy, you reduce the risk of failure. Market it as nerve tonic, not as proof of his dedication or your personal worth.

If he doesn’t respond, then you know you haven’t scared him away; he’s simply stuck. You haven’t let your hurt feelings make you passive; you’ve done what you can, and your actions haven’t added to your pain by expressing it.

I assume you’ve apologized for the past (see above) to the extent that you could have controlled your nasty behavior, so it’s time to stop apologizing. Propose a better way forward and see if your husband can join you. Having sex, if he can do it, is a way of putting negative feelings to one side. The love issue will have to wait.

STATEMENT:
“The lack of a sex life leaves me feeling guilty, sad, and punished, as well as horny and needy, but I know I’ve been a good partner for a long time and don’t deserve punishment. I believe it would help my husband, and our relationship, if he could put a lid on his anxieties and just do it. It’s his job to try. What he does with it will tell me whether he can.”

Well, I’ve been with my boyfriend for 5 years, and during our third year I got into his Facebook account and saw that he’d cheated on me by talking online with girls saying he loved them. I walked away for about 4 months. He tried everything to get me back and after he showed me he changed I thought I should give it one last chance since he is my first everything. I’m trying to move past this but I feel there is something inside me that wants to explode every time I am with him. What advice can you give me to forget this incident or should I not forget?

You’ve given this guy one more chance because he’s your “first everything,” which is understandable. At this point, however, he’s also your first lesson in how character, unlike love, is forever.

He didn’t do this to hurt or disrespect you, because that would imply he thought his actions through before taking them. Instead, he acted on his very flawed set of instincts, which is what brings his character into question.

Sincerity, tons of respect, and heaps of flowers shouldn’t get you to lower your guard. Most guys who sincerely regret their bad behavior regret it because they got caught, or they don’t feel like that any more, or they wish you weren’t mad at them.

Sure, guys like this may really, really love you and have nothing but sincere regrets, but they can’t admit that their basic instincts haven’t changed, won’t change, and will always come back. They sincerely wish that weren’t true and that the guy who did those bad things was another guy, but all the earnest wishes in the world don’t guarantee that his actions will improve.

Most guys with bad instincts improve, not by becoming better people, but learning to control themselves after getting to truly know themselves, for better or worse. At some time or other, they accept the fact that their bad instincts will never go away, and that they will always have to struggle to keep them in check. They know that the moment they think they’ve won permanent control, they’re in real trouble.

Unless he worships the ground you walk on, your boyfriend’s love will probably not keep him on the straight and narrow. If he controls himself because he loves you and doesn’t want to hurt you, that’s fine for as long as it lasts. Usually, however, real couples get mad at one another over stupid things and have petty urges to hurt one another. That’s when his control will break down, unless it’s rooted in deeper, personal values, not just loving feelings that can fade after a shouting match.

Your goal then isn’t to forget this incident, but to first figure out whether it’s indicative of what your future together holds. Don’t pay lots of attention to the sincerity of his love or whether he shows you tons of respect, but do give him points for admitting that he has an honesty problem, and give him more points if he wants to change because he wants to be a better guy, and not just to get your love. Give him lots of points if his actions reflect his words over a long period of time.

You know what you think about his cheating, but the real question is, what does he think about it, and what does he plan to do. If his plan just involves groveling and empty promises, get ready to be the first one in the relationship to say it’s over.

STATEMENT:
“Cheating feels like my boyfriend disrespects me and that it won’t happen if his respect is real. That’s not true. Cheating is a bad habit that’s hard to change and it has very little to do with how much he loves or respects me. The only way I can safely trust him with my future is if I see that he owns his problem, wants to be a better guy, and keeps his hands, eyes, and email connections to himself.”

After 10 years of working my butt off for this company, my boss rewarded me by giving me all the shitty parts of her job and taking away all the things I liked to do and giving them to herself. She’s not mad at me and doesn’t want to force me out. I don’t think she expects me to be mad and if I told her, she’d think I was being touchy. My goal is to feel better about these changes so I don’t blow up, but doing this job has never been easy and now it feels like an endless humiliation.

If you’ve worked your butt off for a company and gotten treated like shit, there’s a wonderful lesson to be learned. You should never, ever treat work as if it’s family or the whole of your life. You also shouldn’t be surprised if losing your ass makes a shitty feeling increase.

I know most jobs come to feel like family; you see more of the people you work with than anyone else, and the bosses talk about caring, loyalty, and fairness. It’s hard not to feel humiliated and/or like the mistreated middle child if no one listens and you’re given tasks that everyone else hates doing.

Remember, however, that your goal in working is to make a living, not to get the job done or win your boss’s respect. You work for yourself and your own values, and, while your boss is your most important client, that’s all he is. Until the day arrives when respect becomes currency, focus on your paycheck and timecard instead.

If you care too much about your work and then feel unappreciated, your feelings become dangerous. It’s not just that disgruntlement gets noticed, but that criticized bosses always find something wrong with you. At that point, it gets personal and moral, and you’re the one who will wind up in the shrink’s office, not them.

Step back, assess your strengths and opportunities, then market yourself and see what’s out there. If the job market is dead—and that’s been the rule for the last few years—respect yourself for working with disrespect. It’s hard enough to make a living when your boss likes you.

Take comfort in this secret: the guy who does the shit-work no one else wants usually has a more secure job because processing shit is the most essential part of any job. Work hard, but get your butt back; after all, you already work for an asshole.

STATEMENT:
“I may feel as if my devotion has been rewarded with humiliation and disrespect, but that means I’ve been giving too much to my job and not thinking enough about my own priorities. It’s time to become my own boss and develop a job description that limits overwork and attends to other parts of my life. I don’t really want to be a well-appreciated worker who knocks himself out for the sake of the company. I want to be a guy who values his own work and loves quittin’ time.”

Is infidelity a sign of some problem in a relationship or just a natural and inevitable part of relationships? I feel it as a betrayal and my partner feels it has nothing to do with us and has no effect on our relationship. Is it possible to have a relationship between two people who feel differently about this issue?

There’s not much point in having a partner if you can’t count on him (and we’ll assume it’s a him); what doesn’t work for cops doesn’t work for civilians, either. First, however, you gotta figure out what you want to count on him for.

There are partners—admittedly, they’re rare—who have compulsively wandering weenuses but are reliable when it comes to covering the kids, the bank account, and your back. They won’t keep secrets from you, other than the tales of their penis’s travels.

It may be humiliating to be married to a guy like that, but the lifestyle and dinner table conversation may be worth it, particularly if he’s rich and famous. It’s fun to be king, and fun to hang out with him (at least until the press catches on to his shenanigans).

At least you know, from what they do, that it’s not personal. Your partner, for instance, is telling you that he is who he is, not that you’re not lovable. For you, relationships include monogamy, and for him, they don’t, no matter whom he’s partnering with.

So, as usual, the person you really need to consult is yourself. You want to know whether your heart can stand the strain, not to mention the ability of the rest of your body to fend off STDs.

The trouble is, the more vulnerable your heart, the more likely you are to fall for the guy because you love him, regardless of the fact that you probably knew, right from the start, that he is a wanderer. Your heart is also more likely to talk you into the false hope that that he’ll change, or you’ll change, and it will be OK. If that happens, the betrayer isn’t him or his parts, but your own little heart persuading yourself that you can get him to change.

The other risk of partnering with a wandering guy is that they often forget the facts of life—their penises have about the same brain-power as your heart—with the result that there’s another unexpected kid out there with a legitimate (or illegitimate) claim to your family resources. That’s a surprise that can send the wanderer on the lam for good.

If you’re honest in presenting yourself with the risks and benefits of your decision, you’ll never be a victim. Know your heart, however, and remember that he’s not going to change, and neither are the facts of life. Trust your ability to decide.

STATEMENT:
“I’m angry and hurt by my partner’s infidelity, but it’s a waste of time to argue, with him or myself, about whether he should change or be ashamed, because the real question is whether I can stand him the way he is, accepting that he’s not going to change and that there’s a price to be paid for loving him.”

I was pleased at first when the middle school principal took an interest in my 12-year-old daughter—he ran into her every day at the crosswalk in front of the school, and he liked her for all the right reasons—but now it’s 7 years later, she’s in college, he’s 45 and divorced with 2 kids, and their relationship has become serious. As a father, I can’t tell her to drop him because he has a reputation for being a good guy and makes no secret of the fact that he loves her. In any case, she won’t listen and will just pull back from me, which will reduce my influence even more. My goal is to get her to drop him before she gets trapped in something that really won’t be good for her.

As always, if you want to have an impact on your kid, don’t blurt out your fears. You’ll go from being a knowing authority to the scared party that needs convincing, instead of the other way around.

If you imply she’s too easily influenced by a guy old enough to be her father (it will be hard for you to avoid that phrase, but avoid that phrase), she’ll show you you’re wrong, by defying her actual father. If you talk about his baggage—age, ex-wife, child support—she’ll see a man in need of love and a family that she can heal.

Instead, put your protective emotions aside, treat her like an adult, and ask her how she sees the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of partnership. Respect the obvious advantages, i.e., he’s a guy who seems solid (although you want to know more about what happened to his marriage), probably makes her feel safe and secure, and has a lot to teach her (no snideness intended).

Then make sure she considers the obvious drawbacks, as if you were discussing a business deal. If the attraction is fueled by the normal admiration a young person, uncertain about her gifts and independence, feels for an accomplished person who knows the ropes, or by the pleasure it gives the old guy so admired, there’s a risk. After all, things will change as she grows older, acquires more confidence (partly thanks to him), feels more like a peer, and wonders whether they really have that much in common any more. Both of them have a lot to lose.

Unless she makes a good living and saves up some money, there’s also a risk she’ll help take care of his kids without there being enough left over for the two of them or for starting a family, so advise her to watch how he manages his competing obligations. He should do right by his kids without being overly responsive to his first family with time, money, or emotional reactivity.

If he has credit card debt, or doesn’t manage his money carefully, her admiration will disappear the moment they have to pay for something big together, whether it’s upsized digs or a hospital bill. She’s thinking love, but you need to channel Jane Austen and think money.

Don’t expect to change her mind. All you can do is alert her to possible roadblocks and disappointments while making it clear that your main interest is her best interest and that you accept her, regardless. Then you’ll make it clear that if she’s interested in a man who really is like her father, he’d want her to do what’s right for her and not bind her to premature or crippling commitments.

STATEMENT:
“I’m sad and worried about my daughter’s relationship with an older guy, but I’ll make clear that the risks I see are not due to her being foolish or her boyfriend’s not being a nice guy, but to the fact that life is hard and that their age difference puts horrible stresses on relationships as time goes by.”

My husband, a heterosexual, healthy 37-year-old man who loves me, does not want to have sex with me most of the time. We used to have good sex for the first year or so, but then with time it became less and less frequent, e.g., every 6-9 months. I am attractive and feel that other men find me desirable. We tried talking, seeing a sex therapist (didn’t go well, he just found the whole thing frustrating and upsetting and was angry with me for making him go). He says he doesn’t know why he doesn’t feel like having sex with me, but it deeply affects my self-esteem and our relationship. I gained some weight (20 pounds) and went from skinny to curvy over the last 10 years, and I know that it was a big(ish) issue for him. I’m currently doing good diet/exercise routine and am slowly loosing the extra pounds, but I really don’t know how much it will help. He says he finds other women attractive and would probably have sex with them if he was single, so obviously the issue is with us/me or our relationship. He also says that he loves me a lot and is faithful, but we don’t have fun anymore and that I always complain and want to have serious talks, and he’s tired of it. Overall it’s a good relationship, with some ups and downs, but we’re honest with each other and love each other very much. I would really appreciate some advice since I’m losing hope that it will ever change.

It feels good to feel attractive, sexy, rich, powerful, or whatever, but those feelings, or any feelings, don’t make a good foundation for building your self-esteem or your partnership. And they’re quicksand to a healthy marriage.

After all, you won’t always be attractive or sexy (age, weight gain/loss, a rare case of leprosy), and you may lose your riches or power (poor economy, joblessness, making “bunga bunga” with a teenager like a certain political Italian).

At that point, if you believe what your feelings tell you, you’ll be a loser, and your marriage will be worthless. It’s better to stop that kind of thinking right away and, above all, not to talk like that to your husband.

In addition, you’re talking as if he’s responsible for failing as a husband, even though it’s unlikely that he has any control over the disappointing sexual chemistry between you. You’ve made excellent attempts to get help together and they haven’t worked. As George Clinton would say, you can’t force the funk.

If the bad news is that your soured chemistry can’t be altered, the good news is that he’s not to blame. When you talk like it is his fault and insist that he could do better if he tried harder in therapy, or that you can’t have fun together without sex, or that he’s a pig for hating your new curves, you’ve turned an uncontrollable misfire of sexual chemistry into a personal failure of love and friendship.

So instead of assigning him blame, acknowledge his strengths and achievements. He has stuck with you despite a lack of lust, a corresponding excess of talk, and his urge to wander. You continue to enjoy living with him in spite of the sexual famine, and you’ve survived the stress, shame and humiliation of your sex coma.

Most importantly, you have what good marriages need, which is a lot of positive personal chemistry and devotion. You have more to be proud of than do horny, happy people who assume their hot sex life makes them “successful” (viva Berlusconi!) rather than simply lucky.

If you acknowledge your husband’s strength, as well as the uncontrollable nature of his sex drive, you may find him more willing to explore ways of coping with the problem, perhaps by giving you pleasure in bed even if he’s not aroused, or seeing an endocrinologist to check out his hormone levels.

Yes, it’s embarrassing for him and it’s too bad you’re not getting any, and hey, you might even want to call the whole thing off. If you do, however, it’s because a neurologic reflex failed, not him; it’s chemical, not personal. Even if you do lose your marriage, neither one of you is a loser doomed to a life of funklessness.

STATEMENT:
“It’s sad and frustrating that my husband’s sex drive has faded with the familiarity of marriage, but it sure hasn’t been for lack of trying, for either one of us. Now I have to accept the fact that things aren’t likely to change, and decide whether the good parts of our partnership outweigh the loss of sexual pleasure. No matter what happened to our sexual chemistry, however, we haven’t failed as people or partners.”

I want nothing more than to bring a little peace to my family, but often it seems impossible. My daughter is a genius at messing up and then apologizing for nothing, and my husband believes he has to drum her misdeeds into her head to make sure she’ll never do them again. He wants me to support his criticism, and she wants me to defend her from being picked on, and neither will stop bickering once they get started. My goal is to impose some peace and quiet.

The problem with an excessive need for peace, as Neville Chamberlain found out, is that it can make you excessively compliant with the biggest, loudest, most belligerent asshole in the room.

If they want your attention and support, you won’t get peace; instead, they’ll compete to see who can make you feel more guilt or fear until you finally feel their pain (instead of the other guy’s) and do what they want.

If you look rattled or upset, they know they’re on the right track. Remember, a good war needs an anguished bystander as much as it needs angry opponents.

Instead of expressing your anguish about their conflict, work out a procedure for providing them with a fair response. It should include listening to the substance of the complaint, deciding whether it requires action and/or sympathy on your part, and then refusing to participate in further argument.

You need to believe you’ve done what you can and that you have no additional responsibility for their pain and conflict, other than not to make it worse by joining in. In most cases, the only action you’ll need to take is to acknowledge that they’re being bothered, and that they’re right to feel bothered, but there’s nothing you can do other than tell them to let it go.

Nobody wants to hear that, and they’ll probably give you a momentary earful, but it will be short and sweet, (and cut off by closing the door behind you), compared to the escalating battle that your usual placating inspires.

Trying to smooth out everyone’s feelings just encourages more feelings, which leads to more conflict. Life is unfair, you don’t have the power to fix it, and unless you’re married to, or are a parent to, Hitler, feel free to sit this one out.

STATEMENT:
“I hate hearing my husband and daughter argue, and I don’t like judging their complaints, but I’m prepared to give them a hearing if necessary and decide if anything needs to be done because it allows me to withdraw from further discussion with a clear conscience, after giving them the best advice I can.”

Please Note: In responding to suicidal goals, as in the case below, we do not presume to offer emotional support. If you’re at risk of hurting yourself, you should, of course, go to an emergency room, discuss your state of mind with a professional, and decide how much support you need in order to remain safe. In most of the cases we encounter, however, our correspondents are not simply suicidal; they are familiar with treatment and have come to believe that it won’t help. Often, we must agree that their feelings are unlikely to change in the near future. What we try to demonstrate, however, is that negative feelings create falsely negative and hopeless beliefs and that there are ways to recover your strength and perspective, even when the pain won’t let up.

I’m considering suicide. My life is a joke. I am in my late 30s and female and I have never had a relationship with a man. Several men have used me for sex and at least 2 of them begged me not to tell any of their friends they’d had sex with me. I’ve never been loved, been held, been listened to, been cherished. I’ve just been used like a toilet. On the outside I’m pretty. I can hold a conversation and I have a reasonable number of friends. But I hate myself and I don’t feel good enough. I was abandoned by both parents and I was raped for the first time when I was about 2-years-old. It’s like men I meet can smell the self-hate on me and they treat me accordingly. I do not have even one person in my life who cares about me or who I could trust. My friends are there to go for drinks or dinner with me if they can find nothing better to do but they are not there to be supportive ever, in any way. What is the point of me continuing to live?

It’s horrible to feel that you don’t belong to the human race, except for your ability to satisfy the needs and cravings of jerks.

Remember, however, that those feelings almost always beget more falsely negative beliefs, particularly about relationships. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you feel infinitely rejectable, comfortable in the company of jerks, and anxious around people you respect, since you know they will reject you for your anxiety and fundamental worthlessness.

You distrust other people, but it’s your feelings and instincts that are far more suspect. In turn, you can’t trust your feelings to guide you in relationships (even more so than the rest of us).

If you do, you will seek out jerks and excoriate yourself after real or imagined rejection, and of course, life will appear meaningless and full of relationships that always end badly. Being needy strips away the friendship filters that would otherwise keep jerks away and it makes non-jerks look like jerks or, even worse, like people whose rejection would be devastating.

For instance, after starting to trust a potential friend, you might be so hurt after noticing that she was slow to answer your calls, even if that dearth of calls was due to a busy work week or broken phone, that you would feel you could never trust her again and would feel like hurting yourself. It’s hard to make real friends when your own sensitivity is such an enemy.

Don’t give up, because there are other ways to build a more rational, positive set of beliefs that can protect you from dark feelings, even if they can’t ease the pain. They don’t require you to risk a relationship; all you need do is assess your own response to the hardships of your life, using reasonable criteria for judging your effort and the difficulty of your accomplishment.

If, while bearing the scars of neglect and abuse, you’ve picked up skills, earned a living, and treated people decently, you’ve accomplished something you have good reason to admire. Forget whether anyone else knows, understands, or respects what you’ve done. Then forget the fact that you continue to hurt like hell, (when you’re not feeling numb). You know what you know, and it’s your opinion that matters most.

If only therapy could help you make better choices and avoid negative distortions, or at least give you a sense of being respected and valued; but it often doesn’t work that way. Instead, relationships with therapists often fall victim to the same false beliefs that ruin potential friendships.

Because of your age, I’m assuming you’ve tried therapy and it hasn’t worked. You aren’t alone in having that experience, but it is possible to see beyond it. Don’t be surprised if a relationship- or emotion-focused therapy or support group hasn’t helped. Don’t give up hope, because there are other approaches that can help you grow stronger.

DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy) is a kind of cognitive-behavior therapy that can help you maintain your perspective and fight negative thoughts and actions. It’s taught as a course, and discourages participants from sharing strong feelings or engaging in intense relationships. As such, it doesn’t offer relief from loneliness, but it does provide ideas and mental exercises to root your self-worth in your own values and actions and thus protect your beliefs from distortions caused by fear, sensitivity, and loneliness.

When emptiness consumes you, it’s almost impossible not to feel like a disposable loser. If, however, you can make an honest assessment of your accomplishments, and acknowledge that there has also been triumph and survival despite tragedy, you will get stronger and find reasons to live and respect yourself.

If you review the things that you’ve done without the approval or involvement of others, jerks and not, you’ll see that you’re not just a member of the human race, but an exceptional one.

STATEMENT:
“I’ve never found a friend and often feel that life has no meaning; but abuse left me determined to be independent, treat people with respect, and be a good person, and I value what I’ve accomplished, regardless of self-hate or loneliness. I will build self-respect on my own actions, and hope that someday I will have the strength and luck to find a friend.”

My mother only has one sibling, but I’ve never met my uncle because he’s had severe agoraphobia for the past 30 years. My mother says that it started right before he graduated high school (he stopped talking to his friends, stayed in his room more, washed his hands compulsively, etc.), and it’s been going on since then. The only person he regularly communicates with is my grandmother, who also supports him, and while he sometimes talks to my mother, he doesn’t let her see him, and, like I said, I’ve never met him because if I’m in the house he won’t talk to anyone or leave his room (this is how he treats anyone who isn’t my mother or grandmother). My mother says that my uncle’s too macho to admit he has a problem, and “too Italian” to ever leave his mother’s house. I guess my problem is that my grandmother isn’t in the best health, and I know that nobody else in the family has the resources to take care of my uncle when she’s gone. Plus, I mean, he’s sick, so my goal is to get my uncle some help.

If almost every chronic illness is a test of character, agoraphobia is one of the most challenging. The fear goes far beyond anything you’ve experienced; think of it as a migraine headache where, instead of pain, you’re flooded with fear and the only relief is to hide out.

Yes, there are treatments that can dull the fear and help people recover their lives, but they take effort, they’re not a cure, and, somewhere along the line, they require people to leave their caves and endure some additional anxiety. It’s no wonder many people with severe agoraphobia will accept tranquilizers or use alcohol, but will not stick with any other kind of treatment, particularly if they have to leave home to get it.

So don’t blame your grandma or your uncle or put responsibility on anyone, including yourself, to get help. That bird has flown, leaving much pain and helplessness behind. Respect your grandma for carrying an extra load and your mother for bearing the sorrow of losing her brother.

Now that you’ve given up on helping your uncle directly, however, consider an alternative. Ask yourself whether he would accept behavioral treatment if he had no place to stay. Consult with experts and find out what would be available to him if he were flushed out of his hideout.

Obviously, eviction would make him more anxious in the short run, and might make your grandmother and mother guilty and anxious as well. If you believe there’s a positive alternative, however, encourage them to consider offering it to him. Urge them to trust their idea of what would benefit him in the long run and to ignore their gut response to seeing him in pain.

If they’re ready to push him out, good for him. If not, your mother will encounter this option further down the line, after your grandmother dies and the family can no longer afford to keep her house/his prison.

You’re right to fear for your uncle’s health and your family’s future, but as long as fear imprisons your uncle, you are all, to some degree, stuck.

STATEMENT:
“I’m sorry my uncle has a painful mental illness and I don’t want to add to his pain, but his current dependence on the family can’t last forever and he might do more for himself if he had less support and more encouragement to man up and get treatment. There are 2 generations ahead of me with responsibility for his care; but if, after learning more, I think they’re overprotecting him, I’ll let them know I respect them for caring for him, I’m concerned about what will become of him when grandma is dead, and I have a plan that might allow him to get stronger, regardless of his fears or urges to disappear.”

PLEASE NOTE: We will have a new post on Monday, 12/27, but we’re taking a week off after that for family’ing. If you have angst, holiday related or no, that you need to share, speak now or wait until 2011.

Every now and then my husband, who is a sweet soul and mostly very smart, does something so mind-bogglingly stupid that it puts the whole family in danger. The latest incident happened when he was hanging out at a bar after work and, deeply (into drinking and) moved by the hard luck story of the guy on the stool next to him, he offered, without asking me, to guarantee the guy’s car loan. The next thing we knew, the bank was after our savings because his ex-best-bar-buddy had stopped paying the loan and the car was nowhere to be found. I admit it, I did a lot of screaming and feel like I was a saint for not killing him, but the real goal here is, how do I prevent him from doing it again.

You’re asking a mental health clinician to help you understand and/or change your husband’s behavior. Instead, you should be talking to a lawyer.

You want to stop him from doing it again, but what you really need is to protect yourself from the sure-to-happen next time his impulsive, besotted generosity imperils the family treasury.

You probably expect me, as a mental health clinician, to support the humanistic, liberal, uplifting belief that therapy can help people can change. Sadly, you don’t need a professional of any kind to tell you what you already know: that therapy doesn’t have that kind of power, people don’t change, and that the best you can hope for, from therapy or your own wifely intervention, is a chance at better self-management for those who really, really want it.

So if you told me your husband recognized that he had a weakness for either drinking or foolish generosity or both, acknowledged that he was probably going to do it again, and was humbly working to get a better handle on himself, I’d share in your hopefulness (even if I wouldn’t lend you money).

What I assume from your silence on this issue, however, is that your husband was full of shame and remorse, apologized profusely, and swore it would never happen again…just as he did after the last time something like this happened. He’s sorry, until the next time he turns into the drunken fairy godfather, and the collection agency is back at your door. The circle of your life continues.

Instead of feeding the circle further with your anger, accept his weakness as a fact of life, and if you don’t (yet) want divorce, find a lawyer to help protect your finances. Tell your husband that, anger aside, you know he’ll do it again unless he ‘fesses up to his weakness and works on it, preferably in frequent 12 step meetings lasting until he no longer knows how to sign a check or find a bar.

Forget about changing your husband; work on building your independence and an emotional distance that can protect you from murdering him. Be nice if he works on his problem; otherwise, go about your business, but keep that lawyer on speed dial.

STATEMENT:
“My husband’s weakness for giving, particularly drunken giving, scares me and means I can never trust him. Attacking him or trying to get him to change is a waste of time. I must bear my fear and disappointment while I separate our finances, prepare to manage on my own, and use emotional distance or praise to encourage him to improve his self-control.”

I knew my ex-girlfriend was a little crazy—that’s why we broke up—but I had no idea she was going to try to get pregnant afterward, because who does something like that? She begged me for one more dinner together as friends, which led to one last night stand, or so I thought. Now, fast forward 6 months, I’ve got a not-crazy new girlfriend I’m really serious about, and I get a call from my ex telling me I’m going to be a father and I don’t have to marry her but she’ll expect child support. My current girlfriend thinks I’m either an idiot or a liar (and she might be right about the first part). My goal is to win back my girlfriend’s respect and not be such an idiot.

The first question you must ask yourself when you do something stupid (see case above) is, am I ignorant or am I incurably, repeatedly stupid.

Most people past a certain age are the latter, and the sooner they accept that fact, the sooner they can empower their friends and family to lock them up when they inevitably show signs of doing the same thing all over again.

Let’s say it and get it out of the way: in a bloodless coup, your body’s leadership was taken over by your penis—the original benevolent Dicktator–and always will (until it runs out of steam or gets soft-armed by a serotonin-boosting antidepressant, at which point your IQ goes up at least 10 points).

If you swear to your now-girlfriend that you’re totally devoted and have learned your lesson and will never, ever be stupid again, she should run the other way; total devotion, either to her or your romantic feelings, is another way of saying that you’re not interested in rational thought about consequences, and are just as vulnerable to sentimental manipulation as ever.

Instead, own up to the power of your true, supreme leader/wiener. Discard false pride, look for the warning signs of your next lapse, and know what you’re going to do when they appear, which they surely will. Look around for your local chapter of Dickheads Anonymous and tell Bill to say hi to Hillary from me.

Tell your girlfriend you know you’re an idiot dickhead, but you’re really, really trying to keep it under control. If you think it will help, explain that it’s not that you’re a sex addict (at least, you don’t seem to be), just stupidly sentimental. Make it clear that you hate being a dickhead because you hate being a dickhead, not because you want to please her.

As for your ex-, don’t talk to her until you’ve talked to your lawyer (see above, again), come to terms with the inevitable, and decided whether you want to have anything to do with your we’ll-always-trust-one-another love child.

Then send her a closely edited, unemotional letter (anything you say will be held against you) telling her, in nice terms, what you propose to do. Remember to keep a copy of that letter and frame it; let this shrine to your stupidity encourage you the next time the Dicktator tries to call the shots.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t believe how badly I’ve hurt myself by being stupid, but I can’t undo what’s happened or change the Stupid Center in my brain. What I can do, however, is learn about my weakness for sentimental proposals and develop new habits for thinking, waiting, and seeking advice before I and my little man do things that can’t be taken back.”

I love my work, my kids, and my wife, but I have bipolar mood swings (and I’ve taken medication for years) that lead me to do things that get me into trouble. Recently, in spite of the medication, I felt a surge of energy and started to stay up late, sneak into my studio and paint. I’ve also started to drink again. I don’t want to change meds or let people know what’s happening because I want to keep my options open. I love the highs and the freedom, and I hate being told what to do, but I’ve got a demanding day job that doesn’t involve painting, and a wife who doesn’t like it, to say the least, when I’m not honest. So my goal is to get myself under control before people catch on to what’s really happening.

There are few fathers and husbands who can’t identify with the goal of wanting to feel special, have time to themselves, and avoid humiliating comments about eating, drinking, toileting or sleeping habits from their next of kin.

The fraction of these fathers who are dealing with mental illness and addiction to alcohol don’t want to be asked if they’ve been taking their medication or started drinking.

So, if your goal is to avoid immediate disrespect and hang on to your secret Van Gogh identity a little longer, then keep doing just what you’re doing.

On the other hand, if you want to avoid the long term chaos of going nuts, listening while your doctors try to find a mental hospital that also does alcohol detoxification and having your wife tell you that you’re not welcome home until you straighten out and maybe not then either…then you’ve got to give up on secrecy and come out of the out-of-control closet.

That’s because it takes a powerful part of your personality to make a good guy risk his health and marriage for the joy of a very, very good but relatively brief mood and paintings that will never reach Sotheby’s. It takes a demon.

Lots of people have demons—they pay my bills—and it’s a waste of time to figure him out instead of looking for ways to manage him better, all of which require you to face and ‘fess up to your (or should I say his) possession.

Sorry, but it’s almost impossible to gain control of a demon without acknowledging that he’s A, there, and B, can’t be extirpated or exorcised (except through lobotomy). That’s because he gains strength from being hidden.

So tell your wife and trusted friends about your problem, share your story with similarly possessed people, discard false shame, and do your best to keep the demon under control.

In recovery, they say you’re only as sick as your secrets; admit your secrets, and you can keep your demon at bay.

STATEMENT:
Here’s what you need to say to yourself (and others). “I’m living a good life, but it isn’t easy. My priorities are to make a living and raise a family, but there’s a part of me that wants to drink and paint and stay up late and enjoy the bipolar highs, and sometimes that part takes control, particularly when I think I’ve beaten him for good. Making my problem public is the best way to strengthen my self-control. I respect my willingness to humiliate myself for a good cause.”

My girlfriend and I keep breaking up without ever really getting together. She’s obviously interested in me, or she wouldn’t keep calling, and I can sense her sincerity. We have a good time together when we get a chance to go out. Whenever we’re at the stage of taking things to a new level, however, like we’ve been talking every day for a couple weeks, she’ll suddenly drop out of contact for a few days and then act like nothing’s happened and I shouldn’t expect her to be that available. A couple times when she dropped out, it was because she couldn’t decide whether to get back together with an old boyfriend. That’s no longer the issue, so I thought we were clear to go, but we can’t seem to take off. I’d like to know if I’m doing something wrong or if there’s a way she could get help.

Don’t trust your feelings to tell you whether someone is really interested. Feelings are easily fooled and love is blind; watch her feet and see what they have to say.

This girl’s feet are doing the cha-cha-cha, one step forward, one back, quick shuffle, one more back, one forward, another shuffle, and repeat. She likes to dance with you, but that doesn’t mean she’ll ever move forward or make you her number one partner.

If you trust your feelings, then you must ask yourself what you’re doing wrong, which keeps you stuck with her and introduces you to doubt, depression, and me. It costs you time and money to stay at the mindfuck disco.

Ask yourself what you’re dancing for. It’s not because you need to dance (though you do), but because you’re looking for a partner, which requires you to know what you’re looking for and keep your feelings out of it until you’re sure you’ve got a likely candidate.

One of the requirements—I know, it’s amazing that I can read your mind, but remember, I went to Harvard—is that someone has a good track record with relationships. No one who does the cha-cha-cha need apply, ever.

Don’t tell me that’s easier said than done. First, I’ll tell you it’s harder if you don’t do it, so you don’t have a choice. Second, given today’s theme, I’ll tell you you’re possessed by a demon who loves attention and wants to dance and you have a hard time keeping him in check.

Your goal is to make a solid, independent choice, regardless of your short-term needs. Cowboy up, be a grown-up and give yourself the benefit of solid, caring protection and a nice, sturdy, one-on-one waltz.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement, in case your demon (or sometime dance partner) asks why you can’t, at least, enjoy a nice, friendly talk. “I don’t think our chemistry is right for what I’m looking for, though we certainly have a good connection. Spending time with one another right now doesn’t take either one of us in the right direction.”

I love how open-hearted and caring my girlfriend is, but I wish she’d be a little bit more selective with who she cares for. Specifically, she’s still in close contact with her ex-boyfriend, his friends, and even his family. I know she’s not interested in him anymore—he has a wife—but they have a large enough presence in her life that I’m jealous, just, well, creeped out. For example, this past winter we had to go to her ex’s parents’ anniversary dinner, which was limited to close family and us. What were we doing there besides feeling awkward (or really, was that just me)? I love this woman and want to marry her, but I don’t want to inherit her ex and his clan as in-laws. My goal is to get her to put up some fences in her personal life.

Remember Dr. Lastname’s first theory of relationships: your partner is who s/he is, and you are who you are. Then add up the pros and cons of partnership while not letting false hopes elbow reality aside.

Plug your situation into that model, and you get your goal. Don’t try to get your socially over-connected girlfriend to put up fences. Instead, figure out whether her style is likely to work for you.

Social butterflies are often very interesting people. Friendship is their art, and it can be fun being married to one. You meet lots of people who would otherwise have never entered your life, get lots of interesting invitations, and actually expand your circle of friends.

Decide from the beginning, however, whether you like most of the people and social adventures that she connects with, or not. Of course, you also need to know whether your girlfriend keeps her priorities, and boyfriends, straight.

Unless you’re Virginia Woolf’s remarkably tolerant husband, Leonard, you don’t want her sleeping around. So check out her track record for commitment, availability, financial responsibility, and the rest of the basic partnership job description.

Also, check out your own track record for sharing your significant other with the world. Regardless of how fascinating she is and how easy-going you’d like to be, you may not be good at sharing. Don’t fall for her and then try to change her, especially since she’s going to be spending her time trying to change you.

Don’t be distracted by the social thing, love, jealousy, or any of that feelings slurry. If her references don’t check out with your basic job description for a partner, drop her or you’ll be sorry. This isn’t emotional, this is math. Even if the facts are crunched in your favor, be prepared to share, or move on.

STATEMENT:
Assuming that she meets your partnership criteria and that you like most of her friends and exes, and their exes, etc, here’s a statement to help you address your joint social priorities. “I need to know that you’re committed to our spending time alone and with my (much smaller) social and family circle, and that parenting comes first, if we decide to have kids. I retain the right to opt out of some social events. Otherwise, I enjoy your style and look forward to sharing in your rich social life.”

I love my wife, and I have since we met in college. She’s also been very devoted to me, supporting my fledgling career as an artist and even taking a part-time job as my manager (on top of her full-time job, which supports us both). The problem is that, as much as I love her and as much as I’ve tried to ignore my feelings for other men, I’m pretty sure I’m actually gay. To admit that I’m gay would mean divorcing her, which would not only break her heart when all she’s ever done is sacrifice everything for me, but throw every aspect of my life, personally and professionally, into chaos. I don’t want to hurt her or lose her, and, well, I don’t want to go on welfare. My goal is to be true to both of us.

When you identify as gay, it’s not clear whether you mean the identity, or the actual sex act. “I’ve got to be myself” means, yes, you’ve got to be who you are, but no, you don’t have to have sex, unless you want to.

In other words, if having sex is not more important to you than holding onto a relationship that is otherwise meaningful and important, you don’t have to do it. It’s really that simple. You can be gay, and proud, and also proud of not having sex except when you want to, and not hurting someone you care about.

Now that you know you can control your sexual urges, you’re ready to be a priest, or a not-so-young husband (or wife) whose partner can’t respond. It’s part of being a grown-up. One of the extremely un-fun parts, but a part nonetheless.

If you stick with your wife because she’s a good provider, supporter, and business manager, your relationship sounds somewhat one-way, and that’s not good for either one of you.

You need to love as well as be loved, and know that you can love. Otherwise, your secret identify will not be that you’re gay, but that you’re a user. There’s a reason users don’t get pride parades.

On the other hand, if your wife and you are good friends and have built a life together with shared family and invested energy that would be destroyed by breaking up, then you’ve got to ask yourself whether gay love, sex, lifestyle, etc., are worth more.

Putting sex aside, ask yourself how much of you you’re hiding by hiding this part of your identity from your wife. Most coupled people need to self-edit—not hide, just edit—even with their closest relationships (particularly with their closest relationships).

You don’t want to push your partner to hear and respond to what they don’t really want to deal with. On the other hand, if being gay is part of your everyday thoughts, feelings, and humor, then hiding it makes your relationship false, and does a disservice to her as well as keeping you from being who you really are.

In which case, you need to share your secret identity (without, hopefully, the complications of sexual infidelity) and see whether she can accept you while you try to figure out whether the new relationship will work.

You’ll be gay in theory, just not in practice, which’ll have to be enough if you also want to stay married.

STATEMENT:
If you happen to choose this option, here’s a statement. “I think I’m gay and need to be more open about that side of my personality. No, I don’t think I need to have gay sex or a gay lover, at least not yet. What I do need is to be more open about my real thoughts and feelings. I don’t fault myself for not having told you earlier, because I didn’t know myself. Meanwhile, if you’re willing, I’d like us to continue as partners and see if this can work.”

Last fall, I started hooking up with a girl who’s been a friend of mine since freshman year. It wasn’t anything serious, just your average friends with benefits deal, and neither one of us ever talked about her being my girlfriend or anything “real.” What I never knew before though is that this girl gets really depressed, and when she got really sick this winter, I was there for her because that’s what I’d do for any friend, whether we’re hooking up or not. She’s better now, but I’m kind of confused as to what’s happening between us. Sometimes I think I want to be her boyfriend, but I’m not sure I’m really that into her, and I don’t think she wants that from me, and at this point everything’s just really awkward and weird. I just want to know where we stand, or what I should do.

People often choose to be “friends with benefits” (FWB) because it seems easier than committing to a relationship, but don’t be so sure.

Having a FWB is like playing a fretless guitar that seems to offer musical freedom, but is actually more likely to produce noise unless you really know what you’re doing. In other words, don’t attempt a FWB situation unless you’ve learned what the rules are and can stick with them. It’s not for those who haven’t mastered their instrument.

You need that toughness and discipline so you don’t cross the line between friend and more-than-friend, which means being direct about your intentions (honorably limited) and vigilant about the many ways your actions can unwittingly contradict your words (by calling or sharing or sighing or talking too much).

Regardless of the actual ups and downs of how you feel, your words and actions should convey an unambiguous, consistent message. Otherwise, love or neediness may escape and create a situation you and/or your partner are not ready for.

Toughness is also necessary to determine whether your prospective sex-buddy has what it takes to stay within agreed-upon boundaries. Some agreeable friends really want something more and will be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.

This may sound like some pretty rigid guidelines for what should be a care-free relationship—I ordered the sex, hold the commitment!—but at least when you’re a boyfriend or girlfriend, you know where you stand thanks to some fairly universal relationship guidelines. Being a FWB is living a gray zone unless you draw your own line in the sand.

In your situation, charity made you cross that line and become your FWB’s depression counselor. Good for you as a friend, bad for you as a recipient of benefits, because now, no one knows what to expect.

If you did it because you really, really liked her, then you would want to upgrade, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Don’t over think your feelings about her, because when most people are interested in someone romantically, they know pretty fast.

If one of you not being single is what kept you apart when you first met, getting together now makes sense, but if the spark just wasn’t there, then that’s why you aren’t together. As such, the reason you hooked up has more to do with loneliness than a unique connection, and might be worth leaving at that.

If you decide that you truly do want to go for a love upgrade, be sure your erstwhile non-exactly-lover is a solid person who would make a good partner, and that the benefit of a successful upgrade outweighs the loss of what you’ve already got. After all, once you jump from friends to boy/girlfriends, downgrading back to friends can be tricky, if not impossible.

Check out whether he/she is steady in other relationships and not too needy, sensitive, or vulnerable to runaway feelings. Remember, Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction” promised an attachment-free fuck and was probably sincere (in her own nutty way).

It’s your responsibility to make sure things are what they seem. Then figure out whether you want to make beautiful music together, or whether you’re just not ready to jam.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a Mission Statement to share with your friend. “I think we’re good at being friends, with or without benefits, but I know I’m not ready to go further because I don’t think the chemistry is quite right. I hope our friendship helped you during the winter when you were depressed. It left me feeling good about our friendship and with the same overall impression that that’s what our relationship is meant to be.”

Like a lot of single women in their 30s, I’ve gotten into internet dating, but I’m not very good at it, because I really don’t want to be mean to anyone, and I don’t think it’s fair to make up your mind about someone when you don’t really know them. I mean, sure, I have a physical type, but what I’m talking about is that I don’t want to brush off some poor guy after one cup of coffee just because he’s not my dream guy right off the bat, know what I mean? And I don’t think you can really learn that much about somebody based on a few emails, so basically I end up going on a bunch of dates that often aren’t that much fun or, if they are, I don’t get a call-back and wind up ruminating for a week about what went wrong. My goal is to figure out how to make online dating work.

Online dating doesn’t work unless you’re tough and disciplined (see case above). That’s because getting attached to someone who can’t return your feelings will wear you out and make you feel like an unattractive loser. It’s the way we’re wired (pardon the pun).

If your priority is to make everyone feel valued, send them some of Oprah’s favorite things. If you want to take advantage of the wide reach of online dating, which will expose you to large amounts of raw suiterage and toxic jerks, learn how to become an efficient and effective screener.

First, decide for yourself whether it’s moral to reject people, especially if it seems to cause them pain. In my opinion, it’s immoral not to reject people (assuming you do it politely and respectfully). Better to be tactfully honest than grudgingly lie.

If you don’t just rip off the Band-Aid, you’re leading them on and assuming responsibility for their feelings, making yourself vulnerable to manipulation and guilt, and/or promising what you can’t really deliver.

Sure, you may feel guilty if someone looks pained by your decision not to continue contact, but that’s just a passing feeling. Know the difference between guilty feelings and real guilt and learn how to ignore the former.

Of course, if you’re too sensitive to pain, either theirs or yours, you’re not ready to go hunting in love’s wild e-yonder, because hunting usually requires a willingness to tolerate pain. Your goal isn’t to avoid pain (or cause pain), but to minimize it, learn from it, and not let it interfere with an effective search.

If you’ve decided it’s OK not to run a ministry for the horny and needy and that guilty feelings can be ignored, then you’re ready to learn the principles of wide-reach screening and discover that you probably know them already.

Begin by listing the 5 or 6 criteria for excluding candidates, regardless of attractiveness. They include drug-use, poor money management, unreliability, a history of backing away from reasonable relationships, an inability to say no to horrible relatives, and a lack of interest in the kind of future that you want.

Then, while you’re chatting and searching for interpersonal chemistry, keep your list in mind and say good-bye whenever a red flag pops up. Time is short, screening is tiring, and the hunt is on.

STATEMENT:
Use your criteria to prepare a statement. “I’m interested in a reliable, hard-working, loyal grownup who can manage his/her money responsibly and is looking for a committed partner to share (name your future). I’m not in need of friendship or sex and I don’t have much time to chat, but I’ll get back to you if you’re interested and seem to be a possible match. ”

I’m what we in the gay community call a bear (burly and bearded). My ideal physical type, however, is the exact opposite, twinks (young, skinny man-boys), which I know isn’t exactly rare for anyone, gay or straight. My boyfriend, on the other hand, looks way more like me than my physical ideal; instead of looking lean and barely legal, he just looks like a suburban dad. Either way, I fell for him and what we have is really great, but I still feel guilty when I find myself checking out younger/leaner guys, which basically happens whenever I leave the house. I love my boyfriend, but I can’t stop my infatuation with other bodies. My goal is to get twinks out of my head before I do something stupid, like not keeping it in my pants.

Trying to change your sex fantasies is like trying not to be gay; it won’t work, you’ll think you’re out of control, and then you’ll act out of control.

Not only is trying to change your fantasies dangerous, but trying to satisfy them usually makes it impossible to have a stable relationship. Sad news, but at least Bill Clinton feels your pain.

The fact that we have persistent, driving sexual urges of any kind is necessary for the preservation of the species, but it usually causes more unhappiness than joy. Yes, there are couples who are very hot for one another and are also long-term, stable friends, but it’s rare (and often fictional). For most of us, life gets in the way, even if the relationship starts out with lots of hot sex.

“Life” includes aging, stress, diabetes, balding, kids, and the powerful odds that, with time, something or other will bump your sex drive or your partner’s into something less than compatibility. It’s what you do with incompatibility, rather than the presence of sexual compatibility, that’s the measure of a good relationship.

If you have imagination and ambition, you’ll have lots of yearnings that you can’t satisfy except by doing things that are bad for you. If you are indeed a wise man who is ready to withstand the pain of unsatisfiable urges, then don’t worry; even as those urges get worse, you’ll be prepared.

You’ve obviously learned from experience that a good partnership/friendship is hard to find, and that making the right body type your first priority is stupid and makes it all but impossible to find the right person. Otherwise, you would want some twinkerbell to be your one true lust.

So, for the sake of your long term goals and making the best of what you’ve got, celebrate your ability to tolerate frustration; grin and bear it, as it were. At least don’t shit in the woods.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I wasn’t twink-obsessed, but I know what’s good for me, and I’m proud of looking for and staying with the right person, particularly since I had to screen out some strong urges. I’m not ashamed of them. They are what they are. I’m proud that I can tolerate frustrating them for the sake of something more important than raw sexual pleasure.”

My West Virginian grandmother used to tell me that I was built like a horse on its hind legs, which is to say, I am a white girl with an African booty. I clearly have a sense of humor about it—I led the charge with J. Lo jokes back in the day—but I’m always worried when I meet guys that they’re after me for the fetish, not my personality, because believe me, I’ve been burned enough times by men who couldn’t see beyond my butt to the personal attached to it. I have girlfriends who are Asian who have the same problem, but none of us know what to do to avoid jerks. My goal is to find out if a guy actually likes me, instead of just what’s behind me.

If you’re attractive, you get dates, but then you’ve got to be a rough, tough screener of stallion-flesh, or you’ll wind up heart-burned by spending too much time with guys who fail to connect.

If you’re sweet, passive, and overly concerned about feelings, guys with needy sex drives will chew you to pieces because sex-drives notoriously trump decency and common sense. Guys don’t want to be jerks, but the little head doesn’t care how you feel or what will happen next, and he rules supreme.

So your goal isn’t to find someone who really, really likes you for who you are. It’s to fend off the many applicants who don’t and can’t so that you’ve got room on your dance card if and when the real thing arrives.

If you’re already the horse here, then you need to become a dick whisperer. Learn to read the little head’s mind.

Don’t equate niceness with friendliness. When interviewing job applicants, don’t worry about whether they will feel rejected; your priority is to find the best qualified without worrying about whether or not they can protect themselves. Screening dates has a similar protocol.

Act professionally, and move on as quickly as possible to rule out the unqualified. Screen out those with credit card debt, drug use, a bad history of relationships and/or work, or big differences in what you want out of life. They need not apply, they don’t need a hug.

If you decide to date, don’t get distracted by cute and charming. Once you charm one another, you’ll forget your job, which is to screen. You don’t have to charm; trust your booty to take care of that problem.

If someone really checks out as a good guy (after the detectives and your little-mind reading skills have verified his story), and you think the chemistry has real potential, despite (or because of) his being butt-struck, then go slow.

Sooner or later, reality will set in and you’ll both get a chance to see if you can work together/he is truly ready for this jelly.

STATEMENT:
“It takes a tough girl to screen horny guys because the work is rough and dangerous. My goal isn’t to make others happy or generate positive chemistry. If I can keep my focus on finding out facts and making good choices, regardless of my own urges and sensitivity and the charm or guilt-trips being thrown at me, I should be proud.”