I believe in being a good friend and a great brother, and because of that, I remember everyone’s birthdays, anniversaries, etc, so it really pisses me off when no one remembers mine. I always seem to give more than I get, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask since I’m able to keep track of those things. I have no choice when it comes to family, but I wonder if I’ve been choosing the wrong friends. I like being a giver, but I don’t like being resentful and letting them know that I’m upset doesn’t seem to do any good. My goal is to find better friends.

Don’t confuse being a giving person with being a good person. Being good is supposed to be selfless, but giving is a self-serving pleasure, and that should tell you that it’s easy to overdo and/or do for the wrong reasons.

You might think I’m wrong, and insist you’re giving because you enjoy it and want to make the world a better place. If so, you best put on a bib, because you’re talking a lot of shit.

From what you’re saying, there’s a part of you that needs to get back what you’re giving, and seethes if you don’t get it back, soon. Venting your anger drives away potential friends, which makes you feel needier, which makes your giving more compulsive.

It turns into a neat vicious circle; you remember their birthdays, they forget yours, you’re so angry that you get into a fight and stop talking, which makes you feel that much more friend-hungry.

That’s a lot of birthdays to remember (and forget when you stop speaking to each other).

Instead of focusing on the feelings you get from the immediate give-and-take (or not-give) of your friendships, step back and think about what makes a friendship good. You want someone who’s reliable and has something good to offer, sooner or later, in deed more than word. You want support, not a timely Hallmark card.

If you’re needy, it’s just as easy to be suckered by friendly words from a slick type who doesn’t usually keep his friends as it is to reject an awkward verbal misfit who has the solid character and track record you’re looking for.

So stop all the giving and birthday-honoring. Stifle your fuckin’ Christmas spirit. Give in smaller amounts, wait, and see who your real friends are. They’re the ones who will give back, eventually, if you can keep your disappointment to yourself and get your standards in check.

STATEMENT:
Give yourself simple, reasonable rules for managing your expectations. “I like giving and receiving close attention, but I put a higher value on friends who are steady and reliable over the long run and don’t require, or necessarily give, constant attention. I’m willing to ignore it if they’re insensitive or forget about my birthday, even if it hurts, as long as I know that, on a deeper level, they’re good friends.”

My girlfriend has been on my ass to see a therapist about my “issues” as a new dad, but this is as close to therapy as I’m willing to get, so here goes. My girlfriend got pregnant and now we live together and have a baby. I work, she stays home with the kid, and after work, I like to go out with my friends and blow off steam before going home to face my girlfriend and baby, who are both crying and pissed. My girlfriend is mad at me for not being more responsible or accepting the fact I’m a dad now, but I didn’t ask to be a dad, and I am being responsible by taking care of my family, and I don’t think it’s asking too much to want some time to myself so I don’t lose my goddamned mind. My goal is to get my girlfriend off my ass.

There are lots of funny songs about the guilty pleasures of honky-tonking with your bar buddies while the old ball-and-chain gets set to chew you out when you get home. It stops being funny if she gives you your freedom, restricts visitation, and takes half your assets.

Whether you like it or not, you’ve got a family and you need to think about whether it’s worth keeping. You should have thought about this before you went condomless, but hey, hindsight’s 20/20 and all that.

Instead of jerking your knee in defiant reflex to a naggy woman, ask yourself what kind of father your child needs and whether meeting those needs is more important than your freedom.

Yes, you didn’t plan to start a family, it’s unfair to you, but it’s also unfair to your baby to be a jackass who values me-time over parenting.

Add up the advantages of family life; it’s whatever you’ll hate to lose if you divorce. If in doubt, ask a lawyer what you can expect to lose. Then, weigh it against what you hate about family life. Now you’re ready for a decision.

If she nags you, don’t get distracted by the idea that staying around is a form of wussiness, and going to the bar shows manly assertiveness. Don’t let your “don’t-tread-on-me” instinct decide the fate of your marriage.

If you need time with your buddies, negotiate with respect. You’ll be more effective if you stifle your manly swagger; it’s not an issue of being whipped by your wife, because you’re already fate’s bitch. Grow up, shut up, and for chrissakes, use birth control.

STATEMENT:
“Our partnership is important and I believe in doing my share; but we can both benefit from an evening out alone with friends, as well as from having time together. I’ve got a plan that will allow us to do that.”

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. ”

For years, I’ve talked to a friend of mine about my problems who’s also a counselor, and during that time, he’s urged me to seek professional help. I used to brush off that advice, mostly because this friend lives in another city and only ever really talks to me on the phone when I have problems, but in the last few months, I’ve begun to consider taking his advice. I don’t know what to say when I call to make the appointment, however, because I haven’t the faintest how to explain the unknown in my head (which is the main issue that frustrates me). I want to scream, but don’t know why or what. Do you have any advice as far as how to ask for help when I’m not sure what I’m really asking help for?

Remember, funny feelings in your head cause fear, which causes funny feelings, which cause fear, which create a spiral that will flush you down the toilet of needless worry. The first thing to do then is shut up and think about whether you need help.

If you’ve had funny feelings in your head for years, they’re not about to kill you; they’re not telling you to kill yourself or anyone else, and they’re not annoying you to death. Plus, they’re obviously not getting in the way of at least one long-term friendship.

So, taking all that into account, you have time to use your usual problem-solving methods to determine whether or not your weird head sensations are a big deal. You can try exercising and going on vacation, to see if you get better.

The big question isn’t what you say when you ask the shrink for help, but what you say after forming your own decision about why help is necessary. After all, you can’t shut up your worrying friends until you know your own mind.

There are several criteria for deciding when to seek help that apply to most situations, like if your problem gets in the way of making a living or being a good guy, or if your problem causes too much pain.

Assume, of course, that you haven’t been able to solve the problem without help, and throw in one special-knowledge exception: get help if the problem might be a sign of an illness that you might cure and/or prevent if you had expert advice. Then come to your own conclusion about whether you need help and then stand by it.

If you don’t need help, don’t bother to tell your friend to shut up. Let him/her know, if you need to talk about the problem, that you’re satisfied with your own way of managing it, and he’ll probably shut up on his/her own.

On the other hand, if you decide you do need help, shut up about your helplessness. Tell your doctor what the matter is and why you think it’s necessary to talk about it. Then the advice you get will be more focused and less patronizing, so you’ll actualy want to shut and listen to it.

STATEMENT:
“My symptoms are subjective and I don’t know anyone else who has them, but they hurt and distract me a great deal, so I want expert advice on what I can do about them that I haven’t already tried. I don’t care if the experts explain them away or tell me they’re in my head. That just means no one has an answer, and I have the answer I need (though the answer I want would include a cure). Then I know it’s not cancer, I’ve done my best, and it’s time to accept pain and move on with my life.”

After graduating from college last spring, my son moved to a new city for graduate school. The problem is that his psychiatrist, the one he credits with saving him from severe depression and turning his life around, did not make the move with him, and my son doesn’t want to talk to anyone else. The fix so far has been phone sessions, but this doctor is not covered by my son’s meager student insurance, so his father and I have been footing the bill, and that bill is staggeringly enormous. We love our son and want him to be well, but between our own expenses and the money we’re putting towards his graduate education, our goal is to get him to look for a new, local doctor without making him relapse.

Severe depression is scary and hard to control, so it’s not unusual that recovering survivors cling tightly to whatever may have made the bad symptoms go away, including anything from the lucky underwear they had on when the cloud lifted to, of course, their shrink, particularly if he or she is nice to talk to.

On the other hand, it’s also hard for parents to stress a kid who’s gone through depression, because it’s not just the kid that fears a relapse. That’s why you don’t want to tell your son and the therapist that it’s time for them to shut up.

Your goal, however, isn’t to protect him from stress or make him feel good, but to teach him how to deal with depression effectively, and superstitiously clinging to good luck charms isn’t the way to do it.

Instead, encourage him to make the most of his resources by bravely figuring out what he really needs, and what he can do without. Treat him as the agent of his recovery, the expert of his own experience, and the client who seeks useful ideas from many sources, including new therapists, all while debunking the therapeutic impact of nurturing/”special” relationships.

Yes, suggesting change will raise his fears and your own, but it’s your job to do that while offering him reasons for beating the fear and methods for managing it. Also, of course, don’t act frightened; sure, you can admit to fear and talk about fear, but not show fear, or else everyone will be so afraid as to soil their lucky underwear.

You’re there to convince him that facing fear will pay off; it’s for his own benefit in the long wrong, not just so you can make it easier to pay off your bills.

STATEMENT:
“Of course you need a doctor to help you manage depression, but our resources are needed for your education, so we can’t waste a cent. Find a doctor who is covered by your insurance. Don’t use that person for comfort and understanding unless it’s necessary; remember, we’re your friends and you have a dog and we’re all free. Ask yourself what you learned from your old doctor that helped you manage your negative thoughts and/or symptoms more effectively and look for someone who has similar ideas. Also, if you want to learn more about coping with depression, join a group of strong depression survivors. If you want to learn how to correct negative thinking, read a book and take a course. Use your doctor to get what you can’t get elsewhere. Whether we’re managing depression or diabetes, that’s how we can keep the costs of treatment under control.”

For a long time, I truly believed that my boss was my mentor, if not a father figure; he seemed to look out for me, take a special interest in my career, and generally groom me for promotion within his company. After I did well with responsibility, he’d come through with reasonable raises and he liked to tell people that he believes in promoting women. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that he does little more than flatter me now that he has me doing all the dirty jobs and he keeps all the interesting stuff for himself and two of his favorite “old boys.” He gets irritated whenever I suggest I could do more and likes to bask in the gratitude of his new favorite girl, a secretary with big tits and not much else. I’ve worked hard here over the years, and I don’t really want to find a new job, but I feel like I’ve been used and misled, and generally wasted my time under false pretenses. My goal is to get the recognition I deserve, even if it’s not from the mentor I thought I had.

Wanting recognition at work is a reasonable wish and, if it was just a problem of your learning how to speak up, dress up, and get rid of your braces, then more power to you.

Many people are familiar with the usual fairy stories, and have pushed themselves to be more assertive and reach their dreams. Not only hasn’t it worked, but it brought down crap on their heads to insure an unhappily ever after-style result.

Your sad fable teaches us three important lessons, the first being the most basic and important; life isn’t fair. In most schools or companies or families, you’ll be told that a major goal of leadership is to treat people fairly, and it is. You should also know, however, that many bosses and teachers and parents have big blind spots, particularly those who take great pride in being fair and encouraging you to speak your mind.

The second lesson is to beware of men who talk a big game about how much they support women, because, odds are, these men like to talk a big game about everything; if it’s not feminism, it’s their supreme fishing skills or their golf game. Talk, as you’ve learned, is cheap, which is exactly how he’s made you feel.

Then again, feelings don’t hold such a high premium, either, so don’t use them as an excuse to keep looking for answers.

Of course, you have a right to feel hurt, angry, and disappointed, but those feelings will cause you trouble if you express them. You thought you were knocking yourself out for someone who could unselfishly encourage your career. Now you know better.

Asking why is just another way of trying to control something you can’t, and asking twice means you don’t want to accept that fact. Life is unfair, mentor is actually a blowhard misogynist.

This brings us to the third and most valuable lesson, which is what to look for in a mentor, a major, worthwhile goal for the business school of real life. While it’s reasonable to make the most of a mentorship, remember that it has its limits, and work is just work. Don’t make it your goal to please a mentor. Instead, meet your own standards on the job, appreciate support when you get it, and remember that work is just work.

You’re trying to get ahead, but you’re also trying to build a boundary around work that protects your from taking it too personally. It’s a job, not a fairyland, and you’re not a princess that needs a mentor to save you. Be your own damn hero and slay those paychecks every week. The End.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a coaching statement to start your workday. “It’s time I relied on my own observations to readjust my expectations at work. It’s disappointing that I must disregard what others have promised me but it’s good that I have a clear vision of my own. I won’t let negative feelings interfere with the next step, which is to find the best way to make a living, given the opportunities available.”

A few years ago, a friend proposed to join me on a business venture. She had great networking skills and drive, but I had the ideas and business know-how, so she thought, and I agreed, that our chemistry would be a good fit. Well, after a couple of years into working together, things started to fall apart, because, as many ideas as I had and as good as she was at making contacts, our work styles were just too different, and we weren’t having enough success to continue. I thought she felt the same way—she seemed just as frustrated as I was—but instead, when I suggested that we down-grade our partnership, she was furious at me for what she felt was a personal betrayal. I tried to make it clear that it wasn’t personal, but she wasn’t hearing it, and it wasn’t long before she stopped talking to me entirely. What bothers me as much as the loss of our friendship is that I’m fairly certain she’s stolen a lot my ideas, taking sole credit and passing them off as her own, and I was too trusting to protect myself legally, and I fear she’s too vengeful to be reasonable. Is there any way to get her to be reasonable, or am I just screwed?

If a jilted ex-partner were just feeling mad and hurt, then trying to get them to act reasonably when they feel screwed is a do-able goal. You can expect that, after a while, they’ll remember the good times and what’s in their best interest, and civility will return. But that’s often hoping for too much since feelings, not reason, are steering the ship.

When someone feels terribly wronged, on the other hand, they’re willing to cut off their noses to spite their face because the world won’t be right again until you’re brought down. Letting them know you need anything from them does little more than tell them where you’re most vulnerable. They don’t want to negotiate, they want to destroy.

If you can pretend not to care that much about your ideas, and if you can persuade her that it’s in her interest to sign an agreement about them, then maybe she will. If you show her you would be very upset to see her steal your ideas, then you’re basically handing her a loaded gun.

If you look back, you probably had good reason to know that she’s oversensitive and vindictive. It’s understandable if you believe in ignoring the faults of friends, but that belief shouldn’t cross over to business partners.

In spite of the emotional firestorm, keep your feelings to yourself. Consult a lawyer and check out your options and how much they’ll cost. Then play your cards, if you have any.

If you don’t, you don’t, but when you’re dealing with someone who’s out for blood, it’s better to accept defeat up front than to enter into a war that will leave you absolutely destroyed in the long run.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a positive answer to the internal voice that wails “I’ve been screwed.” “I’ve gained much from this partnership and not the least is a greater appreciation of the risks of being screwed. I won’t let negative feelings get in the way of my doing more work and, if necessary, finding a better partnership.”

About 10 years into our marriage, my husband and I got inspired by a trip down the Snake River in Idaho and decided we should move there as soon as we could afford it. Something about the wilderness eased our hearts and made us feel safer and more grounded than we ever did in the city. Well, now it’s 15 years later, and we made the move to a beautiful house with a breath-taking view and no visible neighbors, and I found a way to telecommute to a job, but my husband still has to fly back and forth every couple weeks and spend at least half his time in our old city. The problem is that I can tell my husband’s not doing so well; he complains about feeling lonely when he’s on his own, and he’s restless when he’s with us, and then he blames me and claims the marriage lacks “spark,” and I can see the wheels going in his head, wondering whether he’s ever going to be happy. My goal is to get my husband to enjoy our new life as much as the rest of the family does.

The danger of any moment of happiness or inspiration is feeling responsible for making it happen again.

You got inspired by going to Idaho, so you think it’s yours to recapture whenever you want, forgetting about all the usual shit that you don’t control. So you plan for years and finally make the big move, and your husband’s “inspired” to wonder what happened to the big pay-off.

His mistake is making it his goal to be happy; be it from buying a house in a natural heaven or adopting as many cats as your house can hold, this goal will mess you up every time. Nature is just the setting; there’s too much he doesn’t control about what really counts, which is what always counts.

Remember, nature really isn’t any more meaningful than the rest of life’s shit. One day, you’ve got beautiful sunshine, steaks on the fire, and thrilling sex in a tent. The next you’ve got rain, insects, and accusations about who lost the toilet paper.

On a good day, there’s nothing like nature, but after a couple years, the kids have gone and it’s you and your husband trying to make a living, keep busy, and get along with one another, same as usual, but with a beautiful view.

Except now, you and he have the same control over these things; if anything, you have less control, because you’re aging and you don’t know whether your kids and their spouses will have the time to visit your off-the-beaten-air-routes hideaway.

So encourage your husband (and yourself) to take no unrealistic responsibility for your move-related happiness. You moved for good reason and did it well, but you knew there were many things, including his work-transition, that might ruin it for one or both of you, at least temporarily.

Remind him, and yourself, that it can never be a failure because you’ve done a good job, and that’s true whether or not it works out. Human nature, like any other kind of nature, is unreliable. And the view isn’t nearly as good.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to support good migrations regardless of their results. “I love this place and think moving here will be worth the sacrifice, but I know you’re making the bigger sacrifice by commuting. I respect the unhappiness and loneliness that you’re putting up with to try to make this experiment work. Whether it works or not, we’re doing a good job of trying.”

My wife and I are a little odd; being nerds is a big part of our connection. When she had our first son, she stopped working, and hasn’t gone back (and hasn’t needed to, because my tech job supports us quite well, and she never liked her job that much, anyway). She loves being a mother, but, without a workplace to socialize in, most of the adults she meets are our sons’ mothers, and, seeing as my wife is a nerd like me, a lot of them don’t really get her, and so I can tell she’s feeling a little isolated. Recently, though, she’s had a rough time because the group of fashionable PTA mothers who thought she was cool and befriended her decided she was too standoffish and dumped her, and now she’s feeling like a social failure. She’s really a polite and thoughtful person, and there’s nothing wrong with her social skills other than that she’s an intellectual weirdo, like me, and her erstwhile friends are like a nasty high school clique. I know that she’s lonely and easily depressed, and I don’t want her to feel so alone. My goal is to help my wife find friends and happiness outside our home.

When you’re a weirdo, as you probably know, you gotta get used to a certain amount of loneliness (which you might remember as, the years before you met your wife).

The alternative is worse: trying to fit in with people who aren’t really your friends and then feeling like a bigger loser.

It’s not a choice, it’s not a calling; if you’re weird, you’re weird, and sometimes that means you can’t be happy. Not that “normal” people are happy all the time. But sometimes, they’re happier than you are, for no particular reason, and that’s the way it is.

For the time being, she can’t be happy and you can’t make her so, and expecting otherwise will make you both feel like failures. Just feeling like a geek is so much easier. Geek comes from the Inuit word meaning “he who eats different fish and is unpopular and unhappy but does nothing wrong.”

So remind her that it’s not easy being different, or green. But you like her that way and think that her weirdness, and yours, are part of what make you good friends and parents, even if you sometimes feel isolated.

Remind her how much you respect the way you are. Recite “Monty Python” lines to each other, reread some Terry Pratchett, and find comfort in nerd pride and each other.

STATEMENT:
Write a proud statement. “I love your weird style and think it’s a big part of our being a good, solid family, but it’s not a style that everyone will like or understand, so there will always be some lonely times and rejections, just as there have been in the past, that will have nothing to do with making mistakes or saying the wrong thing. The good news is that you’ve done nothing wrong. The bad news is that there’s no mistake to correct, so this pain is unavoidable. Bummer.”

My girlfriend got mad at me on New Year’s Eve and now she tells me it’s blown over, but I can’t believe her. I’ve always had these massive how-stupid-could-you-be thoughts that I can’t get out of my mind after I say something that might be stupid, even if it isn’t really stupid, but I keep on thinking about what I said and have to tell a friend about it and then, when they re-assure me, I can’t believe them and have to ask them again until it drives them crazy, and I start to worry about how stupid I sound to them, and so on. So my big New Year’s resolution was to stop myself from being so insecure, but now it’s happening again and, even though my girlfriend is a pretty uncritical person, I can’t stop wanting to ask her for re-assurance. My goal is to be able to tell myself that I didn’t say anything stupid and have more confidence in myself and finally become the person I want to be.

Many people don’t grow out of their “I-hate-myself-for-being-so-stupid” reaction, no matter how much they accomplish, or get reassured, or seek professional help. They never find out why they’re so stupid, but they never stop asking.

The reason for their so-called immaturity is a kind of painful mental tic that hurts like hell when it happens, and can’t really be prevented or eliminated (other than by lobotomy, which is a skill I’m trying to acquire, as soon as I can find a willing test patient/Jon Gosselin returns my calls).

Telling yourself you have low self-esteem is a good way of blaming yourself, burdening yourself, and making false promise, so don’t resolve to control the self-hate spasms when you can’t. You’re turning your “stupid” tic into a personal failing rather than the impersonal, unlucky boo-boo that it is.

If you try to feel better by doing what the compulsive thoughts tells you to do—asking for reassurance—you’ll get temporary relief, followed by more self-doubt, a stronger need for reassurance, and a circle of pitying friends who learn to avoid you when you have a certain look in your eye. It’s like scratching a wound. You need to tie your hands or put a doggy cone around your neck.

So your goal isn’t to feel better or stop doubting. It’s to manage a painful mental tic by shutting up, going about your business, and preventing it from hurting you any more than is necessary.

There may be a positive side to these mental spasms; they may sometimes help you avoid trouble. They may also have helped one of your ancestors survive, thus passing on the obsessive worry genes that torture you now.

So for this New Year’s Day, don’t resolve to change problems that have no resolution; resolve to make the best of them. As resolutions go, it’s one of the few that isn’t stupid.

STATEMENT:
So compose a message to address the unreasonable expectations you or others may have about your obsessive self-doubt. “I usually don’t say or do stupid things and, if or when I do, I’m competent at seeking advice and mending fences. But there’s no way I can always say the right thing or get a positive response and, when things don’t go perfectly well, I can’t stop myself from feeling terrible. What I’m good at, however, is tolerating this painful feeling, going about my usual business, and not doing anything more stupid. So my New Year’s resolution is to keep up the good work.”

My son, now in his twenties, told me that his New Years’ resolution is to take his medication for his bi-polar disorder. I’d like to believe this is true, because I’m losing my patience with having to remind him constantly to stay on top of his meds, nag him not to drink, beg him to keep his therapy appointments, etc. On the other hand, I have no reason to believe his resolution is going to stick. My resolution is to find a way to make him grow up and become more responsible.

It would be nice if your son could end his medication avoidance, prevent bipolar relapses (which can be horribly debilitating and brain-damaging), and stabilize his mental health by resolving to take his meds but, as you sense, it’s not gonna happen. Don’t believe the resolution hype.

The probable reason is not that he’s irresponsible, but that he can’t be responsible. To speak about the problem in the more formal Harvard diagnostic terms, it’s not that he’s a fuck-up, it’s that he’s got a screw loose.

It would be nice if he was a fuck-up because then a good, sincere New Year’s vow to Thor or whomever could solve the problem. That’s the whole idea behind New Year’s resolutions: to marshal your will-power and make life better. The reason you shouldn’t be optimistic, however, is that his body is working against him.

People with bipolar illness are often swept away by feelings and impulses, like everyone else, except much, much more so. It’s not something you can change by being, or having been, a tougher or sweeter parent, and it might well defeat tons of his own good motivation and an honest desire to be more disciplined.

He’s not weak, he’s brain-damaged (like most of us). Cry yourself a river, and get set to be a better and more constructive coach. Mourn the loss of your dream of having a well-disciplined, self-starting kid, and start to imagine how to help someone who, regardless of how bright or creative he is, has a permanent weakness when it comes to remembering daily chores.

Set up incentives and reminders. Read books for self-organization, then give him the Readers’ Digest version, and reward him for trying the tricks such books describe, such as notes on the toothbrush and mirror. He’ll always have a screw loose, but as long as you’re around, you can help him figure out how to keep it in place.

STATEMENT:
Write a mission plan for yourself. “I’ve got a great son with a bad, incurable weakness which sometimes prevents him from caring for a serious illness. I do a good job of helping him manage his avoidant behavior, regardless of how well he controls that behavior. And any steps he takes in that direction are, in themselves, a great achievement.”

I just started at college, and I like my roommate, but she’s bulimic and hard to be around. Not just because she’s sick (and everybody on the floor knows about her problem, it’s hard not to), but because when she binges, it’s on my food because that’s what’s closest, and she always feels really bad about it and cries that she wishes she could stop, but then she doesn’t offer to pay for it and it’s costing me a lot of money. Part of me just feels bad for her, because she’s clearly really messed up, but another part of me is pissed because I’ve lost a lot of money this year on food that she’s eaten and thrown up, and that just makes me feel guilty like I’m a bad person for putting my lost money above her health. I want to move after the break, but I don’t want her to feel abandoned. My goal is to help her and myself.

Welcome to that other part of college, Hard Knocks University, where the class Helplessness 101—what to do when you can’t help both someone and yourself, and sometimes you can’t help at all—is a frosh requirement.

The tough part is not the decision, but accepting the shitty nature of your options. Bulimia, like any chronic condition (depression, addiction, etc.) is not completely curable, not by you or certainly the patient herself.

If you buy into the psychobabble about body image and low self-esteem, you might think you could help her by praising her strengths, noticing her attractive qualities, or getting her to think about the superficiality and limitations of attractiveness. Ha!

Whether it’s coming from you or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of Therapists, your therapeutic support is not going to change those mysterious urges to binge and puke. Buying into that notion will waste you even more time and money than all the cash you’ve already flushed away at the supermarket.

Bulimia, like all addictions, can turn people into assholes. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t choose to be assholes, but when you’re more interested in binging and purging than in anything else, including other people’s feelings and squaring your debts, you’re an asshole. Or really, you’re a normal, possibly good person suffering from a bad case of asshole-itis.

It’s a humiliating thing to say about ourselves, but what helps most in controlling dangerous behavior, when all else fails, is to be treated like a soldier or dog-in-training in a program where our every movement is controlled. That’s the kind of treatment that saves lives when bulimia gets dangerous.

Obviously, it doesn’t cure it, but it stops us from going over the cliff until we can get enough control back to keep it down to a barf or two a day.

So the most you can do is let her and others know if you think her life’s in danger. Otherwise, you’ve got little influence over her for good or ill, and you’re living with an asshole you can’t cure who’s costing you a bundle.

You may wish you could help her, ease her pain, and not make yourself feel guilty by locking the refrigerator if you don’t get a check. Well, I hate to say this, but fuck you. That’s a goal of feeling good, which is much like her goal.

If, however, your goal is to make the best of this situation, it’s not to feel good but to do what’s right by helping her if you can and otherwise preserving your resources for worthwhile causes.

That means bearing the pain of watching her in pain, feeling helpless, and ignoring the guilt of receiving a look that accuses you of adding to her misery. It also means letting her know you’re there if she wants to get real help, establishing your refrigerator perimeter, and getting to eat your own damned ice cream.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a mission statement that protects yourself from false guilt. “I can’t help my roommate feel better or control her eating behavior, but I can watch out for her if her life is in danger and I can encourage her to be a stronger obsession manager by requiring her to pay for what she eats. In doing so, I may temporarily make us both feel unhappy; but that’s an unavoidable part of her recovery and my self-protection. It’s the work we both must do to pass this course in making the best of a bad situation.”

Since there’s no easy way to say it, I’ll just put it out there that I have a problem with my anal sphincter (a botched surgery when I was a kid that left me with very little control). Like everyone since then, my co-workers notice that I sometimes smell bad and like to joke about it, usually but not always behind my back. I do my best to control it, and I’ve seen specialists about it, but what it comes down to is that everyone is happier when I keep my distance and I just wish I could find a job I could do from home. I even avoid attending family events and leave early when I go because I don’t want to embarrass my parents (and I obviously avoid women and people in general). I just transfered to another branch, and now I’m terrified about the reaction of my new co-workers. I know this sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. My goal is to find a treatment that can control this problem or a lifestyle that is less full of humiliation.

By now you should know that you can’t have what you want, either a sweet-smelling body or a solitary, well-stocked bat cave to retreat to. Forgive the pun, but tough shit.

You’re fucked, and if you keep trying to eliminate the problem you’ll never live your life and your parents will die and you’ll regret the things you didn’t do with them or the other things you want to do with yourself like make more money.

Now that that’s cleared up, ask yourself what your goal is when the goals you’ve been chasing are unattainable and there’s no way to avoid a shit-load of pain (last sly double-entendre, I swear).

The obvious answer is to try to reduce your sensitivity to humiliation so that you can live life as fully as possible. It would be nice if you were a natural-born comedian who could deflect nasty jokes, or an insensitive clod who never understood them in the first place; but you’re not. Now that you’re an adult, however, and no longer a school-kid, there are lots of other things you can do.

First, confront the Madison Avenue notion that your self-esteem depends on attractiveness. Your goal isn’t to be attractive, but to make people feel as comfortable as possible with your ugly side while you pursue your other goals.

So pretend you’ve got a colostomy and that’s the way it is and learn how to be shameless. Wear a diaper if it will help, just learn how to not take shit personally and put together a list of what you want to do with yourself and do it. That’s your goal.

Make people more comfortable by telling them, frankly, that you have a GI problem that sometimes causes bad smells and you can’t stop it but that you’re pretty good at managing it. That’s why you, for instance, use incense and deodorizers, and sometimes have to leave meetings unexpectedly. If your smell is a problem and you don’t notice it, you don’t mind having it pointed out to you.

Keep a candle burning on your desk. Be the first to let them know when you’re having a bad day. Read a book of bathroom jokes beginning with “What died in here?”

Your goal isn’t to control your colleagues; that’s impossible with heaps of cash or hypnosis, so accept that they’ll be nice or nasty, as they are. Instead, create a wall between you and your problem and invite them to see your problem as something apart from you. Lots won’t, but a few will.

After all, you’re not a bad smell, just a guy who’s trying to do a good job despite a tough, humiliating handicap. That’s something to be proud of, a much bigger accomplishment than being sweet-smelling and attractive. Fuck advertising.

Give your parents similar directions, letting them know that you’re happy to attend family events, but you’ll let them know if you’re having a bad day and you won’t take it personally if they’re planning a big event in a poorly ventilated space and don’t want you to come.

You can’t control your problem or how people react to it, but you can’t let those factors take over your life completely. After all, even for those of us with cooperative anuses, life often stinks. You just arm yourself with Fabreze and carry onward.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a manifesto that keeps you focused on your own priorities rather than the reactions of idiots. “My job is to lead my life and try to make a living and find friends, and I’m not responsible for my bad smell. I manage it well by protecting others and making it easy for them to protect themselves. My bad smell may humiliate me; but it can never outweigh my pride in not letting it stop me.”

Even though I’m married, and even though I don’t think I’m in any danger, I’m pretty sure I’m in the middle of a “Single White Female” situation with a woman I work with. When she joined my department, we became fast friends because I thought we had similar tastes, and she was pretty funny and unbelievably generous (a month after she got hired, it was my birthday, and she organized the whole party, made a bunch of food, etc.). We were really close for a while , and I was flattered when she bought herself a pair of my favorite shoes, decided all my favorite movies were her favorite movies, and became chummy with many of my friends in and outside of the office. But then she started to get mad at me for small, silly things, and her mirroring of me became less flattering and more creepy and suffocating. She’s so not the generous, kind person she used to be with me—she doesn’t treat me kindly most of the time, let alone like a friend—but I’m not leaving my job, so I can’t get away from her. Besides, she’s “taken” most of my friends, so I feel like I’m stuck with her for the rest of my life. My goal is to figure out A), if I’m just being paranoid and/or self-centered, and B), how to gracefully get some distance without her making my life a living hell.

Overly close relationships serve one important purpose; they remind you why it’s good to have personal boundaries.

Like any wall, a personal boundary may sometimes make you lonely by keeping other people out. But without a boundary, you’ll never have the freedom to breathe, make personal choices and assert your own priorities.

You may counter that it’s not healthy to keep people from getting close, but your goal is not to get close to someone. It’s to get close without compromising your own most important priorities and your awareness of them. In other words, it’s to get close while retaining your boundaries. At least that’s the goal for your next friendship, after you get some space from the Needsy twin.

Looking back, you can see red flags warning you that your new friendship was not boundary-friendly. It happened too fast, felt too good, and involved too much fan-worship, mirroring, and absorbing of your taste, style, and social life. And footwear.

You should not have been surprised when Her Neediness began to complain about doing all the giving. You didn’t even know she was working hard—you didn’t ask for that birthday party—but the way she sees it, the piper must be paid.

So if she doesn’t treat you like a friend anymore, it’s not because you’ve failed to be a good friend (although that’s what she truly believes); it’s because you never really had a friendship in the first place, meaning a close relationship that can tolerate boundaries. You had a fan. And now you have an enemy.

At this point, if feelings are your frame of reference, you’re trapped. You’ve got an apparently closer-than-usual friend who can’t stop feeling resentful unless you give up more than you want to give. She can’t stop feeling needy, and you can’t help feeling suffocated and guilty about wanting to withdraw.

It’s good that your goal isn’t to get her to understand that you need more space and to stop being angry with you, because that would probably lead to an intense talk, which might temporarily ease her neediness but also teach her that the best way to get your attention is to make you feel guilty. Your relationship is inherently broke, so you can’t fix it.

Luckily for you, you’ve got a good goal (as long as it doesn’t depend on other people’s feelings), and that is, first of all, to figure out whether you’re being paranoid or self-centered. To do that, consider your own basic standards for being a good friend.

Don’t ask whether someone feels you’ve done enough, or whether you’ve done as much for them as they’ve done for you. Instead, consider how much you’ve invited them to do for you and whether, in your view, you’ve done your share. If not, do it.

Once you’ve met your standards, don’t take responsibility for her bad feelings. Of course, that doesn’t solve them or give you control over the pain they cause. It just means they’re not your fault.

Don’t try to end your pain by being too accommodating, or you’ll regret it. Pain is unavoidable. Suck it up. Don’t provoke or insult, but draw the line where it needs to be drawn and set your friendship boundary at whatever distance you think is right and proper.

And trust that, at some time in the future, she’ll become someone else’s mini-me and will have a whole new best friend/favorite pair of shoes.

STATEMENT:
Write a statement that protects your conscience and shelters you from the risk of appeasement and/or confrontation fatigue. “I value this relationship and appreciate the many good things it has brought me, but it will only work, in the long run, if I participate in my own way and at my own speed. I’ve given careful thought to criticism about my not holding up my end of our friendship, and I don’t agree. I believe my contribution has been positive and genuine. If it doesn’t feel like it’s enough, then the friendship may not be able to continue, but I hope that won’t be the case. Meanwhile, I think it helps to avoid negative discussions and to be as clear as possible about what we expect.”

I’m a never-married woman in my 40s who’s dating a never-married man in his 50s, and like any smart woman, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. His ex is a little crazy and unstable (and also sick with a chronic disease), and he says he stayed with her because it wasn’t fair to desert her when she got sick, but that eventually he felt the relationship wasn’t healthy. In a lot of ways, that sounds like an ideal reason to be single in your 50s; he’s a caring guy who also has limits. The problem is, I’m not sure if he really does have limits, because she still calls him sometimes when she needs help, and he has a lot of trouble saying no to her. I know she’s sick and really doesn’t have anyone else, but he’s brushed me off a few times to run to her side, and I worry he can’t prioritize. My goal is to get him to set real limits or set me free.

At the risk of being semantic, I have to point out that, unless you’re literally in chains as you read this, no one but you sets you free. A better way to put your goal is that you want to see if he can set real limits before you commit yourself, but that doesn’t sound like something Diana Ross would sing.

It’s also an important distinction because your choice of words suggests that—yes, I hate to accuse you, but it’s necessary––you’re being…emotional. It’s not your fault; it hurts for you, or anyone, to begin to care about someone when you don’t yet know how things will turn out.

It is, however, a better boundary, because it gives you responsibility for the job you’re supposed to do—sizing up his ability to give appropriate priority to your partnership—without pushing yourself to make him do it or making him responsible for your decisions. Alas, good boundaries don’t make good songs.

So your goal isn’t to get him to set limits, or set you free, but to see if he can set limits. Until you’re sure one way or the other, you should keep your options open and be friendly, no matter how spooked you feel.

If he’s overly responsive to his ex’s neediness, it doesn’t mean that he loves you less. It’s more likely that he’s overly reactive to fixing squeaky wheels and you’re not squeaky enough. And you wouldn’t want to be, because, to be a squeaky wheel, you’ve got to be helpless and whine all the time.

So you may feel as if you’re waiting to discover whether he loves you or loves you not, but what you’re really trying to learn is whether he has the strength to say “no” to squeaky wheels and give a priority to a healthy partnership. In other words, whether he has good boundaries.

So don’t be drawn by her 911 calls into a demandingness-derby for his attention. If he is ready for a healthy relationship, her demands will drive him into your arms. If not, then you set him free, knowing you’re doing the right thing.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement that encourages him to set good boundaries without letting loose your own anger or neediness. “It’s not secret that I care about and respect you and I think we could become good partners, given half a chance. And I respect the loyalty and nurturing you give to your old friends. But for us to share a partnership, you need to draw a line on how available you are to other people who need you. I would never want you to hurt or discard old friends or fail to help them if you were the only person who could provide something they need. But if you respond too much when old friends feel needy, as distinct from when you think your response is really necessary, then you won’t have the necessary time and energy for other important priorities, including the life we’d like to build together.”

I’ve given my closest girlfriend the same advice a million times, and a million times, she’s passively ignored me, so I’ll say straight away that my goal is to give advice she’ll actually listen to. The problem she always comes to me with is this (and in her mind, it isn’t a problem, at least at first): said friend is in a band, and because of that, she’s always on the road, and in her travels she meets these guys (either randomly for one night or for a few weeks at a time if they’re touring with her band, that kind of thing), and every so often she falls for one of these guys and wants to find a way to have a real relationship with him, even though it’s logistically impossible in the long term due to the fact they live in one place and she lives in another (never mind that they’re usually too young, too drunk, too full of themselves, etc). I tell her those things, but she insists her feelings (which is what made me think I should write you!) can’t be ignored, that guy-of-the-moment gives her butterflies and she can’t remember being this excited about anyone. It’s only a matter of time before things go horribly wrong (he stops returning her texts/calls, starts being a jerk to her, take your pick), and then she’s sad, tells me she should have listened to me, and wonders why she’s so dumb about guys. I, too, wonder, but I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.

Instead of asking yourself what’s wrong with your advice because it hasn’t got through to her after a million times, ask yourself whether there’s any hope of her hearing your advice. Ever. And not because she has tinnitus.

Because the sad thing is, when it comes to the thrill of romance, some people are addicted to those “butterflies” and want to embrace that sensation, no matter how many times they’ve been burned. They love love, whether it’s real or phony, and regardless of how long it takes them to recover, or what else they lose while recuperating. Love is blind, your friend is deaf and dumb.

And yes, like all addictions, it can be terribly harmful and make sufferers irresponsible and self-centered. She has no control over it, and you certainly don’t, so it’s time to start singin’ a new tune, as it were. Or really, no tune at all.

With your friend’s particular disorder, a sort of emotional ADD, you’re probably doing more harm than good by listening to the same old crap over and over; by offering the attention of a concerned friend, you’re giving her more opportunity to talk about love and feelings and play the role of foolish, free, expressive romantic child to your worried, overly responsible unhappy adult. She’s getting nowhere, and you’re getting annoyed. So stop.

A better goal is to stay clear of her problem when it makes her self-absorbed or foolish, and offer help when and only when it’s likely to do good.

If you have a need to offer advice, figure out a way to get paid for it. Actually, if she’s managed to turn some of her excess feelings into songs, you’re probably already owed some royalties.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from over-involvement the next time your friend wants to share her giddy anticipation of future happiness. “I’m always interested in hearing about someone who might be a good friend or partner for you because of the qualities you think they have to offer, but making a big deal of their attractiveness by itself is stupid and I don’t want to talk about it.”

My little sister and I are only a year apart and really close—we’re also roommates—so I think I know more about her love life than most sisters would, and vice versa. She likes to make fun of me for being so conservative, because I believe in real dates, having doors held open for me, the whole thing, and she insists that she just wants to have fun and randomly hooks up with guys all the time. The thing is though, and what she won’t admit, is that she doesn’t just want to have fun. The morning after a one night stand she tries to act all cool, but when the guy doesn’t call in the next few days, she gets annoyed. Then she starts asking me all these absurd questions, like what it meant that he ignored her when she saw him at the bar, or if the fact he talked to her means he’s interested in hanging out again, and no matter what I say (usually something like, “it meant nothing, you said yourself it was a one night stand and there’s nothing there”), she doesn’t let it go until the guy is really rude to her or she finds another victim. I try to tell her that there’s nothing wrong with wanting a boyfriend, but she thinks I’m just projecting. My goal is to get her out of denial and stop torturing herself (and me).

Your sister must be closely related to the woman above who is in love with being in love and deliberately avoids thinking, looking, or being in the same universe as anything that would interfere with her loving feelings. Even if she won’t admit those loving feelings are there.

As you see it, your goal is to get your sister to admit that she cares about her casual dates more than she lets on, because she always suffers afterwards. But perhaps it’s time for you to face some facts of your own; namely that it’s not a message she’s ready to hear, and that her suffering may be, for the time being at least, unavoidable. They say denial is a river in Egypt, but in this case, the current runs both ways.

It’s hard to watch your sister suffer when she’s also your roommate, and then persist in asking dumb questions that convey her suffering. Unfortunately, you can’t ease her pain by answering her questions, and even trying is unhelpful because it suggests to her that someone has an answer, when there is no answer.

Worse, she may hear your criticism as telling her she screwed up a relationship and drove someone away, which will make her more defensive and impervious to logic.

You’ve made your point with her: in so many words, fucking around with fucking causes her pain, and she’d do better and become stronger by learning to tolerate loneliness and/or sexual frustration until she finds someone better.

From your point of view, it’s not a matter of being conservative or a free spirit, but accepting the way your feelings happen to respond and making the best of it. She can’t do that, and that’s what you need to accept.

A better goal—you’d do the same if she were an addict—is to pull away from her a little bit when she’s being self-destructive. No more advice, no sympathy, just go about your business. When you’re at an impasse with someone you love, it’s best to quietly agree to disagree. Or, if she’s really harping on it, leave the room.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that expresses support while discouraging topics you think are stupid. “You’re a great person and you deserve someone worthwhile and you’ll probably do better and have more emotional energy available if you stop fucking around. And that’s all I have to say. Ooh, ‘Greek’ is on!”

Please talk me down, because a friend of mine has managed to make me feel really shitty for the fact that he was basically a dick. I had to leave town for a few months—long story, work-related—and so I had to ask this guy, let’s call him Jim, to watch my car for me. He’s one of my only friends around here, and even though I know he’s not exactly a totally solid dude, all I needed him to do was watch my car, literally keep an eye on it and make sure it didn’t get stolen or towed, and in return I told him he could stay in my house if he needed to. I said he could drive the car around town if he needed to, and that he couldn’t bring more than one guest into my house, so it wasn’t totally open season, and he said cool, and when I came back, everything was fine. At first. But then I found used condoms in the trash at my house (gross!) and found out from one of Jim’s co-workers that he’d driven my car to another state. I just went to call him on it and he completely blew up at me, as if I was the one being a jerk, telling me I was being unfair and literally pushing me out the door. Now I’m starting to feel guilty, which is making me feel crazy, so please reassure me he’s the dick and not me. PS, I have a real skill in trusting total assholes, but you probably already guessed that.

Wanting reassurance you’re not a dick is a pretty dumb goal (and, if you were seeking my services in real life, not covered by insurance), because you’re telling this dickhead and every other quasi-pimp who wants to take advantage of you that you need someone to reassure you that you’re not a dick. Thus cementing your status as dickbait, so the circle will remain unbroken.

So if that’s really your top priority, you’re telling him he’s the boss, and his version of right and wrong is what counts. Oh, I know, what you tell yourself is that your goal is to find nice friends who can be counted on to tell you you’re not so bad, and that a good circle of such friends will make your life OK. And that might be true in another universe, just not the known world we live in.

In this world, sooner or later you’re forced to deal with people who aren’t your friends and situations in which your friends are nowhere near, and if you haven’t learned to bear the pain of your easily-stimulated doubts and your need for reassurance without actually asking others for that reassurance, you’re asking to be someone’s bitch. Again, dickbait. So reassurance is not what you’re going to get.

Or you may believe that some good psychotherapy, or maybe a success or two at work, or maybe seeing Jim again on a good hair day, would give you the self-confidence to believe in yourself and stand up to the assholes of the world. And were we living in a Sandra Bullock movie, this would be a good plan.

In real life, however, people who tend to feel guilty and doubt themselves never stop being vulnerable. If they don’t expect to change their behavior until they feel more confident, they don’t change. If you’re smart, you’ll assume the doubts will never disappear, and it’s your job to go ahead and learn to manage them better.

So your goal isn’t to get a pat on the head (or a snazzy new haircut), but simply to do the right thing. Judge yourself and stand by that judgment, so the dicks of this world can’t steal your freedom. You started out perfectly by doing nothing wrong; you asked him for a favor, offered him something generous in return, and were clear about your expectations. He took gross advantage. If you’re keeping score, you 0, dick 1.

If you retain the right to judge his conduct and decide he’s a shit-head, then there’s no point in discussing your opinion with him unless you think it will do some good. But realize, at that point, that if his behavior fits what you know about him, you’re not going to uncover and clear up a simple misunderstanding. The only misunderstanding was yours, when you misunderstood that he wasn’t a shit-head.

If you confront him, you know he’ll see himself as doing you the favor, much as a pimp sees himself as devoted to and self-sacrificing for the girls in his “family.” If in doubt, ask him if he thinks his use of your car and apartment went beyond his understanding of what you had said. I’ll bet you knew what he would say. So, in the future, re-enact the confrontation in your head instead of having to get manhandled out the door.

You may have trusted unwisely, but don’t make it worse by asking him to understand your position and relieve you of guilt. He’s the one who should feel guilty, not you, but that’s never going to happen.

If you’d hired him to be a car/house-sitter and he did this, you’d never pay for his services again, so don’t bother hanging on to his friendship, either. He can have his fond memories of his tryst in your house, you can have your self-confidence, and then between you and this dick, it’s tied at 1. At least until the next asshole comes along.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to help you manage your guilt under your own solo authority. “I have weaknesses and I make mistakes but I can usually tell, in the end, whether I did something wrong and need to make amends. So whatever pangs of guilt I feel when someone yells at me, I will not try to ease my pain by apologizing or asking other people to tell me I’m OK. I will bear my pain while I rely on my own experience, conscience, and common sense to judge myself and then I will act in a way that respects my judgment.

My fiancé and his brother inherited a beach house from their parents. It’s really big, totally beautiful, and technically split 50/50, but my future brother-in-law is loaded, my fiancé isn’t (well, he’s average, but his brother is really rolling in it), so the few times we’ve gone to the house, I thought it was really tense. Mostly because the brother pays most of the taxes, feeds everyone, puts up for the repairs, etc, and my fiancé just sort of rolls with it like it’s not weird because everyone knows he can’t afford those expenses and the house is legally half his. Thing is, my fiancé wants us to get married there next summer, and I hate this idea, because I think we’re imposing, and that his brother is either going to say yes but get openly resentful towards my fiancé which will make the wedding and all future visits completely unpleasant, or say no and cause open warfare between the two of them (which would mean, now that their parents are gone, that the two men’d lose the only family they currently have). Normally, my fiancé’s a reasonable guy, but he has such a blind spot about his brother and this house—when I’ve tried to bring this up to him, he tells me that I’m being overly sensitive, and that it’s not my family/not my business. But my wedding is my business, and I don’t want it to turn into a major drama that will put a shadow on the rest of our lives. My goal is to get him to see sense, pick his battles, and generally not start a war he can’t win.

Your fiancé can’t seem to understand what you feel and observe, so trying to get him to see your perspective is a bad goal. The more you try, the more you’re telling him that you’re right and he’s wrong, and that’s what he’ll react to. Also, you’re telling yourself that he’ll eventually change and come to understand what you mean, and that’s not going to be.

I wish he was wise enough to trust your people-sense, but he isn’t and doesn’t, and he’s stubborn, and, just so you’re clear on this, he’s about to be your husband. I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry him, but you need to accept his weaknesses because they’re not likely to change. Brides always think they will. If you think he’s going to change, go kiss a frog and see what happens. Brides also think anyone but them cares about the color of the napkins.

As usual, your acceptance of a painful reality opens better possibilities, but first, I’m assuming, unlike our asshole-prone friend, that you trust your judgment and don’t need his confirmation or approval. Or, if you need his confirmation and approval, I’m assuming you have the balls to force yourself to do without.

I say this because if you need his agreement before you can act, you’ll feel helpless, stymied, and resentful, much like the Senate when it can’t overcome a filibuster. Once again, fuck common “wisdom”: if you want a good marriage, learn not to communicate. Because this one of those times when communication is bad and silent frustration is golden.

Once you have confidence in your judgment and, without blaming your fiancé, are prepared to do what you think is necessary to avoid family trouble, tell him you’re dying to get married, but not at the house. You respect his dream, but you have another place in mind.

Don’t offer an explanation, because explanation opens the door to argument. You need to know if he will accept your veto, when exercised respectfully but firmly. Assure yourself that you would accept his. You need to know if your preference alone is enough. If not, you’ll have trouble later in the marriage.

Go further. Launch your own diplomatic offensive to let your future brother-in-law know that you appreciate the added burden he carries. Offer to do more of your share of the cooking, cleaning and repair/managing.

If your fiancé says he doesn’t understand what you’re doing, that’s OK, he doesn’t have to. What you need to know is, can he stay out of your way.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from the urge to be at one with your fiancé when that requires dumbing down. “I respect my fiancé’s wishes except when I think he’s stubborn and wrong-headed. If I can’t change his mind and believe the issue is important, I will try to steer us out of trouble, or at least disengage myself as much as I can, without demeaning him or engaging in argument. I will try to bear the pain of being at odds with him without seeking excessive compromise or expressing anger, so I am free to do what I think is right.”