F*ck Feelings Read online

  My mother died when I was a baby, but her brother and my cousins were good to my sisters and me. We all seemed to get along. After my maternal grandmother was hit by a city bus, however, everything changed; my uncle became hell-bent on suing everyone involved in the accident right down to the manufacturer of the steering wheel, and said that he was entitled to most of my grandmother’s (meager) inheritance because we were “our dad’s kids” and he had a closer bond. It’s insane. He’s dragging my sisters and me into a handful of lawsuits that none of us can afford and breaking the family relationships we came to rely on. My goal is to get him to stop being a money-crazed monster.

  When I first met my girlfriend six months ago, she was recovering from an abusive relationship and was almost broke, but we really connected and I didn’t hesitate to help her out. She told me I was the best thing that happened to her. I was really in love and felt it was the closest relationship I’ve ever had in my life. So I couldn’t understand why she stopped talking to me about a month ago. Then, after weeks of my begging her to tell me what was going on, she said I tried to dominate her with money and sex and that she felt much more comfortable with a guy she met at her yoga class. I’m blown away and can’t understand what I did wrong. My goal is to get her to remember what a wonderful thing we had going and try to get it back.

  It’s hard to believe that you can’t spot a greedy, lying, unprincipled Asshole, particularly when you’ve known someone well for years. But sometimes you don’t get to see a person’s dark side until stress reveals it. That’s another good reason God created hard times—so we can find out who the Assholes are.

  We tend to like people who make us feel good and we take pride in our ability to make quick decisions and trust our guts. Given what our guts produce, however, and what orifice that product is excreted from, we should know better.

  So it’s not hard for smart, experienced people to be fooled by a good listener who makes an emotional connection. At any rate, after the end of a relationship with someone you would have trusted with your life (who then declares that you are his mortal enemy), you will have a new respect for due diligence and the value of trusting facts over feelings.

  It’s no fun to discover that someone’s a bad person; what’s harder still is hearing him tell you and everyone else who will listen that you’ve done horrible things you wouldn’t think of doing. Efforts to communicate your honest feelings can be dangerous. Remember, you’re talking to a suicide bomber wearing a vest full of explosive allegations. The first rule is to keep your negative feelings and thoughts to yourself.

  Quick Diagnosis

  Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

  • Your old relationship back

  • An immediate end to the avalanche of bullshit

  • Relief for your hurt and anger

  • “Closure,” which is an emotional unicorn

  • Any sort of control over what he will do or say next

  Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

  • Understand and accept the nature of your new, broken relationship, giving up on logic and reconciliation

  • Stop adding dramatic, emotional, damaging fuel to the fire

  • Stop letting hurt feelings and anger control your decisions

  • Use time to diffuse the emotion and drain energy from the drama

  • Use what influence you have to protect yourself

  Here’s how you can do it:

  • Let a lawyer be your primary therapist in terms of telling you what to expect, when to shut up, and what to document (remembering that sharing feelings with your legal representative solves nothing, could cost a lot, and isn’t remotely covered by health insurance)

  • Protect your assets from petty vindictiveness

  • Communicate only what’s positive and necessary, so as not to add fuel or show weakness (it helps to write out a statement in advance)

  • Be prepared for the worst so that you don’t respond with outrage or any visible emotion other than confidence and determination

  • Be prepared for the worst-case scenario

  Your Script

  Here’s what to say to the offending Asshole that will keep you on track regardless of how you really feel or how said annular friend responds.

  Dear [Asshole Former Associate/Greedy Sibling/Ex-Girlfriend with New Yoga Boyfriend],

  Although it’s true that we’re now having unfortunate differences, we used to [have fun/text each other with some frequency/share an HBO GO password] as friends and partners for so many years, and I’m sure we can address our differences in a positive way. In spite of our good efforts to overcome misunderstanding and reach an agreement, it’s been impossible, so it’s become necessary to figure out how to go forward from here. I propose we [keep our assets separate/agree to disagree/do a bunch of stuff a lawyer told me to do although I’ll never tell you I have a lawyer]. I believe this is fair and will be good for both of us, but it’s best for us not to speak further about this directly until all is worked out. Nevertheless, I wish you [the best/good health/a bountiful harvest] and hope this gets resolved soon.

  My Parent, the Asshole

  There’s nothing to stop Assholes from having kids. Indeed, if self-centered jerks weren’t reliably irresistible love magnets, shrinks would have trouble putting food on their tables. There are lots of kids who have to deal with Asshole parents. The problems these offspring usually run into include lots of anger at having been ignored (if they’re lucky), humiliated, and/or viciously attacked. At the same time, they often feel guilty and responsible for their parent’s unhappiness and bad habits because, by definition, an Asshole parent is always sure that others are to blame. The kids are often touchy, nervous, and guilty, unless they’re actively straightening out the world by being bullies, cops, or superheroes. Or therapists.

  We want to honor and love our parents. That is hard to do and may be self-destructive when your parent is an Asshole. If you react to an Asshole parent without a clear sense of right and wrong, however, you can become dangerously reactive to negative feelings and the bad things they push you to do. What helps is to honor the ideal of a parent, accepting that, even if your parent is the anti-ideal, the ideal is well worth respecting and trying to live up to.

  Here’s how you can tell if your parent is really an Asshole:

  • He constantly reminds you how you’ve ruined his life, at which point you wish you could

  • He is always entitled to share his feelings about your faults because it’s “honest” (which is a nice code word for “cruel”)

  • Apologies are never enough, so you’re always trying to earn his love back

  • He burns bridges in all his relationships (if he has any relationships left)

  Among the wishes people express when they write us or come for post-Asshole-parent treatment are:

  • To stop the nastiness and be a real family

  • To get over an unhappy childhood

  • To stop letting an Asshole upbringing cause them to be irresistibly drawn to dating Assholes

  • To understand why they still feel helpless and enraged after their parent does the same old nasty routine for the millionth time

  Here are some examples:

  My mother is a drama queen who tries to control everyone in the family, and believes she’s doing it for our own good. She can get verbally nasty, and when we were kids, she’d hit us. At seventy-nine years old, she still has a horrible temper, and when her fits are over, she either forgets her bad behavior or it’s the other guy’s fault. I avoided conflict with her until a year ago, when she was mean to my kids, and then I got terribly angry and literally told her off and cut off all ties. Since then I have suffered from terrible guilt and wondered whether I’m just like her. I know she sees herself as an abandoned, mistreated victim. I don’t want to be mean to her and I don’t want the insults to start again. My goal is to figure out what to do with her.

  My father can’t stop
bad-mouthing my wife and refuses to talk to her at family events. He was always a difficult man—I don’t know how my mother put up with him—but he was nice to me as his only son until I got married. Now it hurts when he doesn’t return my calls, and I’m sorry he has no contact with my kids, but I don’t know how to get through to him. My wife is fine not having him around since he’s so mean to her, but I still feel like it’s wrong to not have my father in my life, and in my kids’ lives. My goal is to figure out how to do right by both him and my wife.

  My father-in-law has always been difficult and had a drinking problem, but he’s my husband’s only surviving parent and our kid’s only grandparent, so I’ve found ways to put up with his visits over the years. The problem is that he’s decided to move closer to our family, to see his grandkid, and it’s turning into a nightmare. I’m a stay-at-home mom because my son’s too young for school, and he shows up at all hours, unannounced, sometimes tipsy, just wanting me to amuse him and listen to him complain about how unfair his life has been and how unloving my husband is as a son. He also promises to do things with my son all the time, like go fishing or just to the store, and then breaks his promise at the last minute, or just forgets, because he drinks. My husband doesn’t know what to do, but he’s terrified to say anything because he thinks it’ll break his dad’s heart and he might harm himself. My goal is find a way to get my husband to see how horrible his father is, and that we need a change.

  If life were fair, you could get these parents to see that their bad behavior is ruining an important family connection you’re doing your best to preserve. Assuming that you don’t hold a grudge and aren’t interested in confrontation or compensation, you’d like nothing better than for these grandparents to be able to control themselves and enjoy quality time with their grandchildren, their kids, and really anyone with a pulse.

  In that fair world, they’d listen, apologize, and attend Assholes Anonymous (as if an Asshole would ever settle for anonymity), plus butter would be good for you, and we’d get more episodes of The Wire and Firefly.

  If you pursued your wishes instead of accepting reality in our unfair Firefly-free universe, you’d tell these jerks what they did wrong, insist that they get help, and refuse to talk to them until they did. Well . . . they’d get help, all right. They’d join a group of Parents Abused by Their Adult Children, whine themselves to sleep, and leave multiple tirades on your voice mail. Then you’d agonize over your guilt with friends, therapists, deep-dish pizzas, etc.

  It’s hard to give up your wish to get through to an Asshole parent because their scary, irrational blame looms so large in a child’s life, seeming to fill and control the world. You have to remember that, as an adult, you have your own values and experiences. Whether or not his anger can still cause you pain, it doesn’t change your choices or your judgment of yourself. Don’t try to get through to him when you know that it’s never worked before. Accepting his nature as an Asshole helps you avoid conflict, minimizes his opportunities to do his Asshole thing, and gives him just enough contact and caring to fulfill your familial obligation/guilt.

  Above all, don’t take responsibility for an Asshole parent’s guilt and unhappiness and don’t show it if you feel it. You can’t make him happy. You can’t change your own feelings. You can become a competent Asshole-parent wrangler by setting the rules, looking confident, optimistic, and guilt free, and making the most of your allotted time with Assholes you love.

  Quick Diagnosis

  Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

  • Freedom from a feeling of impending doom whenever the Asshole is around

  • The ability to make an Asshole parent happy (her happiness is way beyond anyone’s control, including hers)

  • The option to bring your parent into the bosom of your family if and when she needs it

  • A way to protect your family from nastiness

  • Peace, justice, fairness, and a good relationship

  Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

  • The strength to do what you think is right, regardless of an Asshole parent’s anger, or your reaction to it

  • A way to protect your own positive view of your family without referencing your parent’s negative views

  • Limits on the Asshole’s opportunity to vent during brief, managed encounters

  • Positive things the two of you can share and honor

  Here’s how you can do it:

  • Determine whether there are any good things you can actually accomplish with and for an Asshole parent (like improving her health, security, and relationships) that are likely to do some good and not be defeated by her being an Asshole

  • Given your limited resources and the above realities, figure out your own responsibilities, if any, for making this happen

  • Use a variety of techniques (avoiding one-to-one encounters, meeting in public places or places you can leave, sending messages by mail rather than telephone or face-to-face) to keep emotions from escalating

  • Respect yourself for what you’re doing regardless of the negative response you’ll probably get and the angry, helpless feelings you’ll have to endure

  Your Script

  Here’s what to say to an Asshole parent who is asking you for more than you are prepared to give and charging you with crimes you didn’t commit.

  Dear [Asshole Parent],

  I appreciate all the good things you’ve done for me and I’ve listened carefully to what you have to say. I’m impressed with how [hard you work/well you get through crises/much you claim I put you through]. I don’t agree with your thoughts about [my terrible parenting/ungrateful attitude/haircut], so I will stick with my plans to [cut short unpleasant phone calls /let a real babysitter who’s sober watch the kids/skip that month-long family vacation to a one-room cabin in Alaska] because I think they represent the best compromise for everyone. Now that we’ve talked it over, this subject is closed. I’ll be in touch in a couple of days, and we can discuss [what good coupons you have this week/that disgusting movie they talked about on the news that you thought I’d like /anything else].

  Did You Know . . . Some Assholes Are Saintly?

  Now that we’ve established that Assholes aren’t intentionally bad (just dangerously disabled), it’s also worth noting that some Assholes are actually saintly, generous human beings who aren’t so big into wrath. They’re likable, eager to help, and willing to make commitments until they’re distracted by someone who needs rescuing. Once that happens, all other kind words and commitments to you are null and void.

  What makes them Assholes is not just their unreliability but the fact that if you’re unhappy with their blown promises, it’s your problem for being overly sensitive and selfish. They’re just doing what they think is right, and you’re the asshole.

  Meanwhile, their friends and kids wonder if they have to act sick, injured, or obnoxious to get said Asshole’s attention. Sadly, even if they do and it works, it’s only for a brief moment until someone else more wounded shows up at the watering hole.

  So while many Assholes are angry crusaders, saintly Assholes are kindly victims; they actually want you to be happy, even while they’re fucking you over for reasons that, to them, are unavoidable. They’re less likely to sue you and more likely to make you feel guilty for wanting to sue them, but they require the same amount of distance if you want to avoid being disappointed, angry, and (gently) screwed.

  Rising Up from an Asshole Takedown

  Given the Asshole’s tunnel-vision, friend-or-enemy, black-or-white worldview, she has no choice but to turn everyone against you if she feels you’ve wounded her, even inadvertently. You may feel like she’s using a next-level version of the playground strategy “I’m rubber and you’re glue,” where she tells everyone that you’re the Asshole who did her wrong, letting the blame slide off her and stick to you. In fact, the gesture is deeper, more sincere, and a lot more desperate and dangerous.

  Assholes
share their feelings with your kids, friends, child-abuse hotlines, judges, the local news affiliate, the entire Internet. Since their feelings tell them what really happened, they never doubt themselves. Therefore, what they say carries the ring of truth. You’re lucky if you can just leave town and start over under another name.

  If, by any chance, being falsely accused of vicious, predatory behavior makes you angry enough to express your indignation and prove your innocence, you’re in even deeper shit. You can never win a sincere outrage contest with an Asshole. Your anger just makes you look even guiltier.

  In the long run, Assholes’ lies often become obvious because they’re not clever and calculating about covering up facts. Gathering and examining facts takes time; however, those who are skeptical and look for them will discover the truth. Meanwhile, you may find yourself answering embarrassing questions from people who don’t believe you, losing the faith and confidence of your kids, family, and community, and facing restraining orders and mounting legal costs.

  Instead of wasting time thinking about how this Asshole could ruin your reputation, motivate yourself to think strategically and keep your mouth shut. No matter how much you want to protest the sheer insanity of what’s happening, do not give her that satisfaction.