F*ck Feelings (20 page)

I hate the way my husband gets bossy with our kids. He's not abusive, but he's overbearing and it reminds me of what I disliked most about my father. He's usually a reasonable, responsible guy, and we get along fine when the kids aren't around, but alone time is rare and they won't be leaving home for at least five years. I've tried getting him to change his style, but it doesn't work and the kids don't like to see us argue. So I sit there, feeling resentful, with a sour look on my face, always angry at the partner I have to live with. My goal is not to be so pissed at him all the time.

I believe in honoring my parents, and I certainly love my mother, but she often gets very mean and is really nasty to my father, who is too old and hard of hearing to defend himself. He just gets on her nerves—partially understandable, since he can't hear a word she says—and she lets him have it when he doesn't even know what he did wrong. She is wonderful at justifying her actions to herself. I believe in accepting her, but I can't stop being angry whenever I see her, and that's not who I want to be. My goal is to be able to be around her and my father without always feeling nervous or enraged.

Since the last thing anyone wants to do is hate someone they really care about, it's important to recognize hate is often acquired only after a clusterfuck of bad behavior. If someone's inability to stop doing wrong makes you furious, then feeling less anger may only be possible when she improves her behavior, which is to say, never.

Even after analyzing the reasons for your anger, lowering your expectations, and trying to forgive, you'll probably find your feelings unchanged. It's a Clusterfuck-22, so
if your goal is to stop hating and feeling guilty about your emotions, then you know where that leaves you.

Your first job, in these situations, is to try to understand, forget, and forgive, but once that proves impossible, accept your feelings as unavoidable facts and use your common sense to limit the damage. Speak softly but use your big (Roosevelt, not phallic) stick, if you have one, to limit hateful behavior.

Addicts are always selfish Assholes (see chapter 9), but if your son ever gets clean, he might return to his old, not-unbearable self. Until then, declare a list of bad behaviors—like stealing the TV or failing a store-bought drug test—that will require a young adult to spend a night or more elsewhere. You have to accept him as he is without anger, but if he can't accept your rules, then it's his turn to be angry, not yours.

If parenting leaves you angry with your spouse's style, split up your responsibilities, maximize the tasks you do separately, and schedule regular childless time together. If you express your anger, you will probably find it harder to set limits. If you set limits, you'll often find yourself feeling less angry.

If you can't protect one of your parents from the other's meanness, find ways to see them separately, e.g., lunch with mom and hog racing with dad. Whether you're all together or one-on-one, keep the conversation light and steer away from contentious subjects. Withdraw from offensive conversation if you have a nearby locked bathroom you can retreat to and think it will help protect you and/or reduce the nastiness. Don't discuss your feelings. Let your actions reflect your most constructive response to bad behavior.

Never lament hateful behavior or hate-filled chemistry as unnecessary or evidence of a dysfunctional family. Instead, celebrate the success of your ability to manage difficult relationships while avoiding open conflict.

You can't help having hate in your close relationships, but you should respect your ability to make them work, even if it's in a difficult, entirely fucked-up way.

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

• A heart untainted by hate

• A family with no Assholes

• A new temperament

• A spouse with no traits you dislike

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

• Control your mouth

• Be confident in penalizing bad behavior

• Live with hate without hating yourself

Here's how you can do it:

• Use standard methods for chilling your anger

• Accept managing love-hate as part of a good person's job

• Use all opportunities to stop bad behavior and/or reduce your exposure to it

• Never get discouraged by having hateful people in your life or hate in your heart

• Respect good hate management

Here's what to tell someone/yourself when you're tortured by hate for those you love.

Dear [Me/Family Member/Intimate Enemy],

I wish I wasn't so angry at my [parent/spouse/kid] but I've tried [family therapy/exorcism/high colonics] and I can't get rid of the [anger/filth/evil thoughts/inner tension]. I will not take responsibility for
the [insert synonym of “excruciating psychic pain or those who cause it”] but I will become amazingly good at managing difficult people and keeping them working together.

Unless you find yourself in Guantánamo or a North Korean labor camp, the worst kind of torture you can expect is being obliged to spend time with someone, due to family, work, or just geography, whom you hate enough to murder with your bare hands. Even Dick Cheney would admit that the experience is more painful than an “enhanced interrogation technique.”

It's one thing if the person you're stuck with is an Asshole (see chapter 9), but it's even worse if you find yourself annoyed by someone's harmless habits and wanting to do violent things to the perfectly innocent. That's when you'll feel like you're locked in an interrogation room with Dick Cheney himself.

You want to feel like a nice person who wishes people well, not a stressed, irritable, and hypertensive jerk, but when you're around that special someone—and, alas, you often have to be—darkness fills your soul. You can't change him, but you feel there should be a way to change yourself.

It's true, some kinds of intolerance and irritability may be resolved with insight or self-acceptance. If you find yourself irritable about everything, you may be depressed, and treatment can help you get the symptoms under control.

At some point, however, you'll have exposed yourself to all the insight your psyche can bear and found that most focused annoyances are both part of who you are and whom you're forced to sit next to for long periods of your life. Trying to find a way to immunize yourself against petty or even grand annoyance is just one more way to force yourself into being someone you're not.

Asking people to be less annoying, of course, usually backfires, because they don't believe they're doing anything wrong. Asking people to change isn't always futile, but if their annoying habits are part of their
personality, it can be one of the best ways to start a bad fight and cause hurt feelings. Improving communication is good for cellular companies, not for people looking for a good technique for reducing irritation.

Figuring out why someone gets to you is supposed to make you more tolerant, but what you'll find is that the reason you dislike some of their traits so much is because they're the same ones you hate in yourself, which, no surprise, is not a valuable insight. It will just make you more irritated with that person, since they now serve the dual purpose of annoying you and making you annoy yourself.

Instead, prepare to live with pent-up irritation, regardless of the number of people who tell you it isn't good for you, your blood pressure, and your soul, and accept that you can't let it out or snuff it out. You won't be out of the woods, but you will be out of the depths of the emotional waterboarding you're in now.

Among the wishes would-be nice guys express are:

• To feel like a good person, not a petty jerk

• To harbor no animosity

• To get through the day (or night) with less internal turmoil

• To make troubled relationships better or find a way to change them

Here are three examples:

I never liked my mother-in-law, but ever since I lost my job, we had to move in with her. She has an opinion about everything, and since it's her house, we've got to listen. She's not much help with our kids, and she expects my wife to cook for her. I hate coming home and thinking of her, sitting in the big chair, watching her shows with the volume blasting away because she's deaf, knowing there's nothing I can say, but oh so much she has to say about so many topics I couldn't give a shit about. If I complain to my wife, even though she's the one who bears the brunt of it, she defends her mother, which, while understandable, just makes me madder. My goal is to be less angry every time I come into this house that isn't my home.

My boss is a nice guy, but he was never cut out to be a boss. Because he'll do anything to avoid making a decision or taking a stand, he lets the worst jerks in the office walk all over him, and he gives much more to the squeaky wheels who complain to him than he does to people who shut up and work hard. In other words, he's a giant wuss who rewards dickheads, so no matter how nice he acts, I want to strangle him. I can't quit because the job pays too well and the benefits are too good, but the problem isn't so much that I hate him but that I hate hating him and my wife hates hearing about it. My goal is to go to work without having nasty thoughts all day.

Not long after I moved into my new apartment, I met one of my neighbors in the elevator, and thought we had just a pleasant, harmless conversation. Little did I know that I had just signed on to become the best friend/unlicensed therapist to a sixty-something guy with no boundaries, other friends, or ability to take a hint. He comes by at all times of the day and night to tell me about how nobody loves him, how he'll never find anyone as great as his late partner, what he saw that day on TV. . . . It's exhausting, and I work from home, so I can't escape. I've talked to other people in the building, and they say the only way to get him to leave you alone is to pretend to be dying or not speak English, but that seems so evil. My goal is to get this guy to leave me alone without having to do something hurtful (or move).

Irritating qualities are a lot like dog whistles; some qualities are universally perceived, and others strike a frequency only certain individuals hear; i.e., one person's idea of a maddeningly annoying laugh is another person's charming chuckle.

Once you tune into the frequency, however, it's nearly impossible to turn it off, and if you can accept that there's no resolution or way to tune it out, it's time to embrace your pain and develop a management plan.

The first step, of course, is not to blame yourself for murderous urges and snotty thoughts. Make a list of the statements or situations that really light your fire, and develop scripts for responding briefly and politely, such as “that's interesting” or “huh, weird” or “sorry I'm not responding, I've got to concentrate because I'm memorizing pi.”

A loud mother-in-law who never gets out of the way is going to drive most sons-in-law crazy, even if she has a perfect right to sound off in her own home. It's important then to develop not just a series of scripts but some mental rules of necessary (dis)engagement. Find a hidey-hole (bathroom, car, Starbucks) to cut you off from having to hear or see your annoyeur or annoyeuse. Develop a script for using it; e.g., that ol' chestnut “gotta go.” It's necessary to be polite, respond to medical emergencies, do your share of chores, and provide paid-for services, but this way you never, ever prolong contact because of guilty feelings or forceful demands.

A wussy boss will aggravate hardworking employees who resent the way their whiny, manipulative colleagues always come out ahead, but remember, it's only a job, and you're there to make a living, not make the workplace better or fairer. While some may work to please the boss, your goal is to meet your own standards for a good day's work while staying employed. List your own reasons for being there, then think of the never-ending irritation as a form of industrial pollutant that's worth putting up with, if the money is right.

Don't force yourself to be extra nice to the obnoxiously needy to prove you're not as mean as your urge to avoid him makes you feel. Maybe he can't help being obnoxious, needy, or lonely, but his problems are not your responsibility. If you don't limit your exposure—politely,
and without evident guilt—your irritation will grow as you open yourself to his passive-aggressive home invasion. Your job is to take credit for politeness, ignore nasty feelings, and give yourself the right to spend time with people whose company you actually enjoy.

No matter who the source of your annoyance is, don't require validation from like-minded people before telling yourself you're not a bad person. Maybe you have a bad person inside, or everyone around you is nicer or just tuned out. You're basically nice if you don't let the nastiness out. If you overcompensate, or try too hard to find support, you'll only make things worse.

You can't change irritation or the irritating, but you can stop taking undue blame for being mean and start taking deserved praise for your restraint. You might not feel like a good person, but it's a much bigger achievement to act like a good person when the inner evil is ringing in your ears. Remember, very few people are naturally, effortlessly good; we leave that up to dogs.