Since You Asked

Over the years, I’ve learned to deal with her to a degree. I’ve learned how to protect my privacy around her, how to avoid some of her more relentless manipulation and why she is acting the way she does. I have sympathy for what it must be like to be her. Most important, I’ve learned that I’m not going to be able to change her behavior, and I can only adjust how I react to it.

But now I resent her. I resent the amount of energy it takes to be around her. I resent that she comes into my home and that I have to be nice to her because she is my husband’s mother and my daughter’s grandmother. I resent always having to be the bigger person when we have a conflict because she can’t deal with not getting her way.

I have a hard time looking at her when she visits us. I feel resentful when she calls on the phone, when she comes up in conversation and every time I think about her. When she is around, I feel myself becoming withdrawn, sullen and angry. I can feel this resentment choked down in my chest like a hard knot or poison. I don’t think it is good for me. I think it makes me less of a person.

How do I get past this? I feel like I use enough energy dealing with her that I don’t have enough left over to keep this resentment festering inside of me, but on the other hand, I don’t seem to be able to make myself not resent her. How can I have her be part of my life and find some peace?

Resentful

Dear Resentful,

As I read your letter I thought to myself, what a marvelous person you are! You seem to have such insight into your mother-in-law, such understanding. And then I realized that was the problem: You’re way too marvelous. You need to be way less marvelous. As long as you keep on being marvelous, your mother-in-law is going to keep walking all over you and you’re going to keep resenting it.

Paradoxically, as she walks all over you, you stand above her, judging her as she mistreats you. She walks all over you from underneath, as it were. It’s a peculiar geometric arrangement; it’s a metaphor for a relationship that has turned topsy-turvy.

This is a long answer. It’s taken me a couple of days to think this through and realize that understanding and sympathy, without active love flowing through them, can harden like dead skin and become a brittle shell. Knowledge about a person can come to substitute for knowledge of a person.

So in answer to your request for a new way of seeing your mother-in-law, I am going to suggest that you stop understanding her.

How does one stop understanding a person whom one understands so well? It may require pretending at first. Pretend that you have never seen her before. Next time you see her, take a deep breath, stand back and say as little as possible. Just try to see her clearly. See what she does and how she does it, how she exits a car, how she enters a room, how she puts down her purse, what she is wearing, what kind of skin she has, the texture of her hair, the color and condition of her shoes. Watch what she actually does and says. Try to remember the exact words she uses, and the tone.

The purpose of this is to try to superimpose your sense impressions over your knowledge, to edge out what you believe you know about her, in order to begin knowing her anew. And part of it is to give you something else to do other than fighting for control. It may have a calming effect; as you work to observe and be there in the moment, and as you fight off your habitual responses, refusing to say the regular things you say, the things you have learned to say over the years to avoid confrontation, you may find that you are not quite as upset. You will be getting some distance. The object is to try to neither control her nor be controlled by her.

So when you speak with her, be noncommittal; neither agree nor disagree with the assertions she makes. Say that you are not sure, that you will have to think about it. Do not argue with her, but do not agree, either. If she invites you somewhere, say you’re not sure, you will have to check your calendar. What you are doing here is wedging in some resistance, carving out a little space for yourself, for some autonomy. As you do this, take notice of what you feel, and how she reacts. Does she seem to grow angry if you do not agree with her? Does she grow argumentative? And do you feel fearful and awkward? That’s fine if you do; you’re in new territory. Just take careful note of what you’re feeling, and what she says and does.

The reason I suggest that you stop understanding her is not because it’s bad to understand why people do what they do. It’s because I think the view that we do what we do because of things that happened long ago has, at times, allowed us to remove ourselves from our more basic emotions and instincts about how others are treating us; if we can say I understand, I sympathize, we feel that we are acting in a correct way toward someone whom in actuality we may simply dislike, or whose behavior we disapprove of. The reason for understanding the roots of our behavior is not to relieve individuals of responsibility, but to give them the tools to change. It’s so we can see the irrationality and inappropriateness of our actions more clearly, and let go of them more easily.

So though you have been very kind, you haven’t been doing her any favors by being understanding and sympathetic. In fact, since she has been in therapy, she probably knows what she is doing but needs some help in changing it, in noticing the exact moments when it’s occurring. So I suggest that you do that. I don’t mean attack her. I just mean: Take note of specific things she does that you do not approve of. These should be things that directly affect you, not your husband or anyone else. These should be things she does to you directly that you want her to stop doing.

Then it’s time for a long drive and a chat, like they do on “The Sopranos.” But take note: If this scene ends with her bullet-riddled body in the trunk of your car, you misunderstood my advice. Just take a long, relaxing drive, just you and her, out in the country somewhere. Driving makes it easier to talk sometimes. Pull over somewhere and have a picnic, or park where there are things to look at. Tell her first of all that you love her but that you haven’t been satisfied with the relationship you’ve had up till now and you want to put it on a new footing.

Now, if you’ve done your homework, if you’ve identified exactly the things you’re feeling when she comes over to your house, you can tell her these things: that you’re feeling out of control when she walks in the door, that last time she came over you felt your schedule was disrupted, that you’ve wanted to say no or place limits on when you are available but haven’t done it for fear that she would be offended, that you’ve made certain decisions that were then overruled and you felt overlooked or ignored or stepped on, that you’ve been angry with her at times but haven’t expressed it and now you feel it’s been all stored up inside and it’s eating away at you. Keep the focus on your feelings and not her behavior. Because what you want is an agreement that it’s OK for you to tell her how you’re feeling. You don’t want to start accusing her of things right away. You just want to tell her how you feel about them.

Be very careful to tell her only things that are true and concrete, not vague and generalized.

Since she’s been in therapy, she’s probably acquainted with the basic outline of her personality, and the things you tell her may ring true. She probably knows she has a pattern of stepping over boundaries until somebody stops her. She may feel relieved. You may find that she’s been waiting for this moment, that she’s known things are uncomfortable but didn’t know how to broach the subject with you. So she will probably be able to talk about these things. And if the going is rough, if you think it would be helpful, it probably wouldn’t be hard to arrange a session with her therapist as intermediary.

But first, give it a try on your own.

And if after a year things haven’t changed, do what a friend of mine suggests: move.

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Want more advice from Cary? Read the Since You Asked Directory

I know she loved me more than anything, and she sacrificed a lot to try to give me a good life, but as a kid, I felt as if I was battling her alcoholism for her. I would constantly find single-serving wine bottles stuffed between couch cushions, and it was an almost nightly occurrence for her to drink herself to sleep, leaving the house a mess and me to throw away the empty bottles and rinse out the glasses she would leave next to the couch. After she would go to bed, it was usually a coin flip whether or not she would rise from her sleep to stalk around the house staring blindly at everything and shouting incoherently. More than once she, thoroughly drunk, thought I was a burglar and tried to attack me. The first time this happened I was 11, and in her mind she had gone back in time and thought I was going to steal her baby (me). She nearly strangled me.

What made my childhood much easier was the fact that I had grandparents nearby who did not seem to struggle with alcoholism or poverty or depression. They were good people who seemed to rise above all the stupidity we are capable of. In fact they helped my mother make ends meet on a few occasions, and they always seemed to come to the rescue when we were in a jam. I felt more often than not that my grandparents were like my real parents, and my mother was like some big crazy sister who loved me a lot but was still trying to figure things out.

And from a young age, the lesson they kept quietly teaching me was that alcoholism was a demon in our family. It ran in our blood, and had ruined cousins, uncles and sisters. And the best way to avoid this fate was not to start at all.

And for my part I promised myself that I would never drink, or smoke, or do drugs.

And I never did.

A lot of people may not believe me, but I have never so much as sipped a beer, or taken a drag from a cigarette. And there is my problem. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t drink, and I feel like I’ve put myself in this box where I will never drink.

This was fine for my early 20s, and in some ways I felt superior for not having blown hundreds of dollars at the bars, or woken up with hangovers, or been so drunk I couldn’t remember what happened to me. I have always been in control of my life, and that is something I take pride in.

But I also feel like there is this whole side to life that I may be missing out on, and that maybe I should relax these rules I’ve created for myself. I feel that a lot of people can’t relate to the fact I don’t drink, and I also would sometimes really like to be able to have a beer with my friends and be their equal, and not this always-sober outsider. A few weeks ago at a champagne brunch with friendly strangers who didn’t know I don’t drink, the waiter poured me a glass of champagne, and when they toasted I held it up and looked at it for a long time before I realized my wife was staring at me.

What to do?

Dear What to Do,

Testing yourself for alcoholism is like testing yourself for flammability. You’re probably not. But what if you are?

“Given the fact that alcohol-dependence seems highly heritable,” why take the risk?

Why not instead ask what needs alcohol might satisfy, and then find other ways to satisfy those same needs? Why not seek safe, life-enhancing alternatives to drinking? Why not read Abraham Maslow and design your life around the quest for peak experiences?

We raise our glasses and drink ceremonially to sanctify some event or passage. We all drink from the same bottle. By imbibing the same drink, we are joined; it is a kind of sacrament. You can mime the gestures but something pulls you to fully engage. Of course it does. This is not just about getting a little champagne in your mouth. It is a powerful ritual.

My suggestion is to find even better ways, more direct, honest and compelling ways to have this same ritual bonding and expression of shared esteem and purpose. I suggest you make this a lifelong pursuit. Make it a way of undoing for good the perhaps multigenerational history of alcoholism in your family.

This way, if those who dispute the role of genes in alcoholism are correct, and behavioral factors are more important, then you will still be doing something to eradicate certain behaviors that were leading to case after case of alcoholism. You will be finding something that members of your family have a particular need for, and satisfying that need.

Look for something that seems cool but not too cool, something you’ve always wanted to do, something you’re drawn to, that’s maybe a little outside your normal range but not totally kooky and weird.

For instance, it may be possible to participate in the ecstatic communality of a sweat lodge. I don’t know. Maybe a sweat lodge would be too weird for you. I don’t know how much facial hair you have, or what your body mass index is. I’m just saying, identify the underlying principle and then find something that suits your social tastes.

That there are things wrong in the world, that there are things so awful in this world that knowledge of them drives us to want to blot them out of consciousness. Read today’s piece by Noam Chomsky, for instance, for a reminder of how thinly “normal American life” veils our history of brutal atrocities.

How are you supposed to think about these things and not feel as though you are going mad? How are you supposed to have a conscience and not feel trapped by history? How are you to take all this in, as a young person? How to reconcile knowledge of evil done in one’s name with the innocent desire to believe in one’s country, to identify with one’s countrymen, to feel strong and patriotic and confident about the future?

These, too, are legitimate questions. So, my friend, I urge you to take seriously the genetic and environmental risk factors for alcoholism, and actively seek ways to have ecstatic experiences in this insane world without killing yourself. Adopt adaptive behaviors that don’t make things worse.

I like to do things that are stressful to the kidneys such as drink coffee, get drunk now and then, trip on plants that are metabolized by the kidneys and liver (this is part of my spiritual practice). Do I say nothing and hope that, come March when she’s testing possible donors, we are not a match? Or do I strain the friendship by admitting to her that I have misgivings about my promise?

Willing Initially

Dear Willing Initially,

You did a good thing. You offered to help.

You may or may not be a compatible donor. But you said these words out of a genuine spirit of generosity and kindness. This is a pretty amazing thing about human beings — that we are inclined toward helping each other. It’s a good thing.

It may turn out that you are a match, but it’s statistically unlikely. “In the case of cousins, your chance of being identical is 1 in 16. In the case of a friend, then your chances vary depending on how common your HLA is,” according to this helpful booklet from Stanford’s Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

In either case, having second thoughts doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. To donate a kidney is a big thing and it’s natural to have second thoughts. So wait until it’s time for all the potential donors to be screened, and get screened, and then deal with it once you know if you’re a potential donor.

This question and answer page from the University of Maryland Medical Center is very informative. As is this one. 

Give yourself some credit. You spoke out of an impulse toward compassion and selflessness.

If you are indeed a match and you can’t go through with it, no one will fault you for it. But your initial impulse shows you have within you the capacity to help. It’s a precious thing. Think of the worldwide effect of such impulses, if they were carried out millions of times over. Think of the things we could solve if we honored these selfless impulses and our societies were organized to realize them. Think how much needless suffering could be stopped.

You say you use psychedelic plants as part of your spiritual practice. Perhaps one of these trips you can inquire of your spirit guides what is the right thing to do. But you needn’t decide yet. Wait. More will be revealed.

I am very eager to have babies with the man I love. With us now moving, kids are on the back burner because we won’t have health insurance until one of us lands a job with benefits. We had been trying to get pregnant until the decision to move was made because I have decent benefits with my current hateful job. (One of the reasons I haven’t quit, the other main one being that I’m trying to hold this job out till we can move.) I really want kids soon; I have wanted to be a mother since I was 5. But the stress of life and my failing body seem to want other things for me. I had injured my back at work and now am in physiotherapy to heal it, yet I’m still obligated to work my full shifts. Those eight-hour shifts literally drain me. I haven’t had a period in 3.5 months (my doctor insists it’s stress-related). And most recently, my pap test came back with abnormal cells on my cervix. No further tests have been done, but my doctor thinks my back, lack of period and abnormal cells are at least partly because of too much stress. Hard not to be stressed when all these symptoms have made me worry and fret even more about never being able to have children! The more that I worry, the more stressed my body becomes. The more symptoms of the stress I experience, the more I worry. (A huge catch-22.) One of my worst fears is to end up being barren.

On to my other issue. My fiancé and I both smoke marijuana regularly. I will note here that we do not smoke cigarettes at all, nor do we drink alcohol very often. Although I have heard that it can prevent couples from conceiving, I only “slowed it down” when we were trying to get pregnant. My fiancé seems to have his usage under control. He is able to use on a part-time basis and not every evening and every weekend. I am a different story altogether. I use (abuse) marijuana for stress. I rush to get home after work to have the bad memories of the day dissolve into higher thoughts. I am not high at work, but evenings and weekends are full of my usage. It’s the way I’ve taught myself to deal. Although I don’t think marijuana is an “evil drug” that “leads to other drug usage,” I know that I am misusing it. I have never felt the need to try any other drug (besides alcohol and caffeine). But I barely even notice the effects any more. Despite that, I can’t imagine quitting it altogether. I know that if I were pregnant I would not smoke at all, because there is another human being involved who would be affected by it.

But without marijuana, how would I deal with life’s stress? Plus there is some part of me that feels like marijuana is not bad. You ought to know that in my family, a few other people smoke marijuana. My aunt and cousin probably use it once daily, and my mom and brother once or twice a week, and my dad on occasion. While they never permitted any drug usage as a teenager, I found out and smoked with family after turning 19. Obviously this is a huge part of the reason why I can’t seem to convince myself that marijuana is “bad.”

This new city will not have any marijuana contacts for my fiancé and me, and it is my plan to stop smoking when we move. But really, I don’t want to stop at all, and I feel like I’m lying to myself by thinking that a new city will stop me from finding a way to do it. Plus, my fiancé is moving first, and we will be apart for a month (we’ve never been apart for longer than 10 days in the past four years). I know that with him gone, I will want to smoke even more. Especially because I feel like I want to get as much smoking in before I “can’t” anymore.

I know several people who use marijuana more than I do and who firmly believe that no one can get addicted to it. I guess I’m not so sure about this, but I would like to believe it because then I’m just a hippie and not an addict. I worry about the usage affecting the physiotherapy on my back, but since we aren’t trying to get pregnant, I still smoke whenever I want to. My fiancé knows that I smoke too much, he knows that I KNOW that I smoke too much too. But month after month he still brings it home for us. I have tried to quit before, asking him to keep it all hidden and out of sight. This always fails, because I will find it and sneak some or bug and bug him to get it out of hiding for me.

I don’t think I can stop until he stops bringing it into the house and we get rid of all the marijuana paraphernalia that is around our place. If my fiancé doesn’t want to quit with me, I would be disappointed. But as long as he kept everything out of our house and cars, I think I could do it. I really do want children in the long run and better physiotherapy results in the short term. What do I do?

Moving and Shaking

Dear Moving and Shaking,

You are using marijuana to relieve stress.

Stress is your problem. Whether you stop smoking marijuana or not, you need to learn more and better ways to relieve stress.

Start doing tai chi; start doing yoga; meditate; take naps; breathe deeply a lot; do biofeedback. If you are doing any of these activities already, don’t conclude that since you’re doing it a little it must not work. Instead, do it more.

You may need higher doses of yoga to get relief. Also, if you are consuming lots of caffeine, see about cutting back. Try substituting some herbal teas for caffeinated beverages now and then. Notice the difference. Especially in the afternoon, cut out the caffeine so you can get a better night’s sleep.

You will notice things about yourself this way. You will notice the different qualities of consciousness that arise from various techniques. It will be entertaining and interesting. You will notice a gradual improvement in your ability to go through life in a relaxed, worry-free way. Unpleasant activities like work and dealing with power-hungry blockheads will go more smoothly.

During this time, you might want to experiment with not smoking for a time. Pick an occasional time when you are stressed out, and instead of smoking, do 15 minutes of meditation, or some tai chi or yoga.

Don’t try to quit all at once, especially not on your own. Just learn some better relaxation techniques. Take it easy. Look for gradual improvement.

Once you’ve found other ways to relieve stress, you may not feel so fearful about the idea of quitting marijuana for good. Try going without for a few days at a time and see how that goes. You can always smoke. But experience what it’s like to handle life without it. Try to get accustomed to that feeling. You may feel slightly on edge, but take a deep breath of fresh air instead of a hit of weed.

The thing is, whether you call yourself an addict or not, changing habitual behavior is hard, and it’s especially hard to do alone. It’s hard to do without a program. It takes time, effort and support, and there are ups and downs. So I wouldn’t recommend trying to stop smoking marijuana on your own, or just with your fiancé.

As you say, for a variety of reasons, you are going to want to quit. So what I’m suggesting is that you prepare, in these ways, for the day when you will need to quit. I’m sure marijuana gives you other things besides stress relief; it probably gives you a heightened sense of the beauty of life, of tastes and sounds, and of general well-being. These things you may need to seek out in life; I find that there are other ways to feel these momentary highs. Seek them out.

For quitting things, as you probably know, I favor the 12-step method because it has added benefits: It helps you get your life together and is a lasting program of living. It is a community. It works for a lot of things.

When and how you quit is up to you. I can say that based on experience, it is definitely possible. You can quit and lead a normal, happy life, when you’re ready to. My bottom line is just that A) You should acquire new stress-relief methods first, before trying to quit, and B) what was B? Oh yeah, B) Don’t try to quit on your own. If and when you do decide to quit, do it with a group or a program behind you.

And, hey: Good luck. You sound like really nice people and I wish you the best in life. And say hello to the kids when they come. And say hello to the mountains.

Yeah, I know this isn’t all my fault, that it takes two to make a bad relationship, and all that. And certainly there are women — most of them — who wouldn’t even look my way. Great for them. But for those who are willing to look my way, don’t I have a basic human obligation to keep them safe from my horribleness and inevitable failures? Without exception I say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing or just collapse.

So. Given that I contribute nothing to the world but disappointment and misery, and I can’t control my desire for companionship and attention, shouldn’t I just kill myself? Isn’t that the moral thing to do at this point?

A Dangerous Nothing

Dear Dangerous Nothing,

You, my friend, are exactly perfect the way you are. You’re not a moron!

Look on the bright side: You have a technique. Don’t wait to show her your bumbling, fumbling, weak and incompetent side.  Spill your soup on her now! On the first date. Roll your car over your own foot and have her take you to the emergency room. Come out of the bathroom with tape all over your face. Why? Because a person with tape all over his face looks funny!

It’ll break the ice. She’ll thank you for it!

Pour it on  about what a loser you are! That’ll get her going about how you just have low self-esteem and you’re being too hard on yourself.

If you are asking women to marry you and promising to fly them in your private jet to your villa in Portugal and saying you’ll pick them up at 8 o’clock sharp the next morning and then you are not showing up, then women are going to bed thinking about your private jet and then not getting to ride in it. That’s bad.

You should slap yourself in the face once very hard if you are doing that. Then you should force yourself to sell your imaginary private jet at a loss of millions of imaginary dollars.

But killing yourself wouldn’t make any sense at all, and it wouldn’t make anyone happy, not even you.

Besides, there are worse people.

Thanks!

Dear Cary,

Hmmm. I won’t write this like a writer, more like the utterly confused person I am. I’ll sum up. I’ve been with BF/husband (I didn’t want to get married, he did) 15 years. He came with three daughters, all filling pages of the DSM. One is bipolar, one BDP, one ADHD etc., etc. At the time I was 30 and had just lost both my parents very suddenly, I was making a lot of money, had inherited some and was really trying to pretend nothing had happened. We were great. I still think he’s the funniest human I’ve ever met and that we share that thing all good couples do: We think we’re better than everyone else. Fast forward. His insecurity has dogged us from the beginning. Had I been more aware and noticing, I would likely have run.

Three years ago we lost our dog. He was our child. The one thing we had together. It was bone cancer and it was awful. It probably triggered for me the memory of losing my parents so quickly — I went a little nuts. I had an affair, I left, I ended the affair. I was so fucking sad I couldn’t stand it. I drank a lot.

Meanwhile, I’m a writer. Literary, but not totally insignificant. I’ve been sober for about four months, and working desperately to finish this new book I have due.

A week ago I learned that he was setting me up, saying, “Your phone rang and it was a blocked number, is there anything you want to tell me?” All this involves cappuccino and serious face. When I realized he was making it all up, I lost my mind.

I can’t take it anymore. Every day is a prosecution. There’s more, of course. A lot. I tiptoe around him, he’s angry most of the time and his three grown daughters don’t want to talk to him without a therapist in the room. He’s brilliant and tricky and there is no way to win. I can’t fill the black hole anymore.

And why now, besides the obvious? I’m sober, I’m working, this book is good … why would he tear it out from under me? I know it’s not conscious, but it’s incredibly twisted.

I love him, and we were better than everyone else, but he’s killing me. Dead.

Tormented

Dear Tormented,

You’re four months sober. You’re going to have to take this on faith. Nothing else matters. Nothing is going to be the way it was. There is nothing to do but stay sober. This other stuff will get sorted out later.

Four months sober is its own special condition. It may manifest as confusion or certainty, clarity or dullness, energy or lethargy, high or low, but it is an edge; it is a liminal state out of which a strange future is being born.

You can afford to slow down now and not try to figure everything out or fix everything. It wouldn’t help anyway. Your old fixes won’t work. Well, they might seem to work for a while, but the point is that you need to abandon them because they will not lead you where you have to go now.

No matter whether you finish the book or don’t finish the book, stay married or get divorced, as long as this sobriety goes on day after day you are going to reclaim your life, your childhood, your spirit. You are going to see and feel things that were formerly only a dull buzz or murmur. These dull murmurs of being will provide the sinews of a new construct. It will not be the you that you envisioned when you were busy envisioning yourself. It will be different. But it will be authentic and thus suffused with the energy of life.

Imagine looking at what your husband is doing and not needing to do anything about it.

You will shed many illusions. You will shed the illusion of being better than the rest of us — beneath which has secretly lain the illusion that you are worse than us. These troubling illusions of separateness and hierarchy will go away and you will be reunited with humanity on an even footing.

Guard your sobriety as you would guard your life.

Your husband and others will attempt to get back the old you who would engage their craziness. Observe this from a safe distance. Don’t engage their craziness. Stay safe in your four months of sobriety. Finish the book. Take long walks.

Your husband has lost you. You are no longer entertaining him in his madness. So he is reaching out to you. He is trying to get you back.

Don’t go there. You will just have to stand firm.

Guard your sobriety as you would guard your life. Finish your book. Take long walks. It will start to make sense.