drama with my girlfriend's sister

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Question:  Every time I go to my girlfriend's house her sister goes out of her way to start shit with me.  She picks at me with little comments about anything from my appearance to the college I go to.  I've tried ignoring it, and I've tried using humor to spar back with her, but she will leave the room crying and it leads to fights between my girlfriend and I.  I do not know what I ever did to this girl, I don't think it is jealousy because she has her own boyfriend who she has been dating for three years.  I just need this to stop because it is leading to a lot of tension between my girlfriend and I and It has gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable at her house.  

Answer:  Get curious and be direct.  Using humor is often a good way to deflect tension and still be assertive about an issue but you have to be very delicate with it or you can come off looking like the bad guy.  Rather than asking sarcastically what her problem is, become honestly curious about her and what is going on, eventually she will be able to tell the difference.  

For example if you were to walk into the house and she said something like "Great Bob's here, another evening ruined."  You could try to make a clever quip to make her look like a moron but that would give her an opportunity to be the victim.  If instead you just said, "Wow, that was pretty mean.  Is there something I can do to fix the way you feel about that?"

Her likely response will be something flip and trite like "try leaving" but you just persevere in the nicest-most- curious-dorkiest way possible and say "Well I'm not going to leave but I honestly don't want to bother you if you think of how we can fix this let me know."

This method of taking control of the situation without anger will make her more uncomfortable with her behavior than you are.  For some reason she doesn't like you and she wants to drive a wedge between you and your girlfriend.  When you react with anger she wins.

Ultimately you do want to ask her, one on one, either in a letter or in person what the problem really is. You should not hide your desire to confront the issue with you girlfriend but do not be surprised if she councils you to just ignore it.  

If her sister is the drama queen of the family your girlfriend is probably the peacemaker and has learned to survive by not stepping on the land mines that her sister leaves around.  She may even see her sister as a loving protector.  Rather than trying to drive a wedge between your girlfriend and her sister you want to do the opposite so you can get by the defenses and figure out what is really going on here.

When people are behaving irrationally they are afraid of something (if they are not totally insane).  If you girlfriend's sister is insane or a has a fixed and unchanging awful personality that will eventually become clear to both you and your girlfriend as long as you react positively to her.  

We must assume, however, that your girlfriend's sister has some fear with regard to you.  Perhaps your girlfriend was cheated on by a previous boyfriend and her sister wants to look out for her.  In order to extinguish the negative reactions to you we must determine what her fear is and help her see that you are not going to be a problem.  

It will be hard for her to react negatively if you approach her by saying something like "Listen, I know you love your sister very much and want what is best for her.  For some reason you seem to think that isn't me.  I want to find out from you what the problem is so we can move past it because I'm sure we both just want (your girlfriend) to be happy and the tension between us is upsetting her." 

Good luck and I will cross my fingers that she isn't simply a nut.  

domestic violence at neighbors?

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Question:  My wife and I live in a building where the walls between apartments are not that thick.  Recently a family moved in next door and they have a kid (maybe 5) and a baby.  From time to time we would hear crying through the walls but we figured, babies cry and little kids cry when they don't get what they want.  We would sometimes hear shouting and once or twice something would pound against the wall.  I wanted to do something but I never saw any bruises on the wife or the kids.  Things never went on for more than a minute or two and it wasn't super loud.  How do I know when to get involved and when it is just a family being a family and having some fights?  

Answer:  If it made you uncomfortable there was something wrong with it.  If your neighbor's smoke alarm was going off or their music was too loud you would get up and go knock on the door.  If you are ever worried about a person do not hesitate to be a good neighbor and offer assistance. 

If there is nothing going on they will more than likely seem sheepish, apologize for the noise or explain what was happening.  If they get highly defensive, back off and make sure you are safe.  If you feel threatened or something just seems fishy report the situation to the police.

Many people are afraid that if they stick their noses into something they will only make it worse for the wife/children who might be in an abusive situation.  It is possible that drawing attention to the situation might make things worse that night or in the short term but ultimately it was going to get worse anyway and at least by investigating you are opening the door to possible relief.  

Sexism, Racism, Hetero-sexism, Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, none of these things will ever get better as long as the perpetrators are able to make well meaning people feel more ashamed and uncomfortable than they are.  

We direct our attention to victims/survivors but we really need to direct our energy toward engaging bystanders, good people like you, and encouraging them to take that next step.  Reach out, get to know your neighbor.  Maybe nothing is wrong and they will turn out to be great people.  Maybe nothing is wrong and they will turn out to be weirdo's who borrow your hair dryer and never give it back.  The point is if you think something is wrong and you do nothing then you are complicit in keeping the violence going.  There are no innocent bystanders!  A lost hairdryer or an awkward conversation is a small price to pay for potentially saving a life.

Please take 2 minutes and watch this U-Tube video which expresses the problem better than I ever could. 

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  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW30WslahMc

What if I can't enjoy sex while sober

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Question:  I love my boyfriend, he is awesome, he treats me well and he is really cute.  We have been dating for almost two years and we are really comfortable together.  The problem is our sex kinda stinks.  I used to really enjoy sex and get into it and especially lately I feel like I'm just waiting for him to be done.  I debate faking an orgasm just so he will finish faster and then I feel guilty.  I thought about it and I can't remember ever really enjoying sex when I wasn't drunk or high.  I think then I could just feel it, but now I find myself thinking about other things and I can't shut my brain off.  I think about how fat I look or I wonder if he is thinking about other girls.  If I am going to spend my life with this guy something needs to change.  I want to enjoy sex again, but I'm afraid to tell him how I'm feeling and it just isn't practical for me to get drunk or high every time we are going to make love. 

Answer:  Self conscious:  to be aware of one's self.  Doesn't sound like a bad thing but the goal of sex, good sex at least, is to fuse two I's into one and allow feeling overtake our minds.  In the past you used drugs and alcohol to push the mind out of the equation but they create their own barriers.  The best sex of your life is ahead of you not behind, but you must first learn to get excited about your self and your body, and then teach your boyfriend what works best for you to heighten the experience.  

Fake it till you make it is a common phrase used in addictions treatment.  It does not mean that you should pretend to be sober, it means that before you really believe that change is possible you have to embrace it with your mind and live as if you did believe it.

When having sex with your boyfriend do not fake orgasms as that is only likely to keep the same negative patterns going.  Do move and breathe as if really enjoyable sex is possible for you and it is more likely to be achieved.  As you increase your heart rate and blood flow to your erogenous zones you become more likely to orgasm.

Since many women never orgasm through vaginal penetration use foreplay or post play to help you get off.  If you define successful sex only as when both of you climax near the same time you are putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on.  Change your definition to make successful sex any sex or play that you enjoy and wish to have more of.

If you have had a problem with him lasting too long and wishing he was done get him closer to climax when you begin and this will be less of  an issue. Many young men have been fooled by the porn industry into believing that all women want their man to just pound away as hard as they can for 90 minutes or more.  That leads to a lot of sore pubic areas and chaffing and not a lot of satisfaction for the gals.

If you feel comfortable enough consider masturbating with your boyfriend so he can see what really does get you off.  Most men want nothing more than to be a successful lover and if you suggest things in a positive way he will not be offended.

For example, if you say "I hate being on top because you make me do all the work and I don't like to look down at my body" the typical man will try to convince you that you look fine and that he will do more work.

If what you want is to try a different position focus on the positive you want to see by saying something like, "I can't wait to see you, I've been thinking all day about you and me in the dark with you (pick position/activity/idea)."  By framing things positively your man will be excited to learn and you are more likely to lose yourself in the experience.

Drugs and alcohol are not the key to having good sex.  The keys are trust, communication, and enthusiasm.  We know that we don't need a partner to get off so if  having your partner in the room is more of a barrier than an aid in achieving orgasm then we must change the trust level and the expectations. 

Should girlfriends taste like smoke?

Question:  I have been seeing this girl for the past 6 months that I am deeply in love with. We get along great, if we ever have a problem we bring it up to each other in a peaceful calm manner and solve it there and then. Lately I think she has been smoking because whenever I kiss her, her mouth tastes like an ash tray. I've hinted her whenever we're in conversation that smoking is gross and very unattractive to me and she agrees with me but she still tastes like it sometimes when we kiss. First time I noticed this I asked her if she was smoking and she seemed to take a little offense to it and said no. On occasion it continues. Her mother does the same thing with smoking and acting like she doesn't. What should I do? I don't want to seem like a controlling boyfriend by saying don't do it but I do want it to stop because I feel like shes lying to me.


Answer:  Take a second to think about this from her perspective. Either one of two things is happening, she is an occasional smoker and likes smoking and wants to keep doing it, but she also knows you don't approve and are unlikely to be convinced that it is okay. Or she doesn't smoke and occasionally for some reason she just has bad breath.


Either way you are accusing her of something uncomfortable and she has no way to win. If she is a smoker and she is honest with you she is either going to have to lose smoking or lose you (well maybe not lose you but deal with your disapproval). If she is not a smoker well then that is just awkward.



Is smoking a deal breaker for you? Is bad breath? Is honesty?



Assume that she is smoking and put yourself in her shoes and imagine how you would like her to react. Then pretend she is not smoking and ask yourself the same question.



Ultimately you will need to have a very direct conversation with her. No beating around the bush about how you don't like smoking generally, but the next time you feel like you taste it you need to say (you can also do this in letter format)



"Hey we need to talk. I'm really confused because I feel like there are times when I keep tasting smoke when we kiss. Part of me wants to believe you that you don't smoke and I feel like a jerk for bringing this up if it is just some odd dental condition, but when I see the way your Mom hides her smoking it makes me wonder. I hope you realize how much I love you and that if you did feel the need to smoke from time to time it would be so much more important to me that you were honest about it than the issue of whether or not you did it. I am not saying you were lying to me before but I try to put myself in your shoes and I feel like I would have made it pretty hard for you to be honest if you had been smoking when I went on and on about how much I disapproved of it. I want to have a long relationship with you and smoking is not a deal breaker with me, but trust and honesty are. Also nice breath is pretty important. If I ever have smoky, galic, onion, pretzel or any other kind of unpleasant taste in my mouth I really want you to tell me so I can chew some gum or get a mint or something. I want your permission to bring this up to you if I notice it. To be honest I kinda hope you have been smoking because that will be a lot easier to fix than if this is some kind of stomach condition. More importantly I hope we can both be open and honest with each other about the little things and you never feel like you have to hide something from me.



Or tell her something like that. The main idea is whatever is wrong with the taste in her mouth you get rid of it and you lay the ground work for her to be honest in the future. It is unlikely if she has been smoking that she is just going to come right out and admit it, but she might if she would prefer you think that than she just has smoky gross mouth. Believe it or not I have seen people lose multi-year relationships over stuff as little as oral hygine when the one partner tried to just drop hints and wait for it to get better. If you like this girl you owe it to her and the relationship to be more direct.

Am I a rapist?

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Question:  I have been kinda seeing this girl at my school for a couple months.  She made it clear she has a serious boyfriend back home and while she does not mind fooling around she did not want to have sex.  This weekend there was a party at my fraternity and after some drinking and dancing we came up to my room.  I will admit that I let her know how dissapointed I was that she would not sleep with me after we had done just about everything else and she had gotten off.  She asked me if I had a condom and we ended up having sex and I could tell that she was really into it.  I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of her crying and she refused to talk to me about it.  The next morning she left early without saying goodbye.  Now I feel like the worlds biggest asshole.  I know we had both been drinking but she was not drunk and I did not force her to do anything but I still feel awful.  I never wanted to be anyone's regret.  Since she had been drinking does this make me a rapist?  

Answer:  I honestly don't know as I have no way of gauging her state of mind or level of intoxication. I highly doubt you will be prosecuted but it does not sound like that is your primary concern.  

A simple rule of thumb for deciding on whether or not to have sex with a person is if both parties would probably not consent to it if they were stone sober and not aroused, DON'T DO IT.  I know this is a utopian ideal and I have worked with a large number of college students who have never had sex sober, but if your goal is to never again be someone's regret I suggest you stick to this standard.

NO MEANS NO is just a starting point.  So many young men believe if they do not hear NO, or they are able to manipulate or titillate a yes out of their partner then they are all good.  That is a lot of bullshit!  I have worked with victims of sexual abuse who are unable to vocalize anything when they are in a sexual situation.  A young man could easily rape and traumatize such a girl without ever having any idea that something was wrong if he was using the No means No standard.  

Never lay down with anyone that you would not like to wake up with and have breakfast.  If all you are searching for is an orgasm then you are fully capable of finding one of those all by yourself and no one has to feel used or degraded.

It sounds like you need to find this girl as soon as possible and have a conversation with her.  She may never want to see your face again, or more likely, she is blaming herself a lot more than she blames you.  The point is not about assigning blame it is about establishing where you go from here.  Whether or not you wish to pursue a romatic relationship with this girl it seems clear that you care about her feelings.  She needs to know that and be validated that she and her feelings matter, because this weekend you sent a signal that they didn't. 

I'd like to tell you that because you did not intend to harm her that you don't need to feel bad about what you did, but as they old saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."  You are responsible for the results of your actions no matter what your intentions were.  

The best thing you can do right now is take responsibility, and express your regret and her importance.  More importantly do everything in your power to help your fraternity brothers and male friends understand that NO MEANS NO is just a place to start.  They and hundreds of girls will be forever in your debt. 

How do I explain my depression?

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Question:  I can't win.  Every fall I start to get depressed and it happens at other times in the year.  Sometimes I just need to cry or be sad but my boyfriend feels like a failure if I'm not happy.  My parents think I'm just a drama queen because when I'm with my friends or my boyfriend I can be happy and laughing but then when it is time to get out of bed for school sometimes I just can't do it.  My boyfriend wants me to tell him how I"m feeling and I want to be honest with him, but then we fight because I don't want to hear a pep talk, I just want him to be there and love me.  How do I get them all to understand that this is real and I can't help it, but it isn't anybody's fault or job to fix it? Sometimes I just need to cry and be sad for awhile. 

Answer:  Psycho-education for families and friends is the most overlooked part of successful mental health treatment.  As a therapist usually my first job is to get my client to understand what you just said:  This is a disease, it isn't about fault and it isn't about fixing it, it is about learning to manage the symptoms and get on with your life.  This process usually takes me a couple of years so that fact that you are already there is a great sign.

There are four methods I would suggest to get the people you care about to understand what you need and what you don't:  direct conversation, writing them a letter, conversation with a third party, book or movie. 

If you are going to use any of the first three methods your first step is figuring out what you want and planning how you want to go into the conversation/explanation.  The format I suggest is:  1.)  Tell them what you are feeling 2.) identify what you think is triggering that feeling 3.) tell them what you are afraid will happen as a result of the conversation/letter 4.) tell them what you hope will happen next (with concrete examples of what you would like them to do instead of what they have been doing).   

When dealing with men conversations often go off the rails when talking about feelings because the man often wants the feelings to make sense (which feelings are not obliged to do), and/or because he has not been given direct instructions on what he is supposed to DO.  When men do not have an action plan they get nervous, especially if there is a crying woman in the room.  If you give your boyfriend a manual and tell him what his role is in helping you he is likely to be more relaxed and follow instructions. 

I generally suggest writing a letter which you then read aloud or have a trusted friend check for potential land mines that will cause the reader to be defensive.  After you have given the letter and time for the reader to digest follow up with a conversation for clarification. 

Sometimes past arguments and relationships represent a block to communication.  Perhaps your parents cannot take information coming from their daughter seriously.  In these cases if you are working with a therapist it is a great idea to get them involved for a joint session where they help explain what is going on for you.  Sometimes that masters degree will make the same words that you already used sound more real to a parent or boyfriend. 

Finally if you have read a book, seen a movie, or even heard a song which really captures the way you feel, try to expose the person to that media.  Sometimes Hollywood does a much better job than we ever could in explaining the way we are feeling, and while most guys are not rushing out to rent "Girl Interrupted" if you ask your man to watch it with you, he probably will. 

None of these people can know what it feels like inside you, even if they have dealt with depression themselves.  They don't need to know and if they are lucky they will never have to.  They do need to be educated, however, that even if there is no reason for them your feelings are real and they matter.  If they want you to be as healthy as possible they will not question your feelings or make you feel bad for having them, they will just support you in the way that works best for you. 

Boss, Mentor or Friend?

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Question:  I am a manager of a major chain retail store and I take my role as a mentor to my employees very seriously.  One of my employees is a warm charismatic guy but he tends to make terrible impulsive decisions.  He regularly came to me for advice and has probably been more candid than he should have been about his past legal history, drug use, and adventures with women.  As a result when he told me he was dating a co-worker 8 years his junior and asked me what I thought of it, I was honest with him that it seemed kinda creepy to me.  Since this conversation he has been distant, dishonest with me on more than one occasion and I'm worried about him.  I feel like I'm doing a bad job of balancing the roles of manager, mentor, and friend and I don't know what I can do to help him but still remain honest and professional.  Any ideas? 

Answer:  The hardest thing about managing any of these roles is telling people what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear.   A worse manager or friend would have given him a big thumbs up and then told the girl to run for the hills.  

To help keep your priorities in order remember that you cannot be a mentor to him or anyone if you lose your job for running the store poorly or allowing employees to conduct themselves in a way that will open the business up to risk or liability.

As long as his jugement is poor but it is limited to his personal life then you should stay out of it unless he invites you in.  In this case he did and he was dissapointed with your response.  That is a risk we all face in any time we ask for advice when we are really just looking for a rubber stamp of approval on our questionable behaviors.

If your employee really has a tendency to make poor impulsive decisions no one can help him until he determines what his passion is.  Many people have a hard time delaying gratification.  How can you get yourself to wait through the bad times if you don't believe any good times are on the way? So to brighten up your life you smoke some weed, do some coke, have unprotected sex...

The problems with these diversions are obvious even to the people who do them but you cannot take a coping skill (even an unhealthy one) away without replacing it with something else. the key is to get him to replace it with something healthy and positive that gives him a good feeling on a very frequent basis.

The best advice for someone who is feeling down and depressed is for him to get active helping others. This can take him out of his self centered and self defeating behaviors. Helping out with animals, feeding people at a homeless shelter, doing anything that helps him to realize many people have it worse than he does, is a good first step.



Ultimately all you can do is offer these suggestions and allow him to take them or leave them.  As a manager you can directly confront the fact that he has been acting differently toward you since your conversation and you can express you concern for him but after that the ball is in his court.  

Do not be surprised if he continues to lie to you and if he steals from your store.  When he lies to you, especially about little stupid stuff that you probably wouldn't even care about, it is probably not you he is lying to as much as himself. In order to tell the truth we must admit it and if he is carrying around a lot of shame then honesty is a tough habit to maintain.

It sounds like you are doing an excellent job in being a caring manager and mentor.  While friendship with the people who work for you is not impossible you may need to take a step back from that if puts your role as a responsible manager in jeopardy. 

What if my son isn't gay

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Question:  My wife and I have three talented wonderful children who we love unconditionally.  Our second child, K, has been noticeably effeminate since at least the age of three, maybe earlier.  It was so obvious in his mannerisms and preferences for girls toys over boys that not only did we assume that he would grow up to be gay but perhaps even have some gender identity issues.   K is now 17 and by his own internal compass he drifted to theater, choir, and he is an amazing performer.  The other day I was lecturing his younger brother, T, about how to properly treat a lady and the way I expect him to conduct himself when dating.  I guess I pushed a little too far and he exploded at me and went on to tell me in graphic detail about all the girls that his older brother was sleeping with in the drama department.  This may sound like an amusing problem to have if you are not in the situation but I felt like my whole world flipped upside down.  T's comments made me realize that I have raised my children very differently, and I wonder if in my haste to be accepting of K no matter who he is, I did him a disservice by not holding him to the same high moral expectations that I have for T and their older sister.  How do I begin to change this?  Since K has never brought up his sexual identity neither have we, if I tell him we assumed he was gay will that be insulting?  Am I a terrible father because it was easier for me to accept a gay son than an effeminate straight one?  

Answer:  Fair is not giving each person the same thing.  Fair is giving each person what they need.  It is time for you to have an honest and frank conversation with K laying everything out on the table and telling him what your expectations are for him as a person with values regardless of his sexual orientation.

Teenagers may be self absorbed but that means they are rarely un-aware of the things that make them different.  Do not be concerned about offending your son by talking about his effeminate mannerisms.  A boy with more testosterone than a rodeo will get accused of being a homosexual by every friend and enemy at least 1000 times a year between the ages of 10 and 25.  If your son has some how gotten to this age without every slur in the book being thrown at him on a daily basis then that miracle will not be undone by your frank and caring discussion.     

There is a very good chance that your son is straight, and the world is going to misjudge him.  Somehow it seems he has found a way to turn that to his advantage.  It is also possible that he is gay, bi-sexual, pan-sexual, trans-gendered, CONFUSED, or several of these things at the same time.  Regardless of his orientation he needs to be sexually responsible because having a child before you are ready to care for one is not a good plan for the budding thespian.  

Your younger son called you out on the way you treated his brother differently.  Don't let your shame send you the total opposite direction and treating them exactly the same if that is not what they need from you.  Now it is your job to ask yourself each time you do treat them differently, "Is there a reason why I'm doing this?  Does the reason make sense?"  If not change it. 

Both your sons and your daughter need certain Dad wisdom, how to do their taxes, change a tire, fart and blame it on the dog.  Much more they need your love.  Sometimes only the people who love us unconditionally can give us the message that we need a good kick in the ass, and that is what you have to be there for as well. 

So love your son enough to find out who he is and who he is becoming.  Love him enough to ground him and punish him if he needs it.  Love him enough to make sure he has a plan to be safe in a world that can be cruel to anyone who is different.  Love him enough to not second guess the last two decades and do the best you can from this point forward, that is all any child can ask. 

Is my son a heartless monster?

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Question:  Recently my husband died unexpectedly.  I have been a mess but my 12 year old son, who was my husband's step son for 7 years, doesn't even seem to be bothered.  At first I thought he was in shock, because the last interaction he had with my husband was a fight about his chores.  Now it has been three weeks and still nothing.  The other day I confronted him and he said, "It's no big deal Mom, it's like when Sadie [our former dog] died, you're sad for awhile but you get over it."  I feel like a failure as a parent.  I cannot believe my son compared my husband to an F$#@ing dog.  Have I raised some sort of heartless monster?  Should I make him go to counseling, is there even any point?  

Answer:  Your first impulse was right, your son is in shock.  He is having the most reasonable reaction he can handle to an unbearable situation.  

The research indicates that when a child your son's age loses a primary care giver it takes 4 to 7 years to move fully through the stages of grief from shock/denial all the way to acceptance.  Accordingly, it should be no surprise that three weeks after the death of such an important figure he has still barely scratched the surface of the first stage.

When any new event happens in our life our brain uses a process called scaffolding to link that event to the closest memory it has access to.  Just because your son compared the loss of your husband to that of the dog does not mean he values their lives equally, it is just the closest link he has in his limited experience on this planet.  

At this stage it is to his advantage to minimize what he acknowledges as the impact of this loss.  90% of the time when I hear a kid say "I don't care."  What they really mean is "I don't want to care."  Caring can hurt me, and if I pretend long enough and loud enough that this doesn't bother me, maybe it won't.  Can we blame him for this wishful thinking?. 

Your son's brain is also conspiring to keep him from feeling at this stage. On a winter day if he stayed out in the cold too long he would not be able to feel his ears.  Just because they were numb it would not mean he was not impacted, but if you asked him if he felt anything he could honestly say that he didn't.  His brain had stopped sending the pain signal because it was ineffective in getting him to change his situation.  Eventually when he comes inside his ears will begin to thaw, and burn, but that is a pain you only have the luxury of feeling if you can get out of the cold.

Right now your son is still out in the cold.  Once again the brain does us the favor of limiting our exposure to the pain until we are in a place that is safe enough for us to begin to handle it.  If your son was able to fully grasp this loss he would probably be unable to get out of bed or bathe himself.  To feel anything means risking touching a bottomless pit of grief and guilt.

I would highly encourage you to exposure your son to some form of therapy, but do not be surprised if he is not ready to talk about his feelings for several years.  At his age art or music therapy tend to be far more effective in allowing boys to express feelings that they do not yet have the emotional equipment to form into words.  I would also encourage you to make sure that you are in some form of counseling to address your own feelings of loss and role model for him that sharing his feelings with a someone is nothing to be ashamed of.     

Get kinky with my husband?

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Question: For years my husband has been nagging/begging me for oral and anal sex.  I guess I think oral is something for teenagers, like hickeys fun when you are young but I'm over it, and anal just sounds gross and painful.  I guess I'm a bit vanilla in the bedroom.  I like sex for the intimacy, and for me that is enough.  Still I want him to be happy and I don't want him to feel shut down or lose interest.  Part of me is considering giving in for a special occasion like his birthday, but then I'm afraid he is going to want it all the time.  Any ideas?  

Answer:   Being miserable and grudgingly offering your body to your husband to use as an object for a night is no gift. You need to change your conception from a choice between love making for you and sex for him to a third path where both of you are truly satisfied. 

Step one is to have open communication.  Married couples rarely honestly discuss their sexual desires and concerns out of fear of rejection or judgement from their partner.  If your husband disclosed that he had a fetish for being surrounded by bobble-head dolls when making love and you though he was a freak, the two of you cannot get away from each other and that knowledge is in your brain forever.

Your husband has already taken a risk by telling you what he wants despite your reaction.  You need to reward that risk, not by giving in to it, but by trying to understand more about how that desire works for him.  Psychology plays a gigantic part in sex for both men and women.

If what he is attracted to about oral and anal sex is a feeling of violating a taboo, or dominance and power, maybe there are other ways you can incorporate those themes into your love making in a way that you are both not just comfortable with but enthusiastic about.  

Enthusiasm is far more important than technique in love making and the overall satisfaction of your partner.  Nothing is a greater turn on that truly feeling desired.

If you can find a turn on for him that he can do with you rather than to you that will be a gift to both of you that will enhance the quality and intimacy of your marriage for the rest of your lives.  

casual sex is healthier than self injury, isn't it?

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Question:  Lately I've been feeling really worthless.  My medication keeps me from feeling depressed like I used to be, but I don't feel right or good.  It makes me want to cut myself, but I don't want to get back into that so I call up some guy and I have sex with him.  That seems to work for awhile but I know it probably isn't healthy, still it is better than cutting myself, right?  

Answer:  That is like asking "would you rather be eaten by sharks or ants?"  Both options stink and  no matter which option you choose you end up dead.  

Any time you drink, eat, jog, cut yourself, have sex, etc... for the purpose of changing/masking/avoiding the way you feel you are doing that activity medicinally.  If it works you run the risk of forming a habit which can easily become an addiction. 

How can we tell the difference between someone who just really likes drinking, or sex, or jogging, and someone who is addicted?  When a person continues to choose those behaviors even when they have started impairing relationships and life functioning (school, job, legal issues, physical health).  A real simple test is if you have lied about how much you do a behavior you are on the road to addiction.  

People who use self injury or disordered eating to manage emotions are highly likely to trade one addictive behavior for another as they seek to abstain from what ever has been identified as "the problem" behavior. 

We often see a triangle with self injury at one point, disordered eating at another, and risk taking behaviors (sex, drugs, anything dangerous) at the third.  To replace the benefit the person was getting from one behavior they shift to another never recognizing that all of these behaviors are designed to shield them from their emotions.

The 12 step model of abstinence finds many people who have traded avoiding their feelings through  substance abuse to avoiding them with the support of relationships and community.  While this is a good start unless they work the 12 steps all the way through and learn to listen to their feelings instead of managing them, they will never be truly healthy.   


 
If I am forced to answer your question, as counter intuitive as it sounds I would have to say that in general self injury is probably safer than casual sex, because there is only one unhealthy person involved, where as casual sex often involves two.  It is still a choice between sharks and ants. 

I have heard many people echo your feelings about medication. Medication does not solve anything it just helps you to see clearly enough to work with the problems that are really there, but if you continue to avoid those problems you will not get healthier. 

There is nothing wrong with drinking, jogging, or sex, if you do them safely and for the purpose of exploring and enjoying your life.  If you want to stop feeling worthless then you need to explore the reasons for why you feel that way, and until you do that you will continue trading one dangerous behavior for another until you die. 

how do I keep my son alive?

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Question:  Last week my 22 year old son tried to kill himself.  He survived and now he claims he is ecstatic to be alive and he will never try something like that again.  He wants go off his medication (his point is it clearly didn't prevent a suicide attempt) and he really does not want to go to therapy.  He wants to handle it all on his own.  He made a crisis plan with a therapist but I just don't feel like that is enough.  What can I do?  

Answer:  Try to force a 22 year old to do something they don't want to and get ready for a colossal failure.  Instead find out what does work for him and help him get greater access to that kind of support.  

In general people do not make suicide attempts because they want to die, they want to escape from the pain they are in and they cannot concieve of any other way.

If we start with the postulate that overwhelming suffering leads to suicide attempts we have two goals:  suffering management, suffering prevention.  

For most people we lessen the discomfort of their symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc..) through medication and learning coping skills.  We prevent the suffering from re-occurring or decrease it in the long term through exploring it's causes in therapy.  This process does not work for everyone.  


It sounds like for your son the concept of therapy and medication = feeling weak and exposed.  Most young men feel like accepting help makes them a failure in some way.  If we cannot get him to change that feeling we must find out what other kinds of support we can surround him with that will work. 


Many people struggle with weight loss because they assume it will mean denying themselves all the food they love, feeling hungry, and the kind of exercise that they equate with torture.  When they learn that change does not have to equal suffering they can make great strides.

Talk to your son, find out which aspects of counseling he dislikes most and which ones he might be okay with.  If he likes talking to friends but hates talking to strangers then help him make a list of which friends he can talk to about which issues.  A major key to relapse prevention with any issue is having a person you are connected with who you can have 24 hour access to and tell anything.  Even if your son was working with a therapist having a "sponsor" who he could, and would call if he was struggling is key.

The next step is to make sure that go-to person can handle the challenge and will call for help (even 911) if the situation overwhelms them.  

People who will not consider medication need a physical method to produce some of the brain chemicals that will give them a boost.  My first choice would be Yoga, and second would be any martial art.  We want your son to have access to a soothing technique that can use a lot of energy and calm at the same time.  We want something that he can do by himself at 3 AM because when people are alone and do not have access to their support network they are at the greatest risk for suicide attempts.


Jogging is a wonderful thing but if you try to do it in the middle of the night you get arrested.

In short, you should be nervous.  No matter how good your son claims to feel right now he will feel overwhelmed again.  You cannot force him to take supports he does not want so the best thing you can do is find out what supports he will take and use and give him as much of them as you can.  Communicate with him and his support network regularly and look for changes in sleep, energy, mood.  If you think something is wrong ask directly.  You might risk offending him, but that is better than risking losing him.

The good news is if he can learn some coping skills that get him through the roughest times his suffering will always wane.  Every hard times he survives will be a memory to help keep him afloat through the next bout of suffering.  It may never become easy, but it does get easier as long as he finds the support that works for him. 

How do I get promoted

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Question:  I have been working at my company for three years and I have made two lateral moves but I can't seem to get promoted.  All my reviews are excellent but they seem to view me as a technician and not a leader.  I see other people getting promoted and I wonder what I'm doing wrong.  I'm afraid to push too hard because I don't want to get fired, but it has gotten to the point where I dread going in to work every day.

Answer:  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  Forget everything you have ever learned about good social skills and being polite.  Get noticed and be willing to ruffle some feathers or get used to being passed over.  

Corporations exist to make a profit for their share holders.  They want their employees to be happy because that makes them more productive but they are not going to give you a big raise and a promotion as a reward for good service.  

You have to work smarter not harder.  You can go back to your desk and spend 20 hours a day making your projects and assignments extra perfect but there is a thing called the law of diminishing returns.  The guy you resent who spent five hours on the project and then went golfing with the boss is going to get promoted ahead of you if his five hour project was good enough to get the job done.  

Step one:  determine the exact position you want and why.  If it doesn't exist write a proposal to create it.
Step two: be prepared to show how you having this position can benefit the bottom line.
Step three:  e-mail your boss and make an appointment to discuss this concept, be prepared for her/him to react by stalling and saying they need to check with someone above them.  Just because you have been thinking about this for a long time do not assume she/he has.
Step four:  update your resume and and start contacting your company's competitors with the same proposed position.  DO NOT just fill out an online application and wait.  DO find the name of your boss's equal number at other companies and contact them directly.  Corporations get tens of thousands of online applications and unless someone is looking for yours it is unlikely to be found.

What is the worst that can happen with this plan?  Your boss says no?  Okay, well you are already looking for a position in another company where you will be valued.

Will a boss really fire someone for wanting to improve the bottom line and advance themselves at the same time?  No chance.  If you are going to get fired it will be because your work is sub par or they have a numbers crunch and need to let people go.

Unless you believe you deserve this promotion and are willing to suggest it you have no chance of getting it.  In addition, it must be presented as a win win for you and your company, because if it don't make dollars then it don't make sense.

Patience may be a virtue, and the meek may inherit the earth, but the assertive will get the raise and the promotion much much faster. 

Who would you take a bullet for?

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Question: Everyone tells me that you cannot really love another until you love yourself. Then I ask people if they would take a bullet for their wife or child and they all say yes. Doesn't that mean they love those people more than they love themselves? Isn't caring more about someone else than you care about yourself what love is all about?

Answer: It sounds to me like you are searching for a loop hole so you can find a way to have a healthy relationship without loving yourself. One of my steadiest rules of life is that if you are looking for a loop hole you are probably doing something wrong.

The entire premise that you are starting with is shaky. People don't take bullets for the other person they do it for themselves. If I am a secret service agent I take a bullet for the President because that is the only way to be true to myself and my code of honor and duty. The President, and possibly the nation, benefit from my sacrifice but ultimately I get to preserve my ego integrity and avoid the shame of not taking that bullet.

Most efforts we make for others, gifts we buy, gestures of kindness are done less for the other and more to make us feel good about ourselves, or to avoid the guilt of not doing what we are "supposed" to.

I deal with a number of co-dependent clients who feel that unless they are providing benefit to another person they don't deserve any love or happiness. They feel like they need to earn love through acts.

Martin Luther put forth the notion that love (particularly God's love in his case) was so wonderful that you could never possibly do enough good works to earn it. It would be like trying to save up enough money to buy a sunset.

You cannot earn the love of another by taking a bullet, baking cakes, becoming a sexual supplicant, or making a million bucks a year. The only way you get love is by believing that you are as deserving of it as any other person. Yes you are flawed, but so are the rest of us.

If you end up building a relationship where what you have in common with your partner is that you both love him and put his needs ahead of yours, you will have gotten exactly the relationship you believe you deserve, but it sure won't make you happy.

If your partner is a decent human being he/she will get sick of the lack of balance and leave you. If your partner is a selfish jerk then you might have a lasting relationship, but it will be with a selfish jerk, and it is also very likely that no matter how you re-form your self to please that person he/she will get tired of you anyway.

Stop trying to be a martyr, stop trying to cheat the system and find the loop holes. Do the work it takes to love yourself and then look for a relationship. On the path you are walking I could see why you romanticize the notion of taking a bullet, but frankly that is the easy way out.

she'll never forgive me

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Question: Recently a friend had been messaging me about this and that and she would slip in hints that she had been cutting herself and using some heavy drugs, I think crystal meth. I got really worried about her and I contacted her parents. Since then she has not contacted me but I don't think her parents even did anything about it. I'm sure they asked her and she denied it and now I lost a friend and I'm wondering if I did the right thing.

Answer: You did the right thing. The sad truth is that often doing the right thing, the hard thing, doesn't work out. If that was why you did what you believed was right then you have failed.

The end does not justify the means. This is what we say when we are explaining why it isn't okay to do the wrong thing if it gets the right result. You are now standing on the flip side of that coin.

My lacrosse players often use poor technique to score goals against bad teams. When I get pissed they point to their results. Then they go up against a good team and only the boys who have worked on proper technique score, and sometimes even they don't score.

Just because you do something the right way you might not get what you want, but if you do the right thing all the time, that becomes who you are. That identity is its own reward.

We don't do the right thing because it will lead to the best results, we do the right thing because our identity is the sum of our actions and in order to be the right person we must live the right path.

You may not have lost this friend. She will probably be pissed at you for awhile, but she knows that when push comes to shove she can trust that you will do the right thing. If you want to keep her in your life, let her rage at you, be honest about why you did what you did, and do allow her to have her anger.

I wish I could say I would be surprised if her parents do not follow up on this, but in my experience most parents just want to believe everything is okay so badly that they will swallow any lie their children are willing to give them. They don't know what to do so doing nothing is often the default choice.

If she eventually gets the help she needs she may feel ashamed to come back to you, just keep steadily reminding her (when you do have contact) that you care and let her come at her own pace.

She may never forgive you, but if she died of a drug over dose and you said nothing, you would most certainly never forgive yourself and that is a burden there is no escape from.

saving up sins

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Question: I hate conflict. So when my daughter or my husband do something that bothers me, I don't say anything. I find myself saving these things up as examples to use when we finally have a big talk, but then when the big talk comes I forget half of them, or maybe we never even have the talk. I've tried writing them down but that hasn't worked. How do I express my displeasure at the inconsiderate things they do without fighting about it?

Answer: Learn to love conflict. Do you remember that great movie you saw where the main character went through two hours of joy and bliss and nothing bad ever happened? No? Neither do I, because without conflict there is no story, nothing happens.

Somewhere along the way you learned that if you assert yourself it will lead to a fight. If you get in a fight your feelings will get hurt, or the other person's feelings will get hurt and then then you will feel guilty, so it is better to just not say anything.

This is a great strategy if you plan to be a door mat for your entire life but if you want reciprocal relationships with healthy people this is not going to work so well.

You figured this out on your own so you decided that it would be best to just save up other's sins against you in some kind of list and then eventually you have a nice, quiet, adult conversation about these issues. The problem with this plan is it turns out most people don't like to have conversations about things they have done wrong. These don't stay nice and quiet conversations and your talking partner paints you as the bad guy for hanging on to things that happened weeks, months, sometimes even years ago.

So what is the solution? State your feelings and observations as soon as you feel/notice them.

Example: You walk into the house after a long day of work and your husband is watching tv you daughter is chatting online up in her room. No one has started dinner, the house is a mess, and the dog is barking because he needs to go out and get fed. Normally you would: Sigh, let the dog out, feed him start dinner, and clean later, and let the sins list get a little longer.

Instead you could say. "Wow, I'm feeling really over whelmed right now. Is there a reason why A, B, and C have not been done?"

More than likely your husband and daughter just didn't think of doing it because you always get it done. We train people how to treat us and you have trained them to be docile to a point we call learned helplessness.

It is important to ask "Is there a reason?" because if there is, or if something awful happened to that person that day you don't seem like such a jerk, you have created an out. This will help you to be less afraid of confronting.

If there was no reason, and there usually isn't, the next step is to say "Well, could you help me by..."

The worst they can say is no, in which case you are no worse off than if you did it all yourself in the first place. Remember that your conflict avoidance is not being done to benefit others, it is your own selfish way of avoiding discomfort. The sooner you can grow comfortable with conflict the faster you will improve these relationships and let go of your resentment.

Ship her to an all girls school?

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Question: We just got my daughter's report card for freshman year and she got two D's. I would not be freaking out about this but she was an A-B student all through middle school. Also her cheer leading coach called me this winter telling me that she was concerned about the boys she saw my daughter hanging out with after school. I asked around and I know some of these boys are into drugs. My husband and I moved to this community because the schools are so good but now we are considering moving her to an all girls Catholic school. We talked about it with her and she is willing to go but in order to pay for it we will have to use up her college fund.

Answer: The fact that she is willing to go tells me just about all I would need to hear. Peer relationships are the most important thing in an adolescents life and if she is willing to sever those ties and form new ones, something is rotten in Denmark and there might be more going on than you suspect.

First to play devil's advocate against changing schools: where ever you go, there you are. If your daughter likes bad boys, or cocaine, even if she goes to an all girls school she is going to find the girls who know how to find those things. She won't even have to look for them, she will just naturally feel more comfortable with girls who at her level of emotional health. If you daughter is making poor choices because she is emotionally unhealthy it would be a better investment to get her into counseling than to pay money for tuition to an all girls school.

Secondly there is the age old debate of whether sheltering adolescents from opportunities/risks allows them to develop the tools they need to make good choices later on? Sometimes the best way to learn is to really screw up when you still have the safety net of Mom and Dad to bail you out. I know, however, that every parent cringes at the potential cost of that valuable learning. Will it lead to F's on the report card, pregnancy, a car crash... How much rope can we afford to give?

Looking back on high school I know I would have learned twice as much had I been in an all boys school. About 85% of my brain was consumed with sexual images of my female classmates that I could not banish even during the most fascinating lecture from my gifted teachers. And yet, despite the fact that I know I would have learned more in an all boys school I would not have changed schools for the world and I intend to send my own children to co-ed public schools.

I believe that less than 10% of the useful learning that we acquire during our high school and college years is obtained in the classroom. What I learned from my friends, particularly my female friends and girlfriends, are the lessons that I use everyday.

That being said, you have given your daughter a chance in this environment and her actions and her words are telling you that for her, this isn't working. Teens tend to have poor risk assessment and so they almost never choose to have increased restriction. When a teen seems leery of driving, dating, going to a party with friends.... take that hesitancy very seriously.

Your daughter has a history of good grades and was involved in activities at school, which are two great resiliency factors, but if she is drawn to bad boys who are involved with drugs then you are likely to have big trouble on the horizon. That college fund is going to feel like a major waste if she never makes it to college.

If it was my daughter I would register her at both schools but plan on her attending the all girls school. Most public schools will hold her place for 6 days at the start of the school year before dropping her if she does not show. Hopefully by the end of the first week at the girls school she will know if it feels like a good fit or not.

Either way I would consider getting her into some counseling to build her self esteem and help her make good choices. Not sure that she needs it but I do not know any teen that could not benefit from it.

Angry with the guy who didn't rape me

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Question: I was really nervous about moving into my own place, I hate to be alone, always have. My friend John said he would stay with me for the first week just so I wouldn't be alone. He stayed for two days and then went MIA. A casual acquaintance came over and to make a long story short that guy ended up raping me. What's crazy is I'm more angry with John than I am with the guy who did it. I just keep flipping back and forth from blaming John and blaming myself. What is wrong with me?

Answer: Your mind is trying to convince you that this world could be a safe place if you can just solve all the puzzles and find all the traps. She (that is to say your mind) is afraid that if you just accept that it wasn't really John's fault and it wasn't your fault then you will realize that this world is unsafe and you will just want to give up. Thus she is spinning you in circles to use up your energy and keep you from choosing oblivion, and so far it sounds like it is working.

Acquaintance rape is devastatingly common and rarely prosecuted. Recently a friend told me that she wrote an article for her college paper about an acquaintance date rape which led the girl to drop out of school. At the time her professors hailed her for speaking up but the guys on campus felt betrayed by her article. 20 years later at a reunion her male friends still blamed her for vilifying their friends.

Am I surprised that you blame yourself for this happening? Of course not, but it makes me so weary. "No means No" does not go anywhere near far enough. I don't know if you even said No, to this acquaintance but it shouldn't matter, you should not have to say anything, if you are not actively encouraging him he needed to stop.

We need to train our young men to understand that if you are not being intimate (connecting deeply with your partner as a whole person, not just as an object to utilize in achieving orgasm) then you should not be sexual.

John let you down. He was not there for you and something terrible happened and you should be angry with him. This however, is not his fault. You do not need to keep him as a friend but do not try to lay this at anyone's feet but the man who did it.

You have survived a horrible trauma and the pain is trying to release itself in anyway you can allow it to. I hope that you are involved in some sort of counseling for this to help you heal as quickly as possible. Most states have a number of agencies that provide free counseling for survivors of sexual assault. In the Chicago area Porchlight counseling services works with college age survivors, or places like Zacharias Center work with survivors of any age.

To sum up, when you have survived a trauma do not expect your feelings to be rational or appropriate in scale until you have done a good deal of healing work. Working with a therapist you can begin to understand why one thing triggers you more than another, but only with time and work will your feelings begin to fall back into their normal shape.

strip club fun for 21st b-day?

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Question: My 21st birthday is coming up and I don't really drink much so I was thinking about celebrating by going to a strip club with some friends. Part of me is excited about the idea, I've never had a girlfriend and I've always been really curious about what a strip club is like. Part of me is really nervous because I guess I've always been taught it is wrong. These women aren't forced to be there and they make a good living, so is there anything wrong with going to a strip club?

Answer: One definition of sin is to choose to do anything which you believe is wrong. It doesn't matter if it is eating meat or farting in an elevator if you believe it is wrong and you do it anyway you are probably going to regret it.

I must confess my bias when answering this question. I am personally opposed to strip clubs on moral and practical grounds.

You point out correctly that the women who work as dancers in strip clubs are not forced to be there and thus you are not violating their rights by going in and ogling them. It has been my experience, however, that many women who are sex workers (aka prostitutes), pornographic actresses, and to a lesser extent exotic dancers (aka strippers), have been victims of sexual abuse and/or assault and their willingness to expose their bodies is related to a lack of self worth and an unhealthy need for male attention. That creeps me out and makes me feel horribly guilty for even being of the same sex as the men who assaulted them.

Also I am a feminist and I believe that strip clubs and pornography impact us all negatively by reinforcing the concept that women are sex objects and they suggest a standard of beauty that can only be achieved by cosmetic surgery. Little boys who believe this is what they should be looking for are not growing up looking for partners but for objects to please them. Little girls who see these images cannot help feeling like they fail to measure up and that their natural beauty will not be enough.

On practical grounds strip clubs are designed to arouse which can only lead to 3 possible outcomes. 1.) they fail to arouse and you have wasted time and money 2.) they successfully arouse and you leave the premises uncomfortably unsatisfied 3.) they successfully arouse to the point where the customer ejaculates and that just seems messy and uncomfortable in a public setting. Thanks but I'll pass.

Again that is my personal bias. I have many close friends who truly enjoy frequenting such establishments. These are not bad guys but they are willing to accept the consequences. It will impact the way people think of you when they know you pay for such entertainment. If you would be mortified if your parents or grandparents found out, you probably shouldn't do it.

Another concern, if you are a person who has not had a lot of female attention, is these places can bleed you dry of every dollar. It is certainly not unheard of for men to become addicted to the attention they receive from the dancers and to drain their bank accounts to continually get the good feeling they find at the strip club.

Ultimately this is a personal decision and nothing terrible is likely to happen if you spend your 21st birthday at a strip club. It is a much safer choice than trying to do 21 shots. That being said if you are questioning whether this is the right plan for you it probably isn't.

As William Faulkner said in The Sound and the Fury "Each man is the arbiter of his own virtue" only you can say if going to a strip club makes you a good or bad person, but if you are worried about people judging you, they will, and you have to be prepared to deal with that.

should I have sold her ring?

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Question: I was dating my ex-girlfriend for almost two years and I bought her this ring. It wasn't an engagement ring but maybe kind of a promise ring, and I paid way too much for it, almost $1000. Two months later she broke up with me and eventually she gave me the ring back. I couldn't stand looking at it. Despite the fact that we broke up more than a year ago I'm still not 100% over her. So the other day I sold the ring at a pawn shop for $75. I feel so stupid. I hated having it here but now that it is gone and all I got was $75 I feel so angry all the time. When I'm not angry I feel empty. Should I go get the ring back?


Answer: That ring will not fill the emptiness inside or assuage your anger or regret. The only way forward is letting go, choosing to be thankful rather than bitter about where you stand today. $75 on a thousand dollar ring is a terrible trade, but $75 is a hell of a lot better than nothing.


There is no right answer as to what we do with all the things that pile up over the course of a long relationship. You can burn it, toss it, give it back, keep it in the basement for the rest of your life, there is no correct course of action. What is important is not allowing past relationships and the keepsakes that represent them torture you.


Sometimes we imbue an object with a talisman effect. A lucky penny, a grandfather's watch, a Walter Payton jersey that you have to wear to watch every game. These objects (or sometimes they can be pictures, images, songs, or smells) are connected to a feeling and a place and time in our lives.


When something painful gets paired with that talisman it is less important to destroy or hide from the object than it is to deal with the painful feelings that it is brining up. Some wounds simply need time, and in the case of a break up or a death, it is not healthy to abuse yourself by focusing on your pain until some time has passed.


In the case of this ring, more than a year has passed so it sounds like you need to put some energy into exploring why this wound has not healed more fully. At the same time letting go of the ring may be an important step in your healing because it is a symbol of the relationship and the start of letting go.

can't trust bi-sexuals

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Question: I'm gay, and in the past both times I have tried dating someone who was bi she cheated on me with a guy. Now I can't feel comfortable dating someone who is bi because I know there is something they might be looking for that I can't give them. Recently my girlfriend got drunk and made out with a male friend. She said there was no romantic attraction to him, she is gay it was just an intimacy thing that seemed like a good idea when she was drunk. Now I can't stop thinking that she is secretly bi and that I need to break up with her before she dumps me for some meat stick. The problem is I love her. What should I do?

Answer: Love yourself enough to demand total fidelity from no matter who you are with and if you believe you can get it from this girl you keep her, and if you don't trust her you let her go.

Some might say you are prejudiced against bi-sexual women. Ok. That is your right. You don't have to like bi girls or blonds, or girls who don't like nascar. But if, however, you think you are going to be safe from being cheated on by keeping to just gay women you are kidding yourself.

I wonder about the fact that your girlfriend made out with someone other than you and you are more concerned that it was guy than about the fact that it happened at all.

Dating is hard for anyone. 99% of all romantic relationships end before death do us part. Just getting to the marriage part is a struggle and we know 50% of those end in divorce. If we try to be smart about relationships and make rules that will prevent us from getting hurt we are playing a fools game.

Every relationship (even the ones that last 60 years) hurt. Sometimes the pain comes because a relationship ends badly, sometimes it comes in the middle and we stagger on. If you are going to date you will know pain.

The only rule you need to keep is to demand that who ever you are with respect you and treats you with dignity. If you do this it will not keep you safe but if you don't you are quite clearly heading for disaster.

Let go of the bi-sexuality question with your girlfriend. Decide if you can trust her, and if you can roll the dice.

It is up to men to stop domestic violence

This is not a typical blog it is a statement from me and a plea for help.

I am passionate about stopping domestic violence, sexual assault, hate crimes, and all needless violence. Toward this end I work with an organization called Up to Us - Men's Initiative: http://www.zcenter.org/uptous.htm

We believe that we can do something about these issues if instead of focusing on the concepts we focus on one man at a time, get him to commit to not being violent, and convince him to talk to his friends.

Our group focuses on men because 95% of violent crimes are committed by men and yet most of the work on this issue up to this point has involved women talking to women.

That is important work but it is time for men to step up, and it is exciting because if we do we can stop the abuse from happening.

More than 1 in every 4 women will be involved in a relationship with domestic violence, 1 in 5 will be sexually assaulted, but 1 in 38 men will become a domestic violence abuser. Do the math the same guys are hurting multiple women, and if we can help them to change we can save so many women from violence.

This is not an economic or racial issue, this happens in every community; rich guys do it, police officers do it, "nice guys" hit their wives.

Today I'm asking you to spread the word about groups like Up to Us - Men's Initiative, Men can stop rape, and others. More importantly I'm asking you to have a conversation with the men in your life about this issue. That is all. Let's talk about what everyone is afraid to look at.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Please shine the light on this issue with the people you love and hopefully it will begin to shrivel and die. If we can save just one person, isn't it worth the time and effort?

We believe that these issues are as old and pervasive as civilization itself, but they don't have to be. Slavery was once accepted in every nation on the planet. Now in the places where it exists it is known to be shameful and we are trying to stamp it out of existence. We can get there with domestic violence, but it is UP to US.

What if I don't feel guilty?

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Question: You said in one of your posts that "guilt has a function, it keeps us from screwing people over." Well, what if I don't feel guilty? I was dating this guy and he fell in love with me and I broke his heart and I thought I would feel really bad because I knew things were heading that way, but I don't. What does that say about me?

Answer: If you do a bad thing and you don't feel guilty you have either 1.) learned to rationalize and justify your behavior in your own mind, 2.) possibly the thing you did was the best choice you could have made in the situation, 3.) you are a sociopath, 4.) some combo of the previous three.

Guilt, like any emotion, is not a good thing or a bad thing it is a response to the stimuli of your environment. In this way emotions are the same as our senses of touch, taste, smell, etc... If you were to say to me "my baby had a dirty diaper but I couldn't smell it, what does that say about me?" As an isolated event, nothing, if it happens all the time you either have an amazing baby or a poor sense of smell.

The fact that you are even questioning if you should feel more guilty suggests that you are not a sociopath or any other personality disorder (borderline, narcissist, etc..) because you are questioning your own behavior and your impact on others. Your acknowledgement that you don't feel as much guilt as you think you should suggests you have felt guilt in the past and this is less intense.

Guilt falls on a spectrum, it is not like you either have it or you don't. The anger spectrum can go from mild irritation all the way to rage. Similarly the guilt spectrum ranges from mild regret to a paralysis of shame and self loathing.

Guilt is about what you have done, shame is about who you are. It sounds like you do have some guilt, or at least mild regret, that this guy got hurt. You kinda wish you could have avoided that but but it isn't eating you up inside. Ok, works for me.

If this becomes a pattern of behavior for you, where you put your needs ahead of the needs of others and you feel just dandy about it, that would suggest your guilt has stopped functioning the way it should and you will end up having crappy-selfish-one sided relationships if you don't do some work on it.

Some people seek to justify selfish behavior by saying "I'm just an asshole" or "I'm just a bitch" as if they are frozen that way and others just need to accept it. 99% of us are selfish at times but if we can consider the needs of others some of the time then we do not have to act like jerks. We can rationalize guilt away all we want but ultimately there is a direct relationship between selfish behavior and unhappiness.

None of us like feeling guilty but without guilt in the appropriate amount for the situation we will end up very lonely. Personally I would rather have the guilt.

sexting consequences

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Question: My daughter is a freshman in high school. A boy convinced her to send him a topless picture of herself and now it has been sent all over the school. I heard about it from a neighbor and while I haven't seen the picture, and am petrified that somehow I will, I just know that this is true. She developed early and so girls have labeled her a slut since middle school and I know it eats her up inside. Why would she do this? How can I help her if she won't even tell me what is going on? How can I send her back to that school if all these kids have seen her this way?

Answer: 3 steps. Step 1: You tell her that you heard a rumor about her and you don't care if it is true or not but either way you love her and you are there to support her. Step 2: you hold her close and you tell her that everything is going to be just fine. Step 3: You help her fill her time with something that she is confident in and makes her feel good to help build her self esteem and wait for the storm to pass.

There are constantly rumors floating around every high school. Many are false, some are true. No one really knows which is which. Even if the picture is her, she can always claim someone put her face on another body, and maybe that is actually what happened.

Think about when you go to the supermarket and see the tabloids in the check out line. You absorb the rumors about the celebrities but do you really care? Does it change your opinion of that person? Usually not. In general if we like a person we choose to believe the rumors about them are false or could be explained. If we don't like them we believe every nasty thing we hear.

Your daughter's situation at school will not change very much. The people who thought she was a slut are going to have one more piece of ammunition. The kids that like her will base their opinion of her on their own experience, some will even be kinder to her because they feel bad for her situation.

Why would she do this? Why do girls flash their breasts for girls gone wild videos? Why do they pose in Maxim or pornographic magazines? Why do they become exotic dancers? Because admiration for one's appearance feels good.

If we did not pair the display of the naked female form with shame, and couple it with destructive male fantasies about sex and submission, then every woman who was proud of her appearance might display it.

Everyone knew your daughter had breasts, now they know what they look like. While your daughter is probably horrified, if there was a part of her that was also proud would that make her a terrible person? I don't think so.

The problem is the judgement and harassment she will face and if she continued down this path it could prevent her from forming relationships with healthy friends and romantic partners who might not want be associated with drama and poor decision making.

The fix for this is to try to give her something other than the shape of her body to be proud of so she can display that and get affirmation that does not come back to bite her. Even if she becomes a nationally known accordion player to some people she will always be "the girl with the boobs picture". That is part of her identity. Over time hopefully it becomes a smaller and smaller part.

The way you react to this situation will play a critical role for your future relationship with your daughter and her self esteem. It is your goal to convince her that your love is unconditional and even when you are disappointed in her actions you are always proud that she is your daughter. If she believes that she may have the confidence to hold her head high and move forward. If she doesn't you troubles have just begun.

For the sake of the vacation

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Question: I've been dating my boyfriend on and off for two years. When things are good they are fantastic, he makes me feel like I'm the only thing that matters in the universe. When things are not good, which is most of the time, he treats me like I'm a moron and he finds ways to bring up all the mistakes I've made in the past, over and over and over. We've broken up several times but when we are apart all I can think of are the good times and I fear I will never find that with anyone else. We are supposed to go on vacation next week with his family, a trip we have been planning for months. I know I need to break up with him but as bad as this sounds I think I'm partially staying with him because I don't want to ruin this vacation for everyone. Am I as pathetic as that sounds?

Answer: If you have put up with this crap for two years you've earned a vacation, go for it, enjoy yourself and then demand something better.

Here is the danger. There is always a vacation, a death in the family, a big test coming up, an excuse for why now is not the time to end this toxic relationship.

There are two possibilities either this relationship has a chance or it doesn't. If it is to have a chance then you have to start demanding better treatment or you must be willing walk away. If you are not honestly willing to leave he will never change.

We all have lines that we would never allow to be crossed. Right now you say, "If he ever put a gun to my head or slept with my sister I would break up with him in a heart beat." So why are those things deal breakers but him treating you like a moron gets a pass.

What we tolerate we teach, what we permit we promote. We train people on how to treat us and right now you are telling him that you think these things are okay. He may never become violent with you but these are the patterns of a domestic violence relationship.

Before you break up with him, if you want it to stick this time, you have to be ready to fill the void he will leave in your life with other things. We cannot take something away without replacing it with something else.

Sign up for an art or dance class, get a friend who will support this decision to be your "sponsor" so you can call her in the middle of the night when you are feeling like going back to him and she can remind you that you deserve to be treated like a partner not an underling.

So, begin the process of getting these potential supports in place. Go on the vacation, and when you get back start demanding respect. If he doesn't give it to you immediately you do not have to walk out, but tell him you expect an apology and do not talk to him until you get one. If he breaks up with you for this he has just done you a huge favor.

In the meantime wear your sun screen and come back from vacation feeling great and confident and hopefully you will find a man who is ready to treat you well has been waiting for his chance to be in your life.