Dear Sars,

My problem?I feel like, and possibly am, a COLOSSAL ASS.The story?On an otherwise normal Sunday evening, one in which the fiancé was out of town, I settled in with a couple of glasses of wine and the newest blockbuster kids’ book.I fall asleep reading the thing but wake up around 3 AM after an awful awful dream.The dream was essentially about my dad, getting drunk, getting into his car, driving off a bridge into a lake (my parents do live on a lake) and add into it some rather vivid “dead body under the water” scenes.This dream is also a recurring one but this time around the details were just way too intense.

The background to this too long story is that my dad is an alcoholic, a very active one at the moment who lives with my mother, also an alcoholic but sober for 32 years.Over the past couple of years the drinking has obviously gotten worse, as it tends to with a disease like this.My parents now keep separate bedrooms; my mother who has worked so hard to maintain her sobriety for 32 years thanks to her dedication to AA, now has to work her ass off in Al-Anon.My father has crashed his car into many unknown or unnamed objects, sometimes resulting in him writing a check to cover whatever damage was done.Too bad that doesn’t include the hole in the wall at their house that is a nice reminder of one drunken evening.Holidays can be a dreaded event because sometimes he will come home so smashed he can hardly stand and I wonder how it’s possible that he didn’t drive off into the lake.He has to cross multiple bridges on the way home, not to mention it’s a densely wooded area.He’s never violent at these times, in fact, it seems to be the only times he can emotionally open up and talk to people.Sometimes he just sits in his car, drunk, listening to sad music for an hour until he’s sobered up enough to walk back in the house.

So back to this dream.I have it, I’m freaked out and crying, it’s three in the damn morning and I realize that I am also so angry I can’t see past it.The term “snapped” comes to mind.So what do I do?I pick up the phone, call my house, calmly ask my mom to hand the phone over to my dad and proceed to bitch him out.I tried to stay calm, as my dad doesn’t do very well with large displays of emotion, but of course there was some crying, i.e. sobbing.I told him how worried I was and how angry and how I’m tired of waiting for a phone call at three in the morning from my mom finally telling me my worst nightmare is realized.I told him how much it upsets mom and my brother and on and on.

After this I get off the phone, call my best bud freaking out over the fact that I called my dad at 3 AM.Basically I’m a mess.

I haven’t talked to my dad since.I did call my mom the next day while I was at work to apologize for the late hour I had called and to reassure her that I was not in fact drunk at the time, though I guess my dad thinks that’s the only reason I called.My mom is actually pretty supportive and says she wasn’t too surprised it happened in the first place.She even told me it was good for him to hear how his drinking affects others and maybe now having said my piece, if he does die of this, I’ll never have to feel as though I never let him know.

Still…3 AM. And then my friend at 4 AM, who like me works and is a full-time grad student.I cannot get over this huge feeling of shame/embarrassment.Every time I think about it I think, “3 AM? What were you thinking?!” I feel like I can never ever speak to my father again, not to mention ever even face him.I don’t just snap, I don’t freak out like some drama queen, and normally I’m pretty good at expressing my feelings in more appropriate ways (and timing).I just don’t know what to do with the way I feel.A weight hasn’t been lifted off my shoulders, I feel like I just went and piled more on.I also feel like an ass for calling my friend so early and falling apart.

So, I guess my questions are, is any of this normal?And if you draw the conclusion that I am the ass I think I am, how do I get past this/repair this?If I’m not, then what the hell is wrong with me?

Damn, Girl Must Have Gone Soft in the Head

Dear Soft,

I think it’s perfectly normal.You have an alcoholic parent; that’s an enormous stressor, and you say yourself that you make a point of not freaking out and expressing your feelings in “appropriate ways,” but…he’s unreliable and behaves self-destructively, and you hate him for putting you and your family through that and not getting his shit together for you guys.You’re really, really pissed at him, and this may not have been the ideal way to let him know that, but I’m with your mom — it was overdue, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it unduly, in my opinion.

Give yourself a break.It’s hard to have an alcoholic father; you cracked; it happens.But your dad needs to know that, although you’re sorry you used top volume to do it, what you said needed saying.Because it did need saying.

The other issue, though, is that, now that you’ve said it, not much is going to change, because alcoholism doesn’t really work that way.You should check out Al-Anon for yourself, and give yourself someplace to go with these feelings of powerlessness and resentment, because believe me, they’re normal and it’s not just you who feels them.But you don’t want to bottle them up until you explode again, either, I don’t think, and Al-Anon (or other counseling) could really help with that.

But don’t feel ashamed.You did what you thought you had to do, and if it gets you to examine your relationship with your dad’s disease, and to feel better about things by getting some therapy or going to a meeting, it’s a step in the right direction.

Brilliant Ms. Bunting,

I have a boy problem. I met my boyfriend on Match.com.
We’ve been dating for seven months. Along about month two,
we had the “exclusivity” conversation, and agreed to
take our respective profiles off Match. I did, he did.
Everything’s hunky-dory.

Cut to three months later. We’re now sleeping
together, and out of curiosity, one day I checked to
see if his profile was still online. I didn’t expect
it to be, but…there it was. I freaked a bit,
especially since he had last been active A WEEK AGO,
and so I asked him about it. He “thought he’d taken it
down,” blah blah whoops-cakes.

Instead of behaving like a rational person, I then
decided to see if I could get into his Match.com
account. I hacked the password on the first try. Yes,
I know it was wrong, and I felt really dirty about it,
but I had to know. Excuses, excuses. Long story short
(too late!): He found out about it, confronted me, and
I lied. Then I figured the jig was up, and I copped to
it. I felt horrible, he forgave me, we patched things
up.

Then TODAY, I went on Match.com and checked again to
see if his profile was up there. (I did NOT hack this
time. I learned my lesson.) And guess what: It was up
there. And the account had been active within three days.

So my question is, where do we go from here?
Obviously, I’ve got some trust problems, because,
otherwise, why would I check repeatedly? On the other
hand, am I a total schmuck for having bought the “I
forgot” excuse once, much less to forget it twice?
It’s not like he’s internet-deficient — he works in
computers, so that excuse is out.

Help!

Is it me, or is it him?

Dear Both,

Why are you still with this guy, exactly?Because 1) you don’t trust him, and 2) you don’t want to trust him.I mean, what exactly were you hoping to find when you broke into his account?Because you weren’t really looking for proof that he had taken it down.You were looking for proof that he hadn’t.Which you got, and you obviously don’t feel any better about things, so why did you do it?Why would you go out of your way to prove that he’s a liar if you wanted to stay with him?

I don’t know why he still has his profile up; it’s not a great sign, but I think it’s a separate issue.The main problem right now is that you don’t trust him, and you’ve proven that he can’t trust you; you invaded his privacy and then lied about it, for the purposes of catching him doing something wrong.This is not healthy.Either decide to trust him or decide to break up with him, but either way, stop letting this insecurity define the relationship.

Hey Sars,

I’ve been friends with Bill for a couple of years now. He lives in a city about 100 miles away, so we keep up via instant messenger, and every now and then I’ll come visit. Bill doesn’t really have any friends to speak of in that city, so for his birthday this past winter, I made a special trip to visit him, and I took him out for dinner and other fun stuff and we had a great time. I wanted to cheer him up and make a big deal out of his birthday because I looooove birthdays.

So recently I’ve been hearing less and less from him, especially in the past month because he started seeing someone. My birthday came and went a couple of weeks ago, and it was almost a week before he instant-messaged me basically saying “happy birthday, ha ha, you’re old” (I’m about a year and a half older than he is). Now, I’m no princess, and maybe I’m a little extra-sensitive because of recent events (I just found out my mom has cancer), but I can’t help but feel like he could have done a little better. I mean, hey, make me a card or something, or even send me an e-card and I’m happy.

Bill considers himself to be somewhat of an “empath,” which, yeah, *cough bullshit cough*. Is it wrong of me to expect a little better from a friend? Is there a way to bring this up without sounding like a whiny bitch with an inflated sense of entitlement? Should I just let it go? It’s not exactly keeping me awake at night, but it was two weeks ago and I still feel a little stung about it. Any advice you can give me would be a huge help.

Sincerely,
Birthday Jerk

Dear Jerk,

I would just let it go, because this is one of those things where, unless it’s one of your best friends or a family member, it’s really more aggro than it’s worth to keep score.I mean, you love birthdays and you made a big deal of his, but if that requires him to do the same for you, that’s probably something you should have told him at the time — or when he IMed you — instead of stewing about it, which isn’t worth it, because he doesn’t know how you feel and in any case I don’t think you should take it personally.Some people aren’t conscientious about that kind of thing and it has nothing to do with you.

If, in the past, he’s been more attentive to occasion, sure, call him on it; point out that a tardy IM isn’t really what you expect from your friends.But if he’s just a little flaky about these things generally, I’d drop it.In fact, whether you call him on it or not, drop it afterwards.Unless it’s a big enough slight that you’d end the friendship over it, move on.

Dear Sars,

Okay.I have a pretty massive crush on this great guy, and I’ll just cut right to the chase because the rest is irrelevant.I’m gay, he’s straight.Nothing else matters, no chance.End of story.The crush will pass.

But I work with him, which means I see him nearly every day.And every day I swoon and shiver and he has to be so damn NICE.Yes, I go into every conversation knowing the futility of the situation and tell myself to get the hell over it, but it’s gonna take some time (and possibly a really dick move on his part).I can’t stop the attraction, and often your advice in this situation is to limit the amount of time the crusher sees the crushee.What can I do?

Sincerely,
If you tell me to quit my job, I hope this means you’ll offer me a month on your futon after being evicted

Dear Job,

You know it’s not happening with this guy; you don’t seem inclined to quit your job; you said yourself that it’ll pass.Do you need me to tag in on this one, really?

Because it will in fact pass.He’ll do something jackassy, you’ll meet someone great, something will happen to jar the crush loose.Until that happens, try not to worry about de-crushing yourself; it just makes you feel crazy.Go with the flow while it lasts, which it probably won’t for long.

Sars,

Okay, so my sister-in-law is getting married in three months.All of my in-laws
are far more “traditional” than I am. For example, they insist on calling me
“Mrs. John Smith” despite the fact that I didn’t take my husband’s name (plus,
“John”?What are we, seventy?).They choose not to understand that I am both
an atheist and avowedly feminist.I’ve continued to affirm my beliefs in a
quiet way but not made a big deal out of the differences.This is a nice
family and I don’t want to be deliberately antagonistic.

My sister-in-law is, since meeting her now-fiance, the most traditional of all.
The wedding will be one of those big white every-little-girl’s-fantasy affairs,
and she’s obviously very invested in having it perfect. Perfectly
understandable.

Anyway, she asked me to do a reading at the wedding, and, honoured, I accepted.
Two weeks later, though, she told me what the reading was, and it’s Genesis 2:
21-14.The bit about God making a helper for Adam out of his rib, and calling
her Woman because she comes out of Man.

It’s not as though I have a problem reading from the Bible, per se — nor,
indeed, from any religious text.That particular reading, however, is a
different matter. If I read it, I have to do so without hinting that I dislike
it, which feels like condoning its message.

It’s obvious that backing out would cause conflict, and I’m torn between
standing up for what I believe in (I really do feel as if she’s willfully
ignoring that fact that the reading is not ideologically neutral, and fairly
offensive to someone like me) and the fact that this is immediate family, it’s
her big day, and it’s just three minutes out of my life.I don’t want to come
across all combative, but this feels like a real violation of my belief set.

What would you do, Sars?Would you stand up and give that reading?

No Ribs, Thanks, I’m Vegetarian

Dear Veg,

I don’t think she’s “willfully” doing anything except planning the wedding she wants and nicely trying to include you in it; the average bride has enough on her plate logistically that she doesn’t have time to offend people on purpose.And you must have known, given her traditional bent, that she’d pick material like this, but you said you’d do it anyway, so…I’d just do it.It’s family.

And in the second place, it’s just not that big a deal.Nobody’s going to be discussing your role in it all, “Some feminist she is, reading that verse,” because, seriously, ninety percent of the people in the chapel are going to have forgotten what you read by the time the reception starts.The bride will remember that you participated in the ceremony and helped make the day special, so make it about that and not about you.

[10/20/05]

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