Sarah —

I had to pop in and give my two cents in response to Worried Friend and the source of her worry, “Natalie and Fred.”Your advice was so spot-on it isn’t even funny, and I speak from experience.My dad has been pulling a Fred my entire life — though he did hold a job more often than not (but he hated it and resented us for it, I think).I can’t count the number of times I sat in the dark, trembling, my heart in my throat, ear pressed against the crack in my bedroom door, listening to my father tell my mother how horrible his life was and how he ought to 1) just blow his brains out, 2) leave, or 3) leave and blow his brains out.Dude, I’m 31 and this still goes on.Well, the weepy melodrama, not me sitting at my bedroom door listening.I gave that up when I started wishing he’d choose door #3.

Heartless, yeah, maybe.My point is, Worried, Fred will only get worse.And it will never go away.

I’ve also lived through the suicide of a close friend and family member, and I can assure you that there’s nothing you can do if someone decides to take their own life.You can’t call — they’ll take the phone off the hook.Can’t go by — they’ll lock you out.Fred is manipulating Natalie and, in about ten years, their child will be right smack in the middle of it, first living in fear that Dad is gonna check out, then eventually wishing anything would happen to stop the cycle.

I sincerely hope Natalie takes steps now.If my mother had done something in 1975, she might have something resembling a life now.Good luck.

Totally Been There

Dear Sars,

I usually leave the advice up to you because you do such a fantastic job with it, and I think you did so with Worried too.I think I can offer a little more insight to this situation, because I was once married to a Fred myself, down to the threats of suicide and violence.

During my pregnancy, my husband was a sensitive, wonderful individual. After the baby was born, everything went downhill fast.He became depressed and we fought a lot.I finally got him to agree to go to counseling, but he never went more than twice to two different counselors.He didn’t like what they had to say or that they focused mostly on him.After the second time he quit, I continued to go by myself, and it was the best thing I could have done.I learned how I was participating in the cycle and was able to break out of it for a little while.I made him move out and prepared for divorce.

That is when he started threatening to kill himself and even once threatened to kill me and the baby (on an answering machine…idiot!). I told him he had to see a doctor, but I wasn’t going to see him.He checked himself into the hospital in a manipulative move to get me back again, which worked.He was diagnosed with a personality disorder, put on medication, and allowed to come back home.Almost as soon as he was back with me, he quit taking his medication, and everything went right back to the way it was.I kicked him out for the last time and went back to counseling.I never should have quit going.

People like Fred are emotional leeches and will suck whatever they can for as long as you let them.When you try to get away, they do what it takes to stay latched on.Natalie is already showing signs of a battered woman by making excuses for Fred’s violence.She needs to stop worrying about helping him and start worrying about helping herself. Fred might not go to counseling, but she still can and should.I know Worried has no control over this, but that is the advice I would give Natalie if I were in Worried’s shoes.Natalie really needs help.

I doubt I would have stopped the cycle had I not gotten help.I’m now nine years into a healthy relationship (seven married), and my son has a better father than he ever could have found in that abusive man.Even if I had been all alone though, no father is better than that.You don’t want to raise a child in a home or relationship where abuse is okay.Emotional abuse is hard to identify and easier to make excuses for, but it’s just as damaging, both to the child and to the parent.

That’s all a long way of saying everything you said was right on, but Worried should really push Natalie to go to counseling.Worried could even accompany her if it would help.Once Natalie starts going, she will get strong enough to see what else she needs to do.

Thanks for such a great site!
Healthy Mommy

Thanks for checking in, both of you.Apparently, mothers and daughters agree — Fred sucks.But Fred can’t emotionally blackmail Natalie if she doesn’t let him.

And I’d like to address for a moment the idea that a child “needs a father figure” in order to grow up happy and healthy.I don’t know what the psychological literature says, and I have a feeling Dan Quayle would disagree with me rather strenuously, but it seems to me that a child needs love and respect.A child needs to feel cared for and safe, and a paired mother and father can certainly provide those things, but so can a mother on her own, or a mother who has a nice boyfriend who digs kids and treats her right, or a mother who spends a lot of time with her own parents and her siblings, or a mother and a father who don’t live together anymore, or two mothers together.And on the flip side, how does having a father figure around help a child when that father figure is a miserable human being?How does it help a child to see her mother knocked around and screamed at?Don’t we all know adults whose parents hated each other, who carry that poison around with them now that they’ve grown up?A kid doesn’t need to see that.A kid needs to see a family, and if the family is sort of a slapdash affair with Mom’s friends doing the babysitting and weekends at Grandma’s, well, that’s still a family.

There’s a great line in the movie Parenthood when Keanu Reeves’s character Tod tells his mother-in-law, “You know, Mrs. Buchman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car — hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”I mean, really.There’s more to the job than sperm donation.A child needs a parent or parents who love her and look out for her, and who respect themselves and each other, regardless of gender.I mean, I happen to have a great dad, but he’s not a great dad because he’s a dad.He’s a great dad because he’s a great person.

For my money, the “father figure” idea is an antediluvian construct that keeps women in harmful relationships — not to mention making it harder for same-sex couples to adopt — and it’s always the boys that “suffer” in the construct, too, like if they grow up with two mommies, they’ll wind up stunted by the powerful gusts of estrogen, with tiny little vestigial eyes that can’t take too much sunlight like those fish that live at the bottom of the sea.And that, in a word, is bullshit.

Sars —

I just started my first year at college. Classes are great, I don’t have homesickness, I’m sufficiently happy. Except for one thing: I have a really really hard time meeting new people.

See, in high school, I only really made one friend my entire four years. Everyone else that came into my group of friends were really people I met through that one friend and her friends, so on and so on. So now I’m in college, and it’s worse. I don’t talk much. It’s not that I’m really super shy, I don’t think, it’s just that I have absolutely nothing to contribute to any conversations. I’m boring, have had no interesting life experiences, and am not funny. At all.

My roommate isn’t really an option for a friend, since she’s basically the kind of girl I would hate in high school, and she seems to hate me already. She barely talks to me, and has done one or two kind of rude things. And basically, everyone on the hall likes her. See, that’s the thing. The people on my hall either are really nice and are outgoing and like everyone, or they think I’m a total dork and don’t talk to me. The nice “I like everyone” people have pretty much been claimed by my roommate’s group. There’s only one girl on my floor who I talk to.

I thought maybe I’d join clubs, but I’ve only been to one, and I’ll just say that it didn’t work out. The people quite frankly creeped me out. I know it’s only the first few weeks…but it’s really hard. Everyone else is already going out and talking like they are the best of friends, and whenever I go to something with new people, I kind of shut down, and everyone basically skips over me. I don’t want to be like this all year, but I really don’t know what to do. And please don’t tell me to just suck it up and get out there and talk to people, ’cause believe me, I’ve tried.

I’m sorry this email might now make much sense, but I really need some advice, and you are the best person I could think of.

Wallflower

Dear Wallflower,

First of all, ease up on yourself.You aren’t an inherently boring person.You aren’t an inherently unlikable person.Have a little faith in yourself; have a little faith in other people.

And keep a couple of things in mind, too:

1. In my experience, the friends made first semester of freshman year don’t usually last.A lot of people get to college and feel like they need to lock in a group of friends immediately, before they even really know each other.After a few months, the cracks start to show — they meet other people they have more in common with, they realize they don’t really like their hallmates that much, they don’t want to travel in pack formation anymore, whatever.I made plenty of friends at school right away, but I didn’t genuinely like most of them, and exactly two of them “stuck” past first semester.In other words, it’s early yet.Don’t get intimidated by the instant intimacy of those around you.

2. Some people have tons of close friends.Some people have lots of acquaintances and a few close friends.Some people have one friend, period.It’s a difference in style, nothing more.It doesn’t make you less friendly or funny or fun or “cool” or whatever.It’s just how you operate socially.It might take some time, but you’ll find a friend.She’ll have a few friends of her own, and she’ll introduce you, just like in high school.Or maybe you’ll make three friends, and the four of you will practically live on top of each other for four years.Whatever happens, don’t worry about it.You’ll come across people you like, people who like you.

It’s a little lonely right now, but it won’t stay that way forever.Friends have a way of arriving in our lives.I met my best high-school friend by stepping on her foot at tennis tryouts.My best college friend and I met through a mutual friend, and hated each other at first.You just never know.

Dear Sars,

I’m on the horns of a dilemma, and in desperate need of some cat-friendly yet stiff-backed and no-nonsense advice.

A few months ago, we adopted a five-year-old cat.She is friendly and good-natured, but horribly overweight — 21-plus pounds of spherical calico, to be precise.One of the disadvantages of her girth is her inability to clean herself fully in those hard-to-reach but oh-so-important-to-clean areas.While certainly not pleasant, the solution of regular, human-administered cleanings was at least tractable.

Unfortunately, as the months went by, she became less and less housebroken. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that her problems have resulted in such severe property damage that she is now under house arrest in the newspaper-lined downstairs bathroom, and is only allowed out under strict supervision.And we can’t make her an outdoor cat because she was declawed.(Not by us!)

The vet suggested, among other things, a behavioral modification program at a major university over three hours away.If I thought it might actually do any good, I might consider such extreme measures.But come on, it’s a cat we’re talking about here — when in recorded history has a cat’s behavior been successfully modified?The adoption agency praised us for our efforts and forbearance in dealing with her for this long, and is willing to take her back.Fortunately, the agency is a “no kill” organization, so I don’t feel guilty about sending her directly to her death.Nevertheless, I feel like I’m reneging on the responsibility assumed when we adopted her.Mind you, at the time of adoption the agency made it clear that we should bring the cat back to the agency if things didn’t work out.Well (again, sparing the details), they haven’t.

I can’t see any other course of action besides sending her back.Even our most animal-friendly, bleeding-heart, mushy-headed sentimentalist friends say that we can’t continue with the current situation.I still feel like a cop-out, though.I don’t know if you’re going to sympathize or chastise; either way, let me have it.

Thanks for listening,
Smelly Cat Dad

Dear Cat Dad,

Well, you’ve “spared me the details,” but I need the details.As it stands, I’ve only got questions.To wit:

Why is the cat that grossly overweight?Does she have a gland problem or a thyroid problem, or is she just a heifer?How did she get that fat in the first place?What does your vet say about it?Have you taken steps to try to reduce her weight — put her on a diet, given her exercise and extra play-time, gone to the vet for weigh-ins?You’ve only had her for a few months; these things take time.Shouldn’t the vet help you with her weight problem instead of suggesting kitty therapy?

Pursuant to that — do you know for a fact that her house-unbroken-ness is a behavioral problem and not a health problem?I assume you’ve looked into that possibility, but a cat flouts the box for one of two reasons — she’s ill, or she’s upset.Health problems often lead to, and become ingrained as, behavioral problems, but if that’s the case, you have to solve the health problems first.Could you take a few pounds off her and see if things improve?

How does the cat behave otherwise?Friendly?Hostile?Has she bonded to you?Do you have other pets in the house?How much time do you spend with her each day?

I think that the cat is way way too fat, and I think that that’s really the beginning and the end of the problem.I think that, before you decide anything, you have to get to the bottom of it — take her to the vet for a full check-up, including bloodwork and stool samples, and make sure she’s not diabetic or suffering from a glandular imbalance, and then ask the vet for a diet plan and put the cat on it for a few months, and if the vet’s all “oh, she’s just acting out,” find another vet who takes her weight problem seriously.And I think you have to give the cat more time.You’ve only had her for a few months, and now she lives locked in a bathroom; that’s not a good place from which to make decisions.I think you have to get her weight under control and do some research — online, at the library, whatever — on behavioral modification, because it does work on cats.But again, it takes time.

If you don’t want to devote any more time to the cat, well, okay.I can’t tell you if that’s the right thing or not, because you haven’t given me enough information.But you knew when you took her in that she couldn’t even clean herself properly.You had to have figured that that indicated other, more serious problems, and now that those problems have presented themselves, you can either deal with them, or you can let the agency deal with them, and if the agency let her obesity get that out of control in the first place…I just don’t know.I don’t have all the facts, and come to think of it, I have to wonder why.Do you just not want to get into it because you’ve already made your mind up to return her?Do you feel guilty about just wanting a “normal” cat that uses the box and sleeps all day?Because it’s not wrong to want that, but show me a “normal” cat and I’ll show you a bridge I know that’s for sale.

I mean, I would tell you stick with the cat for another six months, see if you can’t get her weight down, and take it from there, but I get the feeling that you’ve already decided and you just want me to tell you it’s okay, so…do what you have to do, I guess.

[10/4/01]

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