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Ask Laurie

Q: HEY LAURIE,

I read through the questions some people ask you. And i can see that you give some good advice. I have been with my boyfriend for 2 years and 3 months. We are really happy together and he treats me really good too. The thing is ever since i started going out with him i stopped going out with my friends. You can say that if i dont go out with him i really dont go out at all. At first it didnt really bother me, but now it is really getting to me! He tells me to go out and have fun with my friends, but I cant. Whenever he goes with his frineds i gett really mad!!!!Sometimes so mad that i feel like ending our relationship. I never do because usually i get over it, but the next time he goes out again the same anger comes back. It keeps building up inside and soon i feel like i will explode. I try going out but whenever i am going to, something goes wrong and i never do. I can also say that if get invited somewhere i wont go just to be with my boyfriend, what gets me mad is that when they invite him he will go. Sometimes i wish i didnt love him so much, sometimes i wished i could let go of him a bit. What should do?

A: HEY WHAT SHOULD DO,

Well, first you should continue to sing my praises as you so smartly did in the second line of your note. But next time add a few more superlatives, will you? My suggestions would be:

•  ".you give some damn good advice" and
•  ". Oh Laurie, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Laurie, hey Laurie

Second, you should find the shift key on your keyboard and.use it. After that, look for the apostrophe (middle and to the right).

Onto the important part: what should do? Ok, first you need to understand that anger, which you're experiencing a lot(!!!!!), is a secondary emotion to cover up feeling hurt. Don't believe me? I suggest a simple exercise. Once you're done throwing one of your sixty-two (62) hissy fits, take your thumb out of your mouth and sit down by yourself and get quiet. Give yourself about ten minutes to just sit and focus on why you're so angry.

If there's an ounce of self awareness in your body you will come to feel fear and sadness. Fear at the perceived threat of being abandoned (by your boyfriend going out and living his life) and sadness perhaps at having been abandoned sometime earlier in your life. Early abandonment makes intimacy scary. When we're scared of intimacy we do the come-here-go-away dance (I love him so much. I'm ending the relationship). Is this ringing any bells?

Ok, the thumb's out, you're sitting nice and quiet and there's sadness and fear coming up for you. Yuck! Who wants to feel any of that?! Right, which is why you automatically skip over it and jump to anger. Anger allows you to shirk responsibility and point the finger at someone else. According to you, your boyfriend, who's minding his own business, living a healthy, diversified life is making you miserable. Read that sentence out loud to yourself and hear how 100% coo-coo bananas it is.

Moving on. You know what anger also does? It pushes people away and wears them down. You say you're threatening to leave this guy who, from your description, isn't doing anything wrong. Man, if I were him I'd take the resignation letter and run, but he clearly has his own set of issues otherwise he wouldn't put up with your shenanigans. Keep up your antics and he'll be the one leaving you-guaranteed.

Ok, now that we understand the psychology of why you're acting like a freak, what should do? If you want to save your soul I'd find a good shrink. Until you get your emotional house in order you will forever be the Finger-pointing Angry Girl. Your miserable state will always be caused by someone else. Why? Because your perspective-o-meter is broken.

In the meantime, my suggestion is to get a life. Your boyfriend suggests it too: "He tells me to go out and have fun with my friends, but I cant." Why can't you? Because after two years and three months of being a krazee-cat-lady recluse your friends filed a missing persons report and moved on. I can't believe you get invited to anything but a recovery meeting. What were you doing with yourself before you got yourself a whipping post I mean boyfriend? What did you used to like to you? Where are YOU in all this?

The Short Answer: Have you forgotten you are an individual first and somebody's girlfriend second? There is no such thing as a mind meld (or tribbles, for that matter). If this relationship were to end tomorrow what would you do? Who would you be? Who are you now? There is a whole wonderful world out there just waiting to be discovered if you can first discover yourself. Have courage and start the journey is what should do!

Lovingly&logically yours, Laurie