HTT, it's a bitter pill to swallow

Dear HTT,

My boyfriend's parents make a living selling nutritional supplements. Naturally, the family takes these daily supplements and swears by them.

Several months ago, I got a bug and was sick for about a week. My boyfriend sent me some of these supplements to help me get healthy and stay healthy. I thought it was sweet so I took them. For a little while.

I don't like to take vitamins or herbal remedies or anything. It's not that I think they don't work or are harmful or bad in any way. I simply don't want another product added to my daily routine. Basically, if it doesn't prevent pregnancy, pain, or severe misery, then I don't want to take it. I'm healthy and I feel like I get what I need from the food I eat.

So some time passed and my boyfriend gave me a four-month supply of this supplement. I tried to playfully decline it ("Aw, do I have to take my medicine? ... I know this is expensive--you don't have to give me this.") But he insisted and now I don't know what to do.

I feel bad pretending to take it. I feel bad wasting it. I feel bad lying that I'm taking it. (When I last visited his parents, his mother asked me if I were still taking it.) But I do not want to take it. What do I do? Is there a way to tell him I'm not taking it? Or do I continue the charade to avoid offending anyone?

Signed,
No pills


Dear No Pills,

I'm with you. Every once in a while, I make a resolution to take vitamins. I drop a ton of money at Whole Foods or GNC or Vitamin World, and then dutifully take a handful of pills that make me a little nauseous, turn my pee bright yellow, and supposedly ensure that I'll live to be 100. I keep this up for two weeks at most, and then the various amber-colored pill bottles get pushed to the back of the cabinet, only to get tossed years later.

At first I thought it would be easiest to just lie about it. It’s a little white lie, so not very bad in the big scheme of things. Perhaps these pills could be treated like the gaudy holiday sweater Aunt Sadie might have been given you at some point in your life and that you only wear when she’s around. But telling a little fib to spare the feelings of Aunt Sadie, whom you only see twice a year, is a little different than carrying on an on-going charade with your boyfriend and his family.

You say that you already feel badly about pretending and about wasting the supplements, and you’d just feel worse over time. So I think you need to tell your boyfriend what you’ve told me. Assure him that don’t have anything against the supplements, but you’re just not good at adhering to a vitamin-taking regimen, and you’re afraid the pills will go to waste in a dark corner of your cabinet.

If you and your beau are in it for the long haul, this is likely to be just one of many differences between you that you’ll have to negotiate. No time like the present for practicing these sorts of discussions. Easy for me to say, I know. But give him a chance take this news well, to accept you for the healthy, non-vitamin-taking person you are.

Good luck!
HTT

My girlfriend gets hammered, her friends hate me, what should I do?

Dear HTT,

Girlfriend's friends are a problem.

When I first started dating my girlfriend a little over a year ago (we live together now), I met all of her friends and although a few of them were annoying, I took it in stride and decided they were along for the ride. Since then, I've helped them move, watched their houses and animals while they were out of town, hung out with them, basically accepted them as friends and put my heart and soul into that just as I would any friend.

When my girlfriend and I began to argue about alcohol (she drinks too much and has admitted that several times; she can never have just "a few" - always has to get hammered; she said several times she would change for the better but consistently failed at that after just a few days at most and we would argue again), she would seek the help of these friends as "second opinions". Of course, being her girlfriends and drinking buddies since long before I knew her, they supported her. They told her that I was "controlling", that I "didn't want her to have any fun", that I was "trying to take her away from her friends", etc etc the list goes on and on. It has degenerated into them flat-out declaring that I am an "asshole" and a "dick".

I have never done anything wrong to these friends - have only been genuine and treated them like my close friends as well. Now that they are picking me apart and beating me and us down, I tell her that this is too much and I no longer have any use for any of them. She says that I am the one with the alcohol problem (for not accepting her getting hammered frequently) and that I am alienating myself as far as these friends are concerned. I told her that they are the ones who screwed up.

Everything else is my fault. My girlfriend never apologizes for anything. When she is wrong and we argue, I apologize just so that we can move on; with the hopes that such forgiveness and understanding and work toward the greater good will be met with relief and she will work harder.

I know she loves me and she tells me that she does. She has a new house and new car (all in my name because she has no credit; I'm 5 years younger). I tell her I love her each night and each morning.

How do I fix this craziness of denial and friends?

Thank you for any advice.


Dear Anonymous,

I’m afraid that her friends are the least of your problems. When I boil your letter down to its core elements, this is what I see:

• Your girlfriend “gets hammered” whenever she drinks
• She has admitted she drinks too much, yet says you’re the one with the problem because you don’t accept her drinking
• She counts on her drinking-buddy friends to enable her behavior
• She thinks everything is your fault and never apologizes for anything
• She has used your good credit to purchase a house and a car

These are red flags. Briskly waving flags. Giant ones, like the enormous American flag that flies over at least one car dealership in every town in this country. You ask how to fix this situation, but your girlfriend seems to have problems that you can’t fix, no matter how much patience, forgiveness, or understanding you muster.

Believe me. I know all too well the appeal of “helping” or fixing someone. Hello, I’ve got a crush on Gregory House of the television show “House.” If you watch the show, you know he’s a pill-popping, emotionally distant, ass who is also brilliant and handsome. I imagine his character as possessing a kernel of goodness that would blossom with the love of the right woman (aka me, if House were actually a real person).

To some of us, people who go off the rails have their own crazy allure, but we have to fight the tendency—and hubris—to think we can make them better. And in case you’re thinking, “easy for you to say…House is just a television character and I’m talking about a living, breathing person whom I happen to love,” rest assured that I’m not delusional; I know it’s only t.v. But I also briefly dated a man who was an alcoholic. He readily admitted as much and was working hard, albeit not very successfully, to stop drinking. He had more than a kernel of goodness, but a relationship with him would have been unhealthy if not impossible.

Your girlfriend might not be an alcoholic, but clearly her drinking is of concern to you. And that’s a problem. Also, I’m troubled for you about the possible ramifications of having put her house and car in your name.

I trust that you love her. I even trust that she loves you. But, cliché though this may be, love isn’t enough. I’m going to stop just short of suggesting you break up, because maybe your girlfriend is capable of change, although it doesn’t sound like she thinks she needs to. I do recommend disentangling yourself financially. And then spend time alone, someplace restful and quiet, and think about whether this relationship really makes you happy.

Good luck,
HTT

Dear HTT, you're going to have to find a really clever headline for this...

Dear HTT,

(Ok, so I'm way too lazy to set up an anonymous email account just so you don't know who this question came from, so you're just gonna have to live with knowing this about me.)

Today I shit my pants at work. All afternoon there was some gurgling going on in my gut as I sat happily working in my cubicle. Finally, I stood up to go to the bathroom and my ass exploded! My intestines did somersaults and it was not a silent affair. I have no clue how many people heard. I made it to the bathroom without being sighted but had to dump my undies in there. I got cleaned up and left commando-style. Someone came in as I was washing my hands; went into, then back out of, the stall I had been in. Poor thing! I sneaked out of the office without seeing anyone else. As I sit here typing I am laughing and crying at the same time. How the hell did I lose control of my bowels? Is this age? Disease? Is it gonna happen to me again? How can I face that person?

Just last week I was visiting someone in the hospital and had to listen to the patient in the next bed use a bedpan. I laughed about it and told my "horror" story to my friends. Is God punishing me?

Help!
Left My Dignity in My Shorts, Stall 1, Fourth Floor


Dear Dignity,

I might never read a more compelling opening line as long as I live. You pack a lot of drama into that short, declarative sentence with its bold active voice. Your second sentence? A thing of beauty. Look at the alliteration! And…and…”your ass exploded”? How vivid! Way to go, following the “show, don’t tell” rule!

What? You say I’m missing the point? Maybe I’m not missing it. Maybe I’m just too uncomfortable to address it. And that’s what people do. They change the subject and they don’t talk about that which they find awkward or dirty. (But for god’s sake, you can turn on Fear Factor and watch people eat fetid piles of fish guts and live hissing cockroaches and pickled cow colons. What could possibly be more disgusting than that? And what about the people who make complete asses of themselves on these reality tv shows? Talk about loss of dignity!) Anyway, the more people don’t talk about something, the worse that something becomes in our own minds. Have you ever been in therapy and worked up the nerve to tell your therapist something you thought was a deep, dark, terrible secret about yourself, only to find after giving it air and light that it wasn’t so horrible after all?

My point is not to tell you not to be embarrassed. I won’t patronize you. But I’d like to try to convince you that there’s nothing shameful about what happened to you. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I doubt it’s even all that uncommon.

I’ve had two friends, besides you, relate similar experiences. Now, for the sake of argument---and my below-average math skills---let’s just say I have 10 friends with whom I feel close enough to share this level of detail about bodily functions. (Right, I’m all for making bodily functions less taboo, but I’m not saying anyone is likely to take out a billboard describing the details of their pants-pooping experience.) So, if 30 percent of my close friends have like tales to tell, how does this translate to the general population? I don’t know, but you are not alone.

Now, I’m not a doctor. Obviously. But unless you have other symptoms or this becomes a more common occurrence, I’m guessing that you were just so enthralled with and wrapped up in your work (circumstances I cannot, unfortunately, imagine myself in), that you procrastinated a bit too long. If we’re all honest with ourselves, I’ll bet most of us could recount some extremely-near misses.

As for your question about God, I’m also no theologian. However, I do believe that life is a long series of humbling learning experiences.

Hope you’re feeling better,
HTT