Hard Hats and Lingerie in Chicago

Dear Jassy:

Okay, so this is embarrassing and humiliating. But I don't know who else to write to or talk about this with.

I work on a big construction site in Chicago. With the exception of a few girls who got hired on, it's me and a few hundred guys all putting this huge thing up, girder by girder. It's tough work, and sometimes it's dangerous. We all, girls included, wear hard hats, jeans and T shirts in the summer, and then switch out and add in flannel shirts and thick vests in the winter. Unlike all the other guys, I am not wearing boxers or Y fronts under my jeans, but women's lingerie.

I live in fear that I will have an accident and have to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance as they cut off my jeans and find my thong underwear. I sometimes have premonitions as I'm crossing over the construction site that something's going to happen, and find myself flinching. But I can't stop dressing up for work. I'm sure nobody would ever guess, as I'm Mr. Super Macho Man, swaggering around belching and farting like all the rest of the guys. It's not really me.

I'm not gay, I'm really not. I went through a phase where I was scared that I was and looked at some gay male porno just to see. It just looked painful and funny to me. Don't get me wrong - I don't have anything against homosexual men (or women either). I like women, and get turned on by women. But I don't tend to stick in relationships for long, because it's hard to hide the fact that I "dress." I've done this since I was a kid - used to wait until my mother would leave the house and then go look through her cupboards and drawers. It's kind of like I feel all the pieces of the jigsaw fit together right when I'm dressed in women's clothes.

I guess I don't exactly know what my question is. I feel like a screw-up. I'm tired of living with this constant fear of being found out. Got any suggestions?

Signed: Hard hat and a thong in Chicago

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Dear Mr. Hard Hat:

First off, I have heard stories similar to yours from men working on construction sites, so it is not as unusual as you might think. Like many crossdressers, you have picked an extremely manly profession - one in which nobody would ever suspect you of being anything less than completely manly, a "man's man," a masculine man! Interestingly, researchers estimate that approximately 1% of men in the USA crossdress, so you're in very good company. Like you, they just don't talk about it. And therein lies part of your problem - you are very isolated and isolation can easily breed self-hatred and destructively avoidant behaviors.

So, Mr. Hard Hat, you need to educate yourself.

You're clearly comfortable online, so I suggest you get hold of a basket of books - you can order through Amazon if you don't want to walk into a bookstore or library . Peggy J. Rudd's book, "Crossdressing With Dignity: The Case for Transcending Gender Lines" might be a good place to start. You can also check out some of the online information and support sites for crossdressers. For example, take a look at the website of the Chicago Chapter of Tri-Ess which is a support group for cross-dressing men (and their girlfriends and wives if they have them.) In order to feel better about yourself you need to learn more about cross-dressing. You need to understand the myths about crossdressing and the realities.

In fact, let's start with some of those myths, shall we? First off, most crossdressers are not gay. The majority are red-blooded, heterosexual men who just happen to like wearing women's clothes from time to time. Crossdressing and gay drag queens are not synonymous.

Crossdressing frequently starts very young and it's extremely rare for men to begin dressing in their adult years, so you're like most other crossdressers in that you got interested in your mother's clothes when you were young.

The American Psychological Association does not believe crossdressing to be pathological behavior and current theory has it that crossdressing can't be cured. In fact, the failure rate for therapists trying to "cure" crossdressers is apparently abysmal so, to my mind, the primary goal of therapy is to help the client begin to come to terms with their crossdressing and make peace with themselves and their identity. Whether you find yourself less interested in crossdressing as a result, or clearer on the part you wish "dressing" to play in your life, my suggestion for you, Mr. Hard Hat, would be to do the same. Most crossdressers who come into therapy come because they are weary of hiding themselves, tired of feeling so at odds with the world and their identity. So therapy will not change your desire to crossdress, but if you find a good therapist it will help you to understand your desires more completely.

As for finding a girlfriend who will understand? Well, I suggest starting with understanding yourself first. There are plenty of women who will accept and love men who crossdress if you can be honest and upfront about who you are. But it starts there, Mr. Hard Hat. Like many crossdressers, threads of shame, humiliation, fear of discovery and compulsivity appear in your email. Life will be a lot more manageable if you aren't struggling with those heavy hitters! Plus, how can you expect somebody else to love and accept you if you are struggling with those very same issues yourself? Start there, Mr. Hard Hat. Like the L'Oreal commercials say, "You're worth it."

Best wishes,
Jassy

Lacking Confidence in Florida

Dear Jassy:

I've been reading your blog for a while now, and have wanted to post but feel like my concerns are probably peanuts compared with the problems that some of your readers and patients are probably experiencing. What prompted me was the example you gave in your blog yesterday about the treatment plan for the person who couldn't stand up to their dad. That leapt right out of the page at me and I wanted to know if you had any suggestions for my situation.

I don't know what the clinical terminology is for what I have, but I guess you could say that I'm very shy and lack confidence. I'm 30 years old and I grew up in a small town in Florida with a family that isn't good at handling feelings. My dad is definitely the man of the house, and my mom is almost a stereotypical housewife - she works part-time, and has raised us kids (I'm the oldest of three, but the only girl). My dad's word is law and always has been and even when mom doesn't agree with him she'll stick up for him. She's always making excuses for the things he does and says. If my family were a schoolyard, he'd be the schoolyard bully, always puffing himself up and singling out the weakest one. I feel like I've spent my life avoiding him, trying to make myself small enough so that he won't pick on me. Don't get me wrong - he doesn't hit us, never has. But he doesn't need to. He has this way of looking at you that makes you shrivel and he is constantly angry, although it leaks out sideways and you never know when it will come in your direction.

I'm shy in groups, and am allow myself to be controlled by what I think people will think of me. I always assume the worst, and second-guess myself all the time. It stops me doing anything, because I'm convinced I'm going to fail, so what's the point. This would be easier to come to terms with if he had been outright mean, but it was more that he put us down, particularly me as the only girl (although he didn't always treat my Mom that well either.) I easily feel diminished and put down by people I hang out with - it makes having a boyfriend almost impossible. I'm just too scared I'd pick somebody just like my dad, so it's easier to stay single.

I've ended up in a job I don't really want to do, because I worry that my father will disapprove if I change career paths. I don't have friends, because I find it hard to trust people (and even harder to like them.) I bought a house I didn't really want to buy, but because it was close to my parents and my father said it was a "good deal." I live in a neighborhood I really don't like for the same reason. He's just too much of a bully to stand up to, so it's easier to adopt his dreams for me than to fight back against him and have my own. I just shut down around him as a way to deal with his non-stop telling me what I want to do, what I want to eat, where I want to live and how I should dress. He controls my mother this way too.

When I read back over this, I sound awful - like some kind of freak. On my good days, I can tell that I'm a good person. I'm very kind, thoughtful and caring. It's just that I can't always get in touch with remembering these things about myself.

I want to have a bigger life. A better life. One that I can feel happy in. Do you have any thoughts about my situation and how to change it?

Signed: Lacking Confidence in Florida


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Dear Ms. Confidence:

Your email requires a lot of detailed response, and if I were your therapist I would definitely want to explore all the ways in which being raised by your parents had impacted your ability to make decisions and feel good about yourself. However, for the purposes of this one email response, I don't want to jump in and give you advice or tell you what you should do, because I'm guessing you've been told what to think, what to feel, what to say and how to act most of your life and I suspect any attempt to do that would go over like a lead weight (and I was going to say "like a fart in church" but didn't want to offend any delicate sensibilities amongst my readers!).

If you are 30 years old then your father is probably somewhere between 48 and 60 years of age. He's lived more than half his life already, and hopefully at least some part of it has been the life he wanted. You, on the other hand, are living the life your father wanted for you, and it does not sound to me as if you are enjoying it very much at all. You have two choices. You can continue to live the life your father has chosen for you, and be unhappy. Or, you can start to make your own choices, deal with the fall-out from your father, but have a life that is more in line with your own values, wishes and desires. It really is up to you. If you pick option one, you pretty much know what to expect. However, option two will need some careful planning.

What I am going to suggest is that you carefully and slowly, taking your own sweet time, find a way to envision the kind of life that you would want to live - not the one that your father wants you to have, but the one that would make you truly content and happy. Remember - take this slowly, Ms. Confidence. It's going to take you quite a while, as you will need to get very particular in the details of your vision. To start with, close your eyes. Imagine you are sitting on a chair in the middle of a room. This room is in the house you live in, but not your current home. It's the home you don't yet live in, but will want to ultimately. As you slowly begin to see yourself sitting on the chair, start by describing the chair you are sitting on. Is it a hard wooden seat with a straightback? Is it a soft cushy armchair, with squishy cushions and pillowed armrests? Is it a Papasan chair, made from willow? Once you have the picture of the chair, go on to imagine the room you are sitting in. Which room is it? Kitchen, living room, bedroom or maybe you're sitting in a hallway? Imagine that you have opened your eyes and are looking around the room. Would it be small and cave like? Open and light? Just one large room with all your furniture and belongings around you? Do you imagine stairs leading to the second floor, or are you all on one level?

As you try to day-dream about this, you may find yourself resisting it and you may experience feelings of frustration. That is natural. You have not had free rein over your imagination for quite some time, so it will take a little while for you to feel comfortable and confident back in the driver's seat. Just keep breathing, and keep thinking about the feeling and ambience of the room you're in. Now imagine that you're standing up and walking around your house. Keep noticing the kind of house you're in and remember that you can create it to be exactly what you want it to be.

When you feel that you have a sense of the house, go to the front door and walk out. Take a deep breath, and with your eyes still closed, imagine what you see when you open your front door. Are you surrounded by trees, fields and countryside? Are you on a busy urban street? Are there people waving hello to you as you open your door or are they busy with their own lives not paying attention to you? Drink this in. Notice what feels happiest to you. Start to do this visioning with every part of your life - after all, how on earth can you change your life unless you know what you want it to look like? Think about how you would like to spend your evenings: do you want to go camping and hiking? Maybe dancing? Learn a new dance step? Or maybe a new language? Just keep writing down all the things that you'd like to try to learn, or have fun doing. Nobody is going to commit you to anything. You're just experiencing possibilities at the moment, mulling over potential interests, not committing yourself to a course of action.

If you are comfortable with writing make sure to write down all the things you figure out about the place you want to live, the people you want to live with or near, the kind of environment you want to live in and the kind of community you seek for yourself. Keep adding to it until you can practically taste it, until you can truly see it. Look for photographs in magazines that look like the kind of place you want to live, articles about things that matter to you, values you hold and keep them all in the same place with either your hand-written journal, or print outs from your computer the life you want and where you want to live it. Nobody, but nobody else will be able to do this for you.

Neither your father, nor I, nor your best and closest friends know what is best for you, or what kind of life you should have. You have the right to self-determination. You are entitled to make decisions that may not be the ones that I or your father, your mother, your friends etc., would choose. But you have the right to make them anyway. You even have the right to make no changes at all and to leave your life exactly the way it is. Just remember that it will be hard at first to come up with your own plan for your life - you are going to be stretching muscles that you haven't had to use in a while.

So, am I going to suggest that you cut the cord with your father? No. It would be pointless of me to advocate for that. Only you can know what's in your best interests. But I am going to encourage you to create a vision of the life you would really love so completely that you cannot bear not to be living it.

The next thing you could do, if you felt like it, is get hold of a copy of Brad Blanton's book, "Practicing Radical Honesty." There is a chapter in there on figuring out your "life purpose." It is one of the most useful exercises I've ever done. (If you don't have money for the book, email me your address and I'll photocopy the pages for you - Brad won't object, I'm sure.) Do that exercise as many times as you have to until you can really picture what your purpose is in the world.

At the point when you can see, taste and feel the kind of life you want for yourself, go see a therapist. When you start to put your life plan into action some pretty heavy duty feelings are going to come up, and you will need supports in place to help you deal with them.

First things first. You need to know your purpose AND the kind of life you want. When you've figured that out, you're onto the next place. So, Ms. Confidence, what do YOU want to do?

Best wishes to you,

Jassy

Frightened of Failing Therapy

Jassy:

I value your opinion as someone who has journeyed through counseling & someone who has "studied" counseling. I need your advice & wisdom. Today in therapy, my therapist said that we need to "re-look at the treatment plan and re-evaluate: see which goals have been met and what new ones can be created". (I THINK she mentioned new ones.) We completed the original treatment plan in 7/04. It has really not been mentioned much. This freaks me out. Am I failing therapy? Am I not working hard enough? (Please don't say, "why don't you ask your therapist?"-that will piss me off.) I think i MIGHT bring it up, but that is 11 days away, but besides that, what do you think? Is she going to kick me out? Am I too dependent on her? Am I not needy enough? Why did she decide on this particular day to say we needed to re-evaluate? She told me I should journal about "why I am choosing to stay stuck; safe vs. unsafe." This was after I shared for the second time this entry I wrote around 8/15ish "Now if I don't want my life to continue as it has been, then obviously I need to make some changes..." and I listed 7 things. We briefly talked about the need to do something different, and about the quote "Mental Insanity equals doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same results."

Spill it and preach it.

Frightened of Failing Therapy

PS: I am going to sleep on it tonight whether I should ask her for a copy of my original goals (I know I should have it but....), and whether I can see her earlier instead of waiting 2 weeks, because I am really freaking out. I know I need to create attainable goals. But I don't know...in therapy do you do SMART goals like in the business arena???? I am going to go through my therapy journals from the last 2 years. I am going to talk about what positive steps I have taken as a result of therapy, and what negative steps I have taken because of/maybe not because of therapy; and think about new goals I can work on.

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Dear Frightened:

Wow, you really do have yourself in a tizzy here, don't you? I apologize for taking time to respond to your email and yes, of course I am going to suggest that you show the email you wrote me to your therapist. I don't know you inside out like she does, and therefore can't possibly respond with as much insight about you as she would be able to. Go on! Take the bull by the horns and risk it.

However, for what it's worth I will respond to your "spill it and preach it" invitation.

First of all, you can never fail therapy. Your therapist can fail you, but you can never fail. Just by showing up week after week, you show your willingness to make changes.

Let's start by addressing the purpose of treatment plans in therapy. Some therapists, as part of the early work in your therapy, formulate a treatment plan with input and guidance from the client. When used correctly, a treatment plan is a kind of road map for the work that you will do with your therapist during your course of treatment. The therapist, and the client, will use it as the beacon that lights the way for it contains the goals, aims, objectives and ways in which you are planning for your recovery. The treatment plan will often inform all the work that you do with your therapist and is YOUR definition of the ways in which you want your life to change. This plan will include what you are choosing to work on ("I don't know how to stand up to my father. I want to learn how to do this"), what you will do to work on it ("I will identify in therapy the specific things that scare me about standing up to my father. I will identify various ways to practice standing up to my father and work on the feelings that come up as a result, using role play, talking to my therapist about my fears and reading books suggested by my therapist "), and how long you think it will take to do this ("I will use these techniques over the next 3 months and re-evaluate the changes in my relationship with him at the end of that time"). Sometimes they address specific tasks such as consulting with a psychopharmacologist about medication, sometimes they make suggestions about groups to join or meetings to attend. Treatment plans seem very hard and fast, but actually they most often are used flexibly as things get worked on and problems figured out, and also as new issues emerge. Some of the goals may be long-term and some short-term. But the point of the plan is to concretize the direction of the therapy and to make clear what you, the client, hope to get from all your hard work.

Okay, so onto your fears. If you are clear that you and your therapist worked on the original treatment plan together and as you say it has not been mentioned since, my guess is that you met all your goals. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Give yourself a pat on the back for all your hard work, Ms. Frightened! As goals are identified, worked on and successfully treated, you will move onto the next goal. I suspect this is what your therapist is referring to when she talks about identifying which goals have been met. More than a performance review for you, it's more like a strategic planning session for you and your therapist. Actually, it sounds like you already have plans to do that for yourself, based on your statement that you are going to "go through my therapy journals from the last 2 years. I am going to talk about what positive steps I have taken as a result of therapy, and what negative steps I have taken because of/maybe not because of therapy; and think about new goals I can work on." You are clearly a pro-active kind of client , and this is wonderful - we therapists LOVE working with folks like you!

The insecurity that you display about your relationship with your therapist could probably benefit from attention. For example, unless you are (1) threatening your therapist with physical violence (2) not paying him/her or (3) repeatedly cancelling without notifying her, then it is highly unlikely that you are going to be "kicked out" of therapy. Tell your therapist about your fears. No doubt this isn't the only place in your life that you fear rejection, but it does give you a safe place to work on these feelings so that they have less power over you in your life.

I'll be rooting for you, Frightened!

Jassy

Girlfriend with Jealous Lover

Dear Jassy:

I am a graduate student and, while doing an internet search, turned up your blog site. I know that you don't provide therapy in your blog, but you did say that you answer people's email questions and so I have a question for you. I'm a lesbian and have been involved with the same woman for the last 5 years. I'm 27 years old and she's 28 years old. We are very committed to each other and would like to spend the rest of our lives together. (Unfortunately, unlike Massachusetts, our state does not allow same-sex couples to get married.) My girlfriend is a wonderful partner. She's very loyal, devoted and we get along really well, despite having different interests. Where we are similar is that we want the same things out of life. Most of the time I'm really, really happy with her. We live together, with our dogs, contribute fairly equally to the household budget and see the same things as important in life - paying bills on time, having good food in the house, and spending time with our dogs and our human friends. From the outside, everything looks wonderful and we are, most of the time very happy together. The first year that we were together was just great. She said that it was the first time in her life that she had ever felt safe, and that she felt drawn to me because of this.

The problem is that after the first year, my girlfriend became more and more jealous. From having talked with friends, I think it goes beyond normal jealousy. Despite the fact that I have done nothing that deserves her jealous actions, she doesn't believe that I'm not going to cheat on her. She has a hard time with my close friendships. She has sneaked into my study and read my journal. She gives me a really hard time if I'm late home, and sometimes has shown up places when I tell her I have appointments. She frequently moves her schedule around so that she can be there when I come out of school in the evening, and is always showing up unannounced at the restaurant where I'm waitressing my way through graduate school. Sometimes she's opened my personal mail, and says that she was in a hurry and didn't pay attention. If I spend any time online, she's convinced that I have an internet romance and is constantly complaining about the time I spend doing internet research for school, or replying to my emails. I'm sure this jealousy has something to do with her own history. Her dad cheated on her mother and left them when she was quite young, and she's had other girlfriends cheat on her quite a few times before.

I would feel differently if I had something to hide. But I don't. I've never cheated on anybody. However, this behavior is crazy making. I'm beginning to feel crazy and dishonest even thought I haven't done anything to feel guilty about! I've noticed myself feeling more protective of my privacy, feeling resentful at her blaming me for things I haven't done and feeling like I don't want to share things with her because she doesn't trust me anyway!

I know that you're going to say I should speak to a shrink, but I don't have health insurance at the moment, and I can't afford to see a therapist until I finish school and have a job. In the meantime, have you got any suggestions for how to handle the situation with my girlfriend? I really love her and don't want this to come between us. I've tried talking to her until I'm blue in the face, and nothing seems to work. Every time I talk about it with her, she just says she loves me so much and she thinks I'm going to leave her for somebody else. Please, help!

Desperate Girlfriend of Jealous Lover

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Dear Desperate Girlfriend:

The first thing to be aware of is that love and jealousy are not synonymous. Your girlfriend is mistaken when she equates the two as equal. This is not to say that she doesn't love you - based on your descriptions, the connection that the two of you share and the life you have created together is clearly real for both of you. However, her attempts to desperately clutch at you have their origins in something other than the experience of love. Based on what you say, they are more based on her experience of loss of love. Unfortunately, if she keeps this up, her behavior may, eventually, have the effect of driving you away, and create exactly the thing that she may most fear. (Please note: You haven't mentioned domestic violence, so I'm hoping that her jealous behavior is not accompanied by violence or physical aggression. If domestic violence is present in your relationship, I recommend that you immediately contact your nearest domestic violence hotline and ask for a list of resources in your area. They usually offer free counseling which I would recommend you take advantage of. They will also help you make a safety plan. Everything else I'm about to write is based on there being NO physical violence in your relationship!)

Many people in committed relationships report the occasional feeling of jealousy, and some jealousy is normal and understandable in any relationship. Usually, these jealous feelings have their origins in our insecurities, after all very few of us feel 100% confident about our appearance, our intelligence, our sexiness, our loveability or our value. Most people can tell that their experience of mistrust is not rooted in anything rational, and are able to figure out ways to soothe themselves, and calm these feelings down. The difference between most people and your girlfriend, however, is that she is unable to tell that her behavior is irrational. For people this jealous, they truly believe that there is something to distrust and I'm guessing that no matter what you say you cannot convince her otherwise. This kind of jealousy borders on obsessional and normal ways of coping do not generally apply.

Locked inside the jealous lover's jealous feelings and behavior is the source of the jealousy and distrust. You wrote, "She said that it was the first time in her life that she had ever felt safe, and that she felt drawn to me because of this" and you also told me that her father had left her and her mother when she was a child You also wrote that she had experienced several infidelities in her lifetime. Now here you are. Finally, somebody she can trust! Unfortunately, the specters of the past come back to haunt us. The very thing she craves, the stability of constant, responsive and reliable love and companionship, is the very thing she is unable to trust. This kind of obsessional jealousy is destructive, for it does not respond to reason or reassurance. Added to this, it's hard to remain long-term in a relationship with somebody who is very jealous - people frequently describe it feeling as if they live with a third person in the relationship, and that third person is a tyrant.

First of all, there are several excellent books you can read on the topic. Although they describe a complex human topic, they are easy to read. The first is "Overcoming Jealousy and Possessiveness" by Paul A. Hauck. The second one is "Overcoming Jealousy" by Dr. Windy Dryden. If money is tight, ask your local library to order them for you. I strongly recommend that you do this, particularly as you don't have access to health insurance or a shrink at present. (If you email me with your location, I can see if I can drum up some resources for you in your town or city.)

Secondly, you say talking to your girlfriend hasn't worked. If you think talking to her won't work, consider writing her a letter. You can hand this to her and ask her to read aloud to you. Some people who won't respond to talking, will respond to visual information. Either write or tell her that you are very upset about the way she treats you as a result of the jealousy and possessiveness that she feels. Explain carefully, using "I" statements, what you feel when she accuses you of being untrustworthy, including that you love her and feel scared by her behavior. Tell her that you are educating yourself about jealousy, what it is, why people feel it and how to respond and that you are going to change how you respond to her in future. Your girlfriend clearly needs a great deal of reassurance, so please - tell her often throughout this conversation that you love her very much and you are not leaving. You need her to understand that you cannot continue like this and that this dynamic in your relationship needs to change. Explain that you are going to start taking responsibility for how you feel about her accusations and you hope that she does the same in order to create more stability, happiness and calm in your relationship.

Thirdly, ask your girlfriend for a short list of things that help her feel calmer. Does it calm her down if you call when you're going to be late? How about having an idea of your schedule so that she can feel more confident about your whereabouts? Are there things that she would like to hear from you that would reassure her? Once you have the list be honest with her about the things that you can and can't do. For example, if she says, "I want you to call me every half hour to tell me where you are, and who you are with" you have to decide whether that feels reasonable to you. (Hint: It's not.) If it's not reasonable, decide what IS. Be clear with her. "I won't do that, however I will call you in the morning and afternoon to check in with you and tell you about my day and see how you are doing." Be clear about what you are capable of. If you are going to promise to do something, you have to be absolutely certain of your ability to follow through.

Fourthly, tell her that from now on you are no longer going to respond to her accusations of infidelity and dishonesty. Tell her that despite what jealousy may whisper in her ear, you are a faithful, trustworthy and loving partner. Say, "Because I know that I am not the person you accuse me of being, if you accuse me of cheating or lying in the future, I'm going to either hang up or leave the room because I love you and myself too much to respond." Dr. Paul Hauck says that another way of explaining this is to say, "I love you enough to want to stop you from becoming the sort of person I can't tolerate." Then do it. If she starts to whine because you didn't answer your cell phone when she called you 10 times, smile and tell her you love her, and leave the room. If she clamors at you for "proof" of where you were today, smile and tell her that you love her, and leave the room. You are going to have to start "taking your sails out of her wind." Just because she's blowing, doesn't mean you have to go sailing! You mention that you have talked to friends about this. Tell them about your strategy, and ask them if you can call them if the going gets tough. It's stressful living with a jealous partner, so figure out ways to de-stress, whether this is spending time with friends, taking the dogs for a long walk, cleaning the bathroom or taking a bath. Find ways to de-stress and calm yourself down.

And yes, you're right...I am going to suggest that you try to figure out a way to meet with a therapist. Many towns and cities have free or low-price (but not low quality) mental health clinics. So, please be aware that this response to you is no substitute for a few sessions with a good psychotherapist. The suggestions I have made, along with the books, are not going to solve the whole problem. Your girlfriend has to buy into the idea that her behavior is a problem in the relationship in order for her to begin the process of changing it.

Good luck and keep me posted on your progress.

Jassy

Therapy Dog (in the fur!)

It appears that "Therapy Dog" has a small fan club, or so it would seem judging by the number of emails I've received asking for a photograph. So I here present, for your viewing pleasure, a photograph of Ziggy Stardust Timberlake, aka "Therapy Dog."

Who could resist that underbite?