When Your Character Bosses You Around

I wrote a story today. 2677 words.

There was a moment when I KNEW my protagonist was supposed to suffer. Life is cruel and it was going to be cruel to him. It was supposed to be. That's what you're supposed to do to your "hero", or even your "anti-hero" - you're supposed to put him through hell, or up a tree, or up a creek or whatever.

Then I chickened out.

I couldn't do it. He'd already had a plain day and a rough couple of years, so I gave him a hope-y ending.

I don't know if that constitutes a story or just a character sketch, but I'll see how it reads tomorrow in the light of day.

I always chicken out. Apparently it's common for a writer to weep when killing off a favourite character, but I can't even give my character a broken heart.

I need to get tougher. How do you do it?