August 26, 2010
by Rod Smith
See your dislikes as a challenge
Take time alone (yes, no phone, no computer, no other friends or distractions) so you may come to terms with your part of the failure. You will know you are beginning to be ready for restoration of the relationship when you have moved beyond blaming others and are no longer looking to excuse your behavior. You take full responsibility for your behavior.
While alone, your focus at all times will not be on what someone has done to you but on what you have done to others. You might write a journal, pray, read, and meditate – with each of these activities contributing to helping you find a healthy perspective on what you have done to damage trust in the relationship.
Preparing yourself for restoration, requesting forgiveness, owning up to your part in what failures have occurred, does not mean the person whom you hurt will be ready for forgiveness and reconciliation.
Relinquishing control of where he or she is in his or her journey is an essential part of your journey.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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August 25, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My daughter (24) has started seeing a man no one in the family likes. Surely she should see this as a ‘red flag’? Do you think we should have a big meeting and all tell her what we see and then let her take it from there?”
See your dislikes as a challenge
to announce that you (the members of your family) are all separate people. Each of you is probably perfectly capable of loving and embracing persons who are very different from the persons others of the family may choose. You can do this all without falling apart as a family.
Letting your daughter know what you see, think, and feel individually might prove helpful to those who feel the need to deliver this message, but I think I’d avoid the big meeting at this time.
I’d suggest you challenge yourselves to love whomever your daughter loves and use your differences as a source of growth.
Posted in Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Friendship, Love |
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August 24, 2010
by Rod Smith
Open yourself to growth
about the degree of conflict experienced with their children, who then, during the conversation, will openly confess they have no time for a mother or father-in-law, their own parent, or are out of sorts with an adult sibling. When I gently point out that these conflicts are possibly connected, fueling each other, I am met with disbelief.
“You’re saying that my fights with my son over his homework (or irresponsibility, or drinking) are connected to the fact that my father-in-law is an impossible man to whom I have refused to talk for the past five years?”
Indeed.
“You’re saying that my ridiculously controlling mother who walks in here like a movie director telling us all where to stand and what to say is connected to my 12-year-old daughter mouthing off to me however she likes.”
Indeed.
When the adult takes the challenge of embracing the “impossible” father-in-law, or standing up to the “controlling” mother, the adult is taking personal responsibility for his or her pivotal relationships.
A parent who takes full responsibility for himself or herself when it comes to relating to members of their preceding generation, will see less anxious, less reactive, less rebellious behavior in the generation that follows.
Yes. It is all indeed connected.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family, In-laws, Leadership |
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August 22, 2010
by Rod Smith
No room to move....
(Minimal edits)
While it takes two to tangle (not tango!) it only takes one of the partners to cheat. I trust you will experience greater love than you’ve ever known.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation |
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August 20, 2010
by Rod Smith
“In twenty years my husband has never told me he loves me. I know he does but he just can’t say the words. He makes up for this in so many ways but it would be nice to hear. Please help.”
Let him off the hook
For some people the words “I love you” get trapped where head, heart, and history intersect and the love can find no escape but through loving acts.
Enjoy his love, even if the words “I love you” are never said. Let him off the hook. Love him by relieving him of this expectation.
If your husband were the person writing to me I’d challenge him to learn to love you with both actions and words. I’d suggest he at least take a look at when and how these words lost their legs inside him.
Since you wrote I will suggest you use this circumstance to advance your own growth by resisting the understandable urge to meddle with his head and heart.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Trust, Voice, Young Love |
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August 19, 2010
by Rod Smith
Bravely begin claiming back your life
can be as damaging as child neglect. While I am aware of this somewhat harsh generalization, I cannot help but call to mind the many over-focused parents I have met who, in the name of parenting, lost their lives to their children and in the process, all but consumed their children. Such parents are usually taken aback when the children fight back in a desperate search for room to breathe. If you identified yourself in yesterday’s column and would like to move toward a more healthy position, here are a few initial, or small step, suggestions:
1. Announce your insight about your propensity to over-parent to your spouse (or, in the absence of a spouse, to a few trusted close friends) and declare your desire to give everyone around you more room to move.
2. Do not be afraid – if this is at first even possible. Establishing space and healthy separation will not damage your child. Not doing so might. You are not rejecting your child. If you’ve been over-parenting it is likely your child desires some space even if he or she appears to resist your moves toward some independence. Children are as resistant to change as most people.
3. Forge personal interests unrelated to your child. Fake your enthusiasm if you have to, but get involved in something outside of the home. Come on! Think. You did have a life before you had a child. Reach out to it.
4. Reconnect with old friends to reestablish a community of support. Be careful, initially, to avoid other child-obsessed parents as you try to break your addiction to your child.
5. Make a priority to invest time in the relationship with your spouse. I believe that children are happier when they know that their parents do not depend on the children being happy, but rather that the parents’ relationship is strong. (Added by Vincent Randy)
Posted in Adolescence, Boundaries, Children, Parenting/Children, Step parenting, Trust |
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August 18, 2010
by Rod Smith
Here are 7 signs you might be too close or over-parenting your child (or children):
Have surrendered your power to your child?
1. Your child is central to all your conversations. Every conversation, no matter how initially unrelated, ultimately includes or returns to the topic of your child.
2. You deeply desire to be your child’s friend and so you avoid difficult issues, necessary conflicts and confrontations.
3. You find yourself in the middle, trapped between your partner and your child, your ex and your child, teachers (coaches, mentors) and your child, your parents and your child. You are a self-appointed shield and therefore attempt to fend off essential opportunities for helpful pain and growth, necessary for all children to become healthy adults.
4. Your child is the stake in the ground to which you are tethered and around which you function. Everything is about your child, all of your social life (if you have one at all), your interests, activities; everything is focused around your child.
5. Your primary adult relationship (with your spouse or partner – you might have forgotten that this is in fact your primary relationship) sometimes gets in the way of your role with your child and almost all of the time you choose your child and feel guilty if you do not.
(Tomorrow: Steps to healthy parent-child separation)
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, High maintenance relationships, Love, Step parenting, Teenagers |
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August 17, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My wife ‘disappears’ about once a month for a day at a time to go shopping with her three best friends. They start early with breakfast and go mall hopping, then they have lunch. After lunch they hit the malls again and then get dinner together. Sometimes they end the day with a movie and it is ten or eleven o’clock before she gets home. This gets to me. My wife gets upset and says I am the only husband who complains. It’s not the money – my wife is very good with money. I think that just because my wife doesn’t have to work it doesn’t mean there are not things that have to be done around the house and I just like her to be home when I get home.” (Edited)
Use your time to show your love....
is your domestic issue, that your wife has a life outside of the home, that she has committed friendships, and that she is part of a community of women who want to spend time together.
On her days out, once you arrive home, get busy with completing the “things that have to be done” while you are home alone. Working around the house will get your mind off her absence and demonstrate the love you feel for her.
Unhook your wagon, sir. It is possible to love your wife without monitoring her. It is possible for you to have similar involvement with a group of friends.
Really, this is such a wonderful problem to have. Support your wife. Suggest she go out more than once a month. Celebrate her life and her community rather than trying to dampen and suppress it. Get more of a life for yourself, one that doesn’t depend so much on her, and find your own freedom.
You can do all this and remain wonderfully married. Repeat after me and commit to memory: No one can BOTH love and control the same person — it’s either one or the other.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Friendship, Grace, Voice |
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August 15, 2010
by Rod Smith
Want wisely.....
– not in you, me, nor in the man in the moon. It has no upside. It produces nothing worth having. It reduces everyone in its environment to a victim. It scares children. There’s nothing redeeming about rage. It causes physiological distress, psychological pain, and accelerates physical exhaustion. It hurts relationships. Rage is always ugly, always destructive.
Rage is never helpful
I’ve witnessed rage erupt in clients during therapy where there’s a sudden burst of rage over a matter that might appear inconsequential to the observer. I’ve seen it while I am engaged in the give and take of life – a woman loses it with her child in public, a man yells uncontrollably in the traffic, a teenager storms off from a parent in the mall.
Regretfully, I’ve felt it in me. Forces collide, my world feels out of control, I resort to blaming others for whatever I perceive as having gone wrong. Something primal snaps. I’m momentarily blind, deaf to reason. Then, I breathe deeply. I hold onto myself. Reason returns. Logic prevails. I get my focus off others. I look at myself. I take responsibility for myself. Do I always catch it? Handle it well? Of course not.
How is a person to handle a moment of rage in a loved one? Keep a level head. Walk away. Try not to react. Don’t personalize it. It’s not about you. You may participate in the precipitating event, but you don’t cause the outburst. In the moment of his or her fury don’t try to reason, negotiate, or restrain.
This too shall pass.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, In-laws, Listening, Sex matters, Space, Spousal abuse, Triangles, Triggers, Victims, Violence |
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August 15, 2010
by Rod Smith
Don’t let your age get in your way….
Janey Cutler (80), a retired cleaning lady from Scotland, showed the world that her age doesn’t get in her way. She belted out “No Regrets” on “Britain’s Got Talent” and became an instant celebrity. If you’ve not seen her moving performance it is readily available on the Internet.
Having taken a few minutes to watch Janey, I challenge you, no matter what your age, to complete these five simple joyful tasks to facilitate your “No-Regret-Monday.”
1. Phone a friend or relative and draw his or her attention to some act of kindness he or she did that benefitted you.
2. Mail a cheque to a cause dear to your heart.
3. Call a meeting of your immediate family and tell them you love them.
4. Call and thank a coach, teacher, or mentor who helped you through a difficult period in your life.
5. Deliver a simple and anonymous gift to a neighbor.
Let me know how it goes.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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