September 4, 2007
by Rod Smith
Four years ago I met a woman who had a son (9) I then adopted. She is suing for divorce after one heated argument. My wife indicated in divorce papers that my adopted son doesn’t wish to continue our relationship or see me yet she also stated visitation be allowed. She reneged on visits and left me with no alternative but to seek relief through the courts. My adopted son has not said anything to me but I believe his mother is influencing him. He is a teenager and we enjoyed a wonderful relationship until the separation. His school progress has suffered. I fear the biological parent is using the child as a tool. Now the biological mother is using the adoption to say that I shouldn’t have the same rights. Do you have any advice? I feel I may not only lose my relationship with my adopted son, but that the biological mother may seek to undo the adoption. (Edited)
What is in the child’s best interests is difficult to discern! Undoing legal relationships is generally not a good idea – but it seems to come easy to the mother. The more you push, the greater resistance you will face. A wise lawyer will be able to offer you better guidance than I can offer.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
5 Comments »
September 1, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My boyfriend annoys me. He is jealous and petty and he is moody. But my family loves him and so I stay with him. I did not realize this until I took a long hard look at what was keeping me with him. Now he is talking marriage and I am thinking things will get better. It didn’t start this way. He was more outdoor-ish, more adventurous and not at all jealous when we first started going out. Then things started to run down hill when the relationship got serious. I suppose he couldn’t pretend forever and now I am seeing the real person he is. Please help.”
Considering your family so loves him, perhaps there is another member of the family who’d like to pick up the relationship I hope you will soon terminate.
I’d suggest you do not continue to date someone because your family loves him or in the hopes things will improve once you marry.
Announce the end of the relationship directly to your moody man and then inform your family about what you have done.
Be sure you know what you want before you implement your plan. Families have an odd way of getting what families want, and I hope in your family’s case, it is not at your expense.
Posted in Attraction, Family, Trust, Victims, Voice, Young Love |
1 Comment »
August 29, 2007
by Rod Smith
I hope I hear from you...
in friendships that are more work than necessary, and have little or no problem cutting ties when a friendship becomes over-taxing, overly demanding or draining. Friendship is supposed to be enjoyable. Thus, whenever any of the following occur in a friendship, I’d suggest it is time to cut and run. I am not at all suggesting the friendship ONLY involves good times. I am suggesting that if a friendship is hard work when it is time for the good times (no present illness, no unusual trauma) then it might be time to move on:
Your friend: (1) Doesn’t want you to have other friends; expresses jealousy through sullenness, withdrawal or antagonism.
(2) Lies to you, about you, or about others.
(3) Expects you to keep “special” secrets or information when the knowledge makes you uncomfortable.
(4) Watches the clock if you are late and interprets your lateness as meaning something about the friendship.
(5) Compares your behavior in one friendship with your behavior in another (“How come you are never this way with your other friends?”).
(6) Expects you to buy into his or her values even when they differ from your values.
(7) Wants or needs to book up your time a long time in advance to make sure your life is planned around his or her life.
(8) Plays games of “hide and seek” to see how much you care or how important the friendship is to you.
Posted in Attraction, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Friendship, Meditation, Past relationships, Therapeutic Process, Trust |
2 Comments »
August 27, 2007
by Rod Smith
“I read your reply to my letter in the paper this morning. Thank you for your advice, which I know too well but, as your readers have expressed, it is so hard to leave a relationship. However it is so sad. If only he had the courage to seek help. What a wonderful person he is. We had a wonderful weekend together as a family. He was so pleasant to be around but come Monday and I have to go to work, the alcohol demon will creep back into my home.”
Everything has a price! A great weekend apparently holds enough reward for you to be willing to dance with the “alcohol demon” (your term and not mine) for the rest of the week. You apparently do not have a problem with this marriage.
I am going to say this only one more time: it is you, and not your husband, who has the issue.
The “alcohol demon” will creep back into your home, and so will you.
Nothing will change until you are sufficiently fed up with the way you accept his treatment of you – making you second (or third or fourth) in his life to his selfish and destructive ways.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal |
1 Comment »
August 26, 2007
by Rod Smith
“I am at my wits end with my alcoholic husband. He has got better over the years in that he has gone from the hard drink to a softer drink but drink is drink. When I met him he use to sleep with a bottle of cane under the bed and have some all night long so when he woke in the morning he was totally drunk. Then it was wine all day. After much moaning from me he used to drink a bottle of sherry a day but after 15 years of nagging he drinks beer only. When I reach home he is not a happy site to look at. What must I do? (Portion of much longer letter)
Regular readers of this column will know what I am going to tell you. Your husband’s problems, although significant, are minor in comparison to yours! Why do you continue to live in a situation that is so toxic? He is unlikely to seek change while you resist assessing and changing your behavior. I know I will receive heaps of mail telling me that it is not easy to leave some relationships, but leaving will prove a lot more helpful to you than staying. Get the help YOU need.
Posted in Anger |
2 Comments »
August 22, 2007
by Rod Smith
A note to parents…
Despite your best efforts at providing an encouraging and challenging environment for your children, your children will ultimately determine the degree of their success or failure as adults. Avoid the tendency to blame yourself for every problem your child faces: you are just not that powerful! Popular press will try to place almost all the blame at your door, when, in truth, your son or daughter has to make his own life productive. In the event he or she chooses not to do so, it is not the parent who ought to be blamed.
Of course there are awful parents. Of course there are absent dads. Drunken mothers. Yes. There are angry homes. Anxious environments. There are volatile, hell-homes where children are victimized, where a boy or girl would have great cause for blame. But most people do not live like this, and nonetheless, even from the worst of homes have emerged world leaders, artists, writers, teachers, nurses, and engineers.
Contrarily, I have seen parents dedicate their every waking hour to the care of their children only to have them emerge as anti-social, destructive adults.
Your children will turn out in a manner that far exceeds your capacity to parent. While offering your best, remain cognizant that your son or daughter’s future is primarily in his or her own hands.
Posted in Adolescence, Children, Parenting/Children |
3 Comments »
August 21, 2007
by Rod Smith
“I am part of a large family of siblings ranging in age from 55 to 38. Recently one sister won the lottery, and she says that lottery counselors told her she should not give anything to her family. She has come under fire by some of her siblings about her apparent lack of generosity regarding our Mother. Please explain why psychologists recommend that family should not be given money, why siblings feel they should get a small percentage. Perhaps she should have given $10 000 to each of us.”
Your sister’s newfound wealth is her wealth – she can do with it as she wishes. Generous people are generous whether they are poor or rich. Leave your sister to decide what to do with her money – it will most certainly reveal what she is made of, and your family’s response to her newfound wealth will expose each person’s strengths and weaknesses.
Posted in Uncategorized |
1 Comment »
August 19, 2007
by Rod Smith
To become authentically closer to your lover, and to develop greater intimacy with that person, work conscientiously at your separateness from him or her. This is, I believe, is the most challenging behind-the-scenes issue of every intimate relationship.
“Is it possible to love you without also losing me?” expresses the inevitable tension every close relationship faces.
“Closeness” is not usually a problem for most couples. There is usually an abundance of closeness (being overly connected, intensely joined) resulting in couples being highly reactive to each other, and it is this very closeness and lack of definition between people, that, given some time, becomes uncomfortable for at least one member of the relationship.
Remaining unique, distinct and defined within the relationship is what allows healthy, freeing love to flourish.
If couples worked enduringly at remaining unique (it is never complete) and developed their separateness, while also being deeply involved in a committed relationship, then, I believe, there’d be less need to separate (“I need my space”) at a later time when the closeness inevitably feels claustrophobic and overwhelming.
Loving you is not love if the cost of loving you means losing the essence of who I am.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Faith, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Victims, Voice, Young Love |
8 Comments »
August 16, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My husband and I were high school sweethearts. We have been together for almost 8 years and married for 3 and half of those years. He got a new job and wanted to start working out all the time to be more muscular. He also became very distant. If he was present physically he wasn’t mentally. I began suspecting something and he would get angry. I was to go on a ‘girl’s weekend’ and take our 16-month-old little boy and right before I left he told me we should separate. When I came back he said there was another girl. He said he was with her all weekend. They kissed and nothing else happened. He told me he regretted it, began crying and called her and told her they can’t talk any more. I could look into his eyes and knew it wasn’t over and he moved out for a night. The next morning he phoned and said he wanted to come home to his family. Did I make the right choice taking him back or should I make him leave so I can start my life over?” (Shortened)
While one would not condone his behavior – all three of you (husband, wife, son) have a lot of reasons to work at this. Get face-to-face professional help, please!
Posted in Affairs, Betrayal, Trust, Victims, Voice |
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August 15, 2007
by Rod Smith
My husband’s ex-wife seems to take their divorce lightly. There is a need for communication because of my step-daughter, however, she has become almost “too friendly” with me. For instance, she will call me up and say, “How is my ex-husband?” She is also cultivating an affection towards our kids, which makes it feel like she wants to create a psuedo family – that is, be divorced, but be a part of the entire system. In some ways, it is very difficult because it looks like it’s in the spirit of what is best for my step-daughter, yet it is quite awkward. It seems as if she (ex-wife) is needy and has definite boundary issues. I don’t know how to broach it – my husband simply ignores and detatches from her, but I don’t want her to feel rejected. We have common events to attend, not to mention friends from the same circle. Any insight would be appreciated.
ROD’S REPLY: Your husband “ignores and detaches” from his ex-wife and you “don’t want her to feel rejected” but SHE is the one with the boundary issues! I’d suggest the “entire system” (of which she IS a part) could use a boundary tune up. I challenge you both to sit down with her at a venue other than your home and define your marital boundaries so she might reassess how to mother a daughter as one who is divorced from her daughter’s father. Resist blaming this woman for boundary issues when you have hardly done much better at it yourself.
Posted in Anger, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Living together, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Triggers, Trust, Voice |
1 Comment »
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