1. If you try hard enough you can make someone love you, or to stay with you when they have already decided to leave.
2. Habits you find annoying will disappear after the wedding, or after the new house is built, or when he or she gets a new job or a new car.
3. Having a baby will fix a troubled relationship.
4. Living together is the same as being married.
5. Men want sex more often than women want sex.
6. Real love means you will love everything about the person you love.
7. Forgiving means forgetting.
8. Time heals.
9. Jealousy is an indication of love.
10. Loving another requires self-denial.
11. Real love is two people in the “same boat.”
12. People who are in love always know where the other is, and what the other is doing.
September 7, 2006
A dozen fallacies about romantic relationships
September 7, 2006
Can’t stop talking to her ex….
Reader’s Question: My girlfriend keeps in touch with her ex-boyfriend. She says this is normal and should not bother me. I think messaging him almost everyday, phoning him on her way home almost every night, and talking to him more than she talks to me is a bit much. If I make too much of it she says I am jealous. I tried to ignore it. I cannot. Please help. (Letter revised to isolate central issue)
Rod’s response: It seems your girlfriend is not ready to fully separate from her ex, to the point where he is truly an ex. Her lingering connection, demonstrated by her ongoing communication, suggests she is not sufficiently emotionally disconnected from him, or ready to be fully focused on her relationship with you.
You might have noticed romantic and emotional connection is only possible with one other person at a time. Any attempts at multiple, romantic and emotional connections usually cause severe problems for all who try it, or who are victims of such attempts.
I’d suggest you recognize her lack of focus by suggesting she explore her residual hankerings, while you agree to sever your ties with her so as not to cause her any interference while she determines what it is she wants.
August 15, 2006
I can read the web, text books, and consult with experts…. but….
Please give me your ideas on why women (yes it tends to be women) stay in very abusive relationships and struggle to leave what it so obviously toxic to anyone looking in? Please send your comments. I’d most like to hear from women who have found freedom after a long and tough relationship. Please post your response as a comment.
If you want a letter to not be on the web (or published in a paper) then send it to
Rod@DifficultRelationships.com
August 10, 2006
Rebuilding trust: is it possible to be healed?
“I have been married for twenty years. For the first years my husband was secretive and unfaithful. For the last ten years we became involved in a church and now my husband is a faithful man, thanks to the pastor and community who really loved us. Even though he has really changed at times I become afraid he might go back to his old ways. How will I know when I am healed and this process is complete?” (Letter edited)
Rod’s Response: When infidelity occurs, love can last much longer than trust, and, once defiled, trust is much harder to restore. Your letter reveals you understand an important key: trusting your husband is about you, as opposed to being about him.
Rather than wanting the process of rebuilding trust within yourself to be complete or healed, I’d suggest you regard it as an ongoing healing process that will have some ebbs and flows within you. As you have attested, there will be days when you are yet troubled by the past. Then there’ll be months when you can hardly remember the harder times. Healing (or trusting) is not a concrete state – it’s an ongoing condition of offering yourself, and your husband, much grace within the miracle of restoration you share.
August 6, 2006
Reader writes about his approach to his girlfriend’s flirting… (inclusion does not necessarily suggest agreement)…
When I addressed flirting at parties, I had no idea I’d be bombarded with so many letters. I’ve edited this letter but a very little.
Here’s an interesting approach used by a reader:
“I have a girlfriend with a strong tendency to flirt with guys on social occasions. I made comments and received a reply that it is necessary for her to feel desired and that was the reason for it. I understood from this that her flirting would not be resolved by talking. As I am quite good at flirting myself, I have used every chance to flirt with women and ‘use my charms’ when my girlfriend was with me. After a few weeks she went almost mad. I am much more successful than her at flirting and she saw that the women actually reacted to my remarks. I cannot remember whether I’ve noticed her flirting again at all. I think she got the point. I think the best method to use is to let someone know the rules in a relationship are mutual and that you also can do the same as she does – probably better than she can. If the partner defies your views on flirting, then do the same and let him/her feel on his/her skin what you usually feel on those occasions.”
July 20, 2006
Reader takes me to task (letter “lost”, found, edited, and finally posted)
I would also like to express my regret about your answer to the lady who is attracted to a married man (25th of May: see Category: “AFFAIRS”). In your answer you point aspects that are important (eg. even if the man is lonely, his emotional well-being is absolutely none of her business), but you also put an accusation on top of her suffering. If she is a “relationship piranha” she must have been the victim of that kind of relationship (very probably during her childhood). An explanation of why she feels attracted to a married man would maybe encourage the lady to seek help to change.
Also you end your message to her with irony. Being tough is okay as long as you seek the growth of the person you address. However, I don’t see how the irony can be edifying. Unless the explanation of such reaction of yours is that the matter the lady consulted you about is a zone of fragility in your life, which you have the right to have. As you say, “Being an authentic adult is hard work and a never completed task”.
July 12, 2006
He wants sex to see if we are “sexually compatible” before we can go on…
Reader’s Question: My boyfriend says we have to have sex to see if we are sexually compatible before he will continue seeing me. What do you think?
Rod’s Answer: What an old and ridiculous line. Move on! Your boyfriend is what I call a “pp” or “penis propelled.” If you really want to assess sexual compatibility it can be done without removing a single item of clothing!
First, compare credit reports and financial statements to see how each of you handles money. How you respect, use and save money, will exert more power over your long-term sexual compatibility than any immediate sexual encounter will indicate. It’s very hard to be passionate, faithful lovers when you are fighting over maxed-out credit cards.
Second: Compare your attitudes toward and your relationships with your immediate family. You can tell everything worth knowing about a person by how they respect and appreciate their parents and siblings. People who show little respect for their immediate family, or little desire to care for them, are unlikely to be a successful long-term husbands or wives, no matter how good or passionate they might be in a bedroom.
Third: Assess attitudes toward hard work. A shared, healthy attitude and high regard for hard, honest work, will give both of you useful insight into your long-term compatibility much more effectively than will the immediate experimentation with each other’s bodies.
June 29, 2006
Finding your unique voice in ALL your relationships
Every person has a voice that is designed, urging, even aching, for complete use and full expression. Some people have allowed their voices to be stolen, silenced or modified and such people might find it necessary to take time to find or re-establish the voice they have chosen to deny or ignore. There is nothing “spiritual” or humble about giving up your voice — not even God demands your silence!
Thankfully, suppressing a voice seldom kills it. It can usually be found even after years of denial and even cruelty. This is as true for individuals as it is of entire populations.
Having a voice means exerting your right to see, evaluate, and express who you are, and what you stand for, without apology. It means speaking up. It means telling the world who you are, and what you want. It involves telling the world who you are not and what you will and will not accept or tolerate. It is allowing your life to speak appropriately and boldly, without explanation or excuse.
When you find your voice, you will not allow people to speak for you, decide for you, and prescribe how you feel, think or see the world. Of course, you in turn will not take the voice of another away from them.
It is not loving to give up your voice, or to allow someone else to take your voice from you. People can hardly handle the power of their own voice, let alone handle the voice of two or three others.
Any person who will not hear what you have to say, or who tries to silence you, does not love you even if they say they do. It is never a loving act, except in very unusual circumstances (like severe illness), to stop someone from expressing who they are. Likewise, it is never a loving act to withhold your contribution to the world through maintaining your silence.
You were not created to be silent, and nor were you created to silence others. The world will benefit for hearing who you are, and what you have to say when the authentic voice within you is allowed growth and expression.
Part of owning a voice, and using it well involves the process of discovering how best to package and express your voice in a manner that facilitates others to hear who and what you are and what you have to say.
Please, compromise yourself, your talents and skills for no one. Be silenced or made “smaller,” rendered without a voice for no one. It is never worth it. There is no cause, no relationship, marriage or job, worthy of your silence.
There is no person of any rank, no spouse, boss or spiritual leader deserving of your downplaying who and what you are. It is those with dark motives, who seek for you to be less, minimized, diminished or silenced. Walk away from such small-mindedness, even when and if it is costly to do so.
Loving, good people will celebrate your strength, encourage your freedom and admire your talents. Stick with such people. Stay with those who enlarge your world, not restrict or contain it. Live fully, love fully, and speak fully – while embracing all the freedom life offers.
I am weary of men and women, irrespective of who or what they are, who hold others captive, especially in the name of love; of spiritual “leaders” who are afraid of gifted people; of bosses who silence talented people lest their own inadequacies be revealed.
If you live above, and beyond, the damaging jealousies that surround you, you will stimulate the dreams of everyone in your circle of influence, and make your own dreams come true before your very eyes – and the world will hear your voice.
June 27, 2006
Girlfriend and wife behavior at parties gets lots a mail…
Recent columns about friendliness, interpreted as flirting, have generated a lot of mail. Of course I do not support deception in relationships, and of course, when a partner salaciously fishes for the attention of the opposite sex it can damage the sanctity of a committed relationship.
But open (not covert) friendliness at parties that generates a jealous and anxious response from the partner, suggests deeper problematic issues between the couple, quite apart from the “flirting.”
A person who tries to curtail a significant other’s open friendliness through threats, withdrawal, the angry eye, by driving home in silence or in a rage, has a bigger issue than the one who “flirts.”
Love, aside from being the polar opposite of controlling behavior, resists jealousy. Love refuses to accommodate the demands of the jealous party. No relationship benefits when jealousy gets it nasty way.
I’d suggest women who are openly friendly at parties, who innocently enjoy people, continue to do so. I’d suggest jealous husbands deal with their jealousy without blaming it on the woman.
Then, if a woman is so desperate for male affirmation that she is truly salacious, I’d suggest something more helpful than curtailing her behavior at parties is required if the relationship is to survive.
June 25, 2006
The flirting discussion continues…..
A Reader Responds..
“I tell you at the outset I am a female and a lot older than you are. Still married to the one and only man I have ever ‘lived’ with, for over 53 years. My adult children have both been married for over 26 years and they and their respective families are successful and very happy with their lot in life.
“I am truly grateful that they did not read your reply (June 13, 2006) to that unfortunate man who is/was married to that ‘friendly’ flirtatious wife. She surely cannot know what unhappiness she is causing, and perhaps it is high time someone told her. Men and women (most often) flirt for only two reasons. One is to show-off. The other is to spark off with someone else to find a reaction. It is a ploy that is limited only to the unmarried and even then questionable.
“I sincerely hope that the husband concerned in the case you deigned to answer with such insensitivity, has been able to regard your response with the disdain it deserves and that his character and readiness to understand his wife’s stupidity, will help him to come to a truly satisfying and loving marriage situation.” (Letter shortened)
difficultrelationships.com 