May 22, 2011
by Rod Smith
This must be faced.....
Don’t mess with it. Accommodate it and it will suck you both in. Try to reason with it, or teach, change, or appease it, and it will constantly outsmart you.
To the non-jealous partner…
Conduct an inventory. Is your “flirting” within the realm of how sane, kind people conduct themselves? If your actions are designed to test the metal of your relationship then you are being manipulative. Stop. If not, continue. If you are not, yourself, being manipulative (this is for you and not your partner to answer) then continue. This is time for your to stay out of control.
To the jealous partner…
Jealousy is your problem. In a more sane moment you will probably agree that it is your issue. Jealous people read volumes into the innocent actions of others and attribute motives to others that are so far from original intent.
To both of you…
Smiling is not flirting. Kindness is not flirting. The flirt knows when he or she is flirting – but the jealous person will read everything as flirting.
Once you engage it, give it a voice, try to prove it has no place or need to exist, try to reason with it, it will duck under your “let’s be reasonable” discussions and emerge later to drain you and your relationship of all vitality.
Given and audience, jealousy will remove all joy and spontaneity from your relationship and then, once its done its nasty work of destroying a good relationship, it will leave you burnt out, feeling guilty, and even looking haggard.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Manipulation |
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May 8, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I’m in love with a man out of my caste. If my family finds out I will be disowned. He loves me and I do the same. His family doesn’t want him to be with me either. He’s going through a separation with his wife. They have twin girls who are 2 and boy who is 8. His wife still loves him tremendously but he has no love for her and has clearly told her. I feel so guilty that I’m the cause of everything but he won’t let me go. He says I’m the reason for his living and that his marriage was long over before I came into the picture. We are planning on marriage. I have a 5 year-old son who will have to leave along with my entire family. My fear is if I’m making a right future path for my self and my boyfriend. I desperately need advice.”
This is a disaster waiting to happen
A man who can abandon a wife and three children will do the same, and worse, to you and your son. This “relationship” could only work if you immediately sever all ties while he gets divorced, pays child support, and is a cordial ex-husband for 5 years at least – before he BEGINS a caring, mutual relationship with you.
Posted in Affairs, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, High maintenance relationships, Trust, Victims, Voice, Womanhood |
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April 23, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I have been an unfaithful wife and my husband is tired of it. He has given me a fresh start on three or four occasions but this time he refuses. He says his trust well is empty and that he has to move on with his life. How do I convince him that one more chance is all I need? Please help.”
Take responsibility for your actions
to be taking an option necessary for his well being. I’d suggest you move full force into recovery from serial infidelity.
Unfaithfulness can hardly leave you with good feelings about yourself and I’d suggest you get professional help to delve into its origins in your life.
While his actions are painful for you, I’d suggest he has not had a painless journey.
If your husband were consulting me I’d attempt to solicit from him the level of his desire to remain married. Given any suggestion that he’d prefer to stay married, I’d encourage him to embark on an extended separation to allow you to get your troubled house in order.
Unfaithfulness is an individual pursuit. There’s nothing anyone can do to make you unfaithful. It’s not your spouse or any of your multiple cohorts. It is you who needs the help – get it. Allow him, in the mean time, to do whatever it is he needs to do.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Reactivity, Recovery, Sex matters, Space, Spousal abuse, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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March 31, 2011
by Rod Smith
Edwin Friedman – a pioneer in family therapy, writer, teacher, and rabbi and who was trained by Murray Bowen who is considered the “father” of family therapy and “Bowen Theory” – wrote about helping couples to separate, establish space, maintain individuality and secure room to breathe and room to move in order to help the couple avoid radical separation (divorce) in their future. Friedman suggested sometimes couples were “too close” meaning that everything done one or both persons seemed to unsettle or rock the world of the other or both.
Identifying couples who are “fused” or who are too close:
1. Every thought, move, glance, blink of the eye, every gesture is interpreted to mean something by the other person and the meaning is usually negative.
2. Mind reading is at its most intense. What is damaging is that what is “read” or interpreted is believed as fact. “I know exactly what you are thinking when you look at me like that.”
3. There’s no room for change or growth because there’s no emotional “wiggle room.” If one person is convinced that he or she knows exactly what the other person will do and will think there is no room for anything new to occur.
I have named these writers to facilitate reading beyond this column.
Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Schnarch, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Voice |
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March 2, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I divorced my control-freak husband. Then I fell in love with a single guy who broke up with me. I used a gym membership to come out of depression. After six months I started looking quite attractive and single and married men started hitting on me. Married men hitting on me disgusted me. I vowed I would never break a relationship. Dozens of men swarmed around me. I went to a party and met this very interesting guy. He was showing interest and I felt great. He told me he is married. The next day he emailed me and I could not control myself and replied. He was forced to marry at 23. I was very attracted after being celibate for 9 months. We agreed that there is no future. He will never divorce. We decided to keep it on an emotional level as friends.” (Edited)
Get a life BEFORE you get a man
to the idea that your entire value is found in being attractive and having a man. You will therefore attract men who are equally plagued by the idea that meaning is only found in “having” a woman. Until you discover an internally sustained, unique, and personal calling, the moving targets (the men who swarm around you) and authentic fulfillment will constantly elude you.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships |
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January 25, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I married a man I knew had a drinking problem. We had two children and his behavior never changed. He has stayed the same, drinking and going out, but now there has been an affair. Even the affair wasn’t the breaking point for me. He kept going back to the woman so I finally filed for a divorce. The divorce goes through soon and he has since moved onto a second woman who drinks with him. Why am I taking this so hard even knowing that he wasn’t right for me and that I wouldn’t choose him again?”
Please, go to Al Anon
of your children, you are accustomed to his ways; the stress of living with him has fed some emptiness within you and allowed you to feel needed. There are many ways to attempt to explain the reasons you are finding this termination difficult.
I believe you have accommodated his life, his problems, and his illnesses more than you have loved and treasured your own life – which is a sure-fire formula for you to become as addicted to him and his difficulties as he is to alcohol.
Please, seek out our nearest Al Anon group as soon as possible – even though the divorce is almost final.
Posted in Affairs, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Divorce |
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January 18, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I am an unhappily married woman married with twin girls. It takes little for my husband and I to erupt into arguments. I have cheated on several occasions. My husband and I don’t communicate well and we haven’t had intimacy for years. Our children see arguments, exasperation, anger, resentment, and no affection. A couple of years ago I could have left my husband for one of the two other men but didn’t. This fellow lives far away so I let it slide. Meanwhile, he has been seeing another woman. Being married I had no claim on him to not date other women. I can’t stop thinking about this man and wanting him to dump the girlfriend for me. I want to win this fellow back and have the relationship with him. I know he is the man I should be with. I am terribly frustrated. Is it possible to find lasting love in leaving your spouse for someone else?” (Edited)
It is possible but it is highly, highly unlikely. Your unhappiness will prevail until you tackle your internal life-issues that have nothing to do with the men (husband included) in your life. You appear convinced your happiness is dependent on a man. Not so. Your happiness is your responsibility – man or no man.
Posted in Affairs, Boundaries |
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January 17, 2011
by Rod Smith
80,000 online views
Of course you are going to fall apart, and mourn the loss of the future you thought you’d have.
You will feel like death itself and even welcome your own.
Then, when your mind somewhat clears, you’ll wonder what really occurred. You will question what you might have done to cause the marriage breakdown and wonder what you might have done to save it.
Then you will bargain with God, your husband, even your children, or with anyone who will listen as you urgently try to get things back to normal, and get yourself back into his heart, head, and bed.
And, when things somewhat settle, and you’ve gotten some rest, and you emerge from the initial impact of what has occurred, you will see that this is not about you, or what you did or did not do. You will see there that there is no real power in bargaining with him, or real value in your becoming whatever you think he’d prefer you to be.
You will see that, quite apart from whatever he decides to do, there is great power and value in picking up your life, one emotion at a time, and doing what is best for yourself and your children.
(November 2006)
Tell me your story. I am listening:
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Schnarch, Sex matters, Single parenting, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Voice, Womanhood |
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January 16, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I was divorced 4 years ago and have daughter (7) who lives with her mother. I have been living with my girlfriend for 4 years and we have a son (2). I knew my girlfriend before I got divorced and she had a good relationship with my daughter. After we moved in together she started disliking my daughter. Now that I have gained more access to my daughter my girlfriend does not like it. She says she is too young to accept all of this but it’s been already four years. She knew I had a child before we started dating. I will not choose my girlfriend over my child again. What do I do?”
Look at YOUR choices
This is not your girlfriend’s problem. It is yours.
What it is about you that you would leave a marriage and immediately move in with another woman, giving yourself no time to assess your first failed marriage? What is it about you that you’d bring yet another child into another unstable context with a woman with whom you’d not discussed joys and challenges of co-parenting your daughter?
Addressing these questions might begin to “man-you-up” (get you some backbone) so that you might begin to take more responsibility for yourself and for ALL your relationships.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Difficult Relationships, Step parenting, Stepmother, Womanhood |
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January 5, 2011
by Rod Smith
Please could you tips on how to tell the difference between being “in love” with someone and being “in love with the idea of being in love.”
Being in love with the idea of being in love is essential to genuine, lasting love. Without desire the real thing has no entryway.
Genuine love, while quite able to be caught up in romantic fantasy resists losing self, self-insight, the urge for self-preservation, and the urge to self-govern. True love sacrifices, is humble, serves, can desire to move heaven and earth for another, yet it never abdicates personal responsibility or enables others to do so. It has long-haul vision. It seeks little or nothing in return, yet it is also first self-preserving. Somewhat ironically, it is able to care for itself (love itself) just a little more than it cares for a significant other.
Loving the idea of being in love tends to make us responsive to anyone who reaches out. We become somewhat ill defined and demonstrate acts of romantic desperation. We idealize the candidate whom we deem will help us fulfill that fantasy and remain committed even when faced with urgent symptoms (warnings of friends and family) suggesting the relationship is ill fated. Reality doesn’t seem to matter. It’s “I’ll-make-this-work-even-if-it-kills-me” attitude and, sadly, it often does.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Love, Trust, Young Love |
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