March 4, 2017
by Rod Smith
The Mercury / Monday (3-6-2017)
Do you love your life – or at least most of it?
I hope so. It must be terrible to wake up every day having to face a job you resist in order to provide for people who find you difficult and in whom you may find repeated displeasure. I feel ill thinking of it. It gives me a heavy feeling that I would hate to have to haul around all and every day.
Perhaps you have no job and that may be the source of at least some of your displeasure.
Perhaps you have no family or zero support from family you do have.
I am very aware of how much family and friends form the scaffolding of my life, making so much difference to me when things are tough.
No matter what your circumstance – and I declare this as loudly and forcefully to myself as I do to you: you are what you’ve got. You are your most powerful asset, and, you’d better make the most of it.
Someone wiser than I – and I’d give full credit if I knew the source – said, “we see the world, not as it is, but as we are.”
I’d suggest we also love others, not as they are, but as we are.
Peace. Have a fabulous, loving, and aware week.
Posted in Addictions, Anger, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace |
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February 17, 2013
by Rod Smith
Dangerous relationships….
- He tells you how to dress and gets all moody if you don’t obey.
- He stares you down and calls you stupid.
- He tells you when you are hungry and what you should eat.
- Small differences become huge conflicts and escalate in a flash.
- He is different in public – most people would never guess he has a violent side.
- He quotes the Bible but only a verse that “demands” your obedience.
- He tells you he knows you better than you know yourself.
- He lies and expects you to lie for him.
- He has moments of white hot anger, even if the dog won’t obey.
10. He keeps you away from your extended family.
11. He takes your keys or purse and he’s been physically threatening.
12. He accuses you of unfaithfulness.
13. He checks up on you and tells you jealousy and love go together.
14. He hates or rejects a lot of people and thinks most people are idiots.
15. In the rare event you drive him, you’d think he was behind the wheel.
Before I am blasted with Emails telling me women can also be dangerous, the overwhelming reality is that it is usually men who are.
Posted in Addictions, Anger, Betrayal |
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September 16, 2012
by Rod Smith
“I am recently divorced and had a relationship with an athlete for 4 months. He was very keen in the beginning. I had to put on the brakes as I don’t rush into matters. He was just three weeks out of a relationship himself and I could not understand why he was in such a hurry! He lives about 45 minutes away but would never visit me. I had to go to his place. Then he mistreated me, and said I had a bad attitude and was far too sensitive! Before this he called less frequently and the invitations were less frequent. I discovered he was seeing someone else. Why do men do this? I really feel used and abused!”
Four things:
- Not all men do this. While you are willing to spend another minute with one who has already mistreated you, you will keep meeting such men.
- The first red flags waved when he expected you to do all the driving. If it is not mutual, respectful, and equal it is not worth having.
- Forget trying to understand him. It is no longer your business. Try to understand healthy men – study strength, not pathology.
- Forgive yourself. You blew it. Learn and move on.
Posted in Addictions, Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Difficult Relationships, Divorce |
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July 20, 2012
by Rod Smith
Watch. In no time at all some will blame the parents of the infant who was shot. It’s common to blame victims in our culture.
This is a travesty. Everyone of us ought fall to the ground in grief that such a thing occur in a cinema anywhere, let alone in the USA.
Posted in Anger, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Victims, Violence |
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July 13, 2012
by Rod Smith
Love and control cannot co-exist in the same relationship anymore than light and dark can exist together in the same space at the same time.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Anxiety, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Long distance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Past relationships, Pornography, Responsive people, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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June 6, 2012
by Rod Smith
“My husband left me for my best friend. This not only devastated me but caused my children (and her husband and children) a lot of confusion. I don’t want things back how they were but I do want some peace of mind. Her husband has gone off the rails with anger and I have bordered on depression. How am I supposed to forgive two people who have been so close to me and who have done this bitter thing to people, including children, whom they profess to love?”
My response will focus on you and the double blow you have received.
You have lost two best friends and you have lost them to each other. They have together all of what you once enjoyed and you have none of it.
I do not write this to rub salt into the wound or to tell you what you do not already know – I write it so you may see that your loss is real and at least partially understood.
Your anger and depression is justified. Grieve, wail. Express it in any helpful way over the coming years.
At the same time (in sane, healthy moments) begin to rebuild your life.
It is possible to do both: grieve, build, grieve, and build – just not at the same moments.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination |
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June 27, 2011
by Rod Smith
“Women put everything on the MAN! Talking about they need to be in the right mood. They need romance. Don’t get me wrong, I try to look at her point of view about sex but they never put US in the mood. We’ve been together for a year and engaged since February and I already feel like I’m 50 or 60 years old! These types of problems are supposed to happen around that age! I’m only 24 and she’s 29! I can’t win!” (Edited of hard language)
Clean up your language. It might (emphasis on the “might”) make you more attractive all round. If you swear (cuss) while you are writing about your most intimate relationship, one can only imagine what you must be like face-to-face.
How a person treats outsiders (those whom you do not know and who will read your writing) is a powerful indicator of how a person treats insiders (those close to you).
If you shifted your focus from what you want to what you can contribute you might see some change.
Diminish your desire to control. (“I can’t win” — healthy relationships were never about winning and losing).
Become less demanding, needy, and a lot more loving, and you may grow up a lot and be ready for the kind of sex a partner wants.
You are totally off in your understanding of men in their 50’s and 60’s. You, it is clear to me, don’t have enough behind your eyes (life experience) to have good sex – and if you keep on with your current manner of operating, which I call being “penis propelled”, you might never have it.
I hope your partner reads your post and identifies you (which you sent anonymously –another indication of your immaturity) and regards it as an impetus to bail. If she stays, and you continue to be as demanding as you clearly are, she is in for one sad, sad ride.
Posted in Anger, Anxiety, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, High maintenance relationships, Marriage, Reactivity, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Spousal abuse, Triangles, Triggers, Victims |
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June 26, 2011
by Rod Smith
I have received several very welcome and lengthy letters from readers who find themselves in very complicated family relationships.
Here are four broad principles for all members of a family:
1. Get yourself out of “the middle” of other people’s relationships! Don’t carry messages for others, or think for others or feel for (on the behalf of) others. Allow other adults the joy or communicating their own messages, thinking their own thoughts and feeling their own feelings.
2. Regard all other adults as complete adults and your complete equals. If you’re “on eggshells” around anyone (a parent, boss, child, spouse or former spouse) this person has inappropriate power over you that I’d suggest you address. The “eggshells” means you are not seeing yourself as an equal.
3. Never allow yourself to be intimidated, dominated or manipulated. Persons who use intimidation, domination or manipulation (emotional bullies) to get their way must be confronted if you want any degree of healthy dialogue.
4. Despite age, rank or status, don’t “tread lightly” around other adults. While it is unnecessary to knowingly inflict hurt upon others, some people are so inappropriately sensitive that their oversensitivity can restrict others from normal behavior. If your actions are not in themselves hurtful, but are interpreted as such by some sensitive soul, I’d suggest you be yourself and challenge Mr. Mrs. or Ms. Oversensitive to grow up.
Posted in Anger, Communication, Divorce, Marriage, Sex matters |
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June 25, 2011
by Rod Smith
Jealousy serves no useful purpose. Jealous men (It’s men in my experience) try and tell me it comes with love. Nonsense.
Ugliness is never a symptom of love.
Placated? Appeased? Entertained? Jealousy won’t dissipate. It will grow. And grow. Become increasingly demanding.
The sympathetic, those allowing jealousy to do its ugly work, will discover the virus to be insatiable. It will only becomes more restrictive and ridiculous.
“I stopped talking to men at work, I stopped dressing in pink, I stopped calling my sister, I stopped smiling – these behaviors of mine made him jealous,” she says, “now he doesn’t want me talking anyone, or wearing clothes he didn’t pick out for me, or talking to anyone in my entire family!”
Rings of pure love, doesn’t it?
It is common for a woman to believe she causes a man’s jealousy.
“I make him jealous,” she says.
“No you do not. You are not that powerful,” I say, “his jealousy predates you, and now you are the unlucky victim of the virus.”
Don’t mess (negotiate) with it. Stand up to it. Or it will get you every time. It will contaminate your every move, your every thought. (This is the nature of a virus.)
Address him with: “This is your issue, not mine. I love my life too much to allow your jealousy to manipulate or dominate me. If you want me, you have to accept that I will not allow your issues to have any power over me. It’s sad enough that your issues control you, I am certainly not going to let them control me. I’m interested to see what YOU will decide to do with YOUR problem.”
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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June 22, 2011
by Rod Smith
Mr. or Ms. Unpredictable
You walk on eggshells.
You fear a massive fallout – yet you also wish for it.
You say something honest – then, almost immediately you wish you hadn’t.
You know that no matter how innocent or insignificant or benign a conflict – it will get magnified out of all proportion.
Innocent statements, even vulnerable reflections on your part, will be misinterpreted, misquoted, and repeated incorrectly and used against you forever.
You feel trapped by what is supposed to be love but have second thoughts (actually a million thoughts!) about how love is supposed to feel.
You are usually wrong and you are told you are stupid.
When you admit fault, or even stupidity, you are at fault and stupid for admitting it.
When you are right you are wrong for saying so or you think you are perfect and trying to show others up.
If you are silent you are avoiding conflict and if you speak out you are “looking for trouble.”
In your intimate whirlpool (more like an emotional tornado) white is black, black is white and the water is very murky.
Innocence is guilt.
Pointing out obvious error is entrapment.
You are exhausted with the load of meeting the emotional needs of someone who cannot, or will not, take responsibility for his or her own needs.
You “share” (it’s better described as emotional wrestling) life with an emotional piranha and yet, for some unfathomable reason, you stay, feeling unable to escape.
Posted in Anger, Anxiety, Betrayal, Difficult Relationships, Domination, High maintenance relationships, Past relationships, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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