September 29, 2006
by Rod Smith
Reader Writes: I’m months away from getting married to a man who works and lives in a small town. Over a few months we had problems because wants me to come live with him, and, as much as I’d love to live in with him, I have a job and can’t imagine myself staying at home not working. It would kill me. I do not want to lose being independent and I am scared of depending on him for everything, including money. He has given me an ultimatum before, and since we are so close to getting married, I know that he will make me choose again between the life that I love (working and being financially independent) or staying with him to be a house-wife. I love him but I’m not sure if I can give up everything I am and have, including my happiness, for him. I also think it’s unfair of him to expect me to be the one doing all the sacrificing. Do you think I’m being unfair and unreasonable? (Letter shortened)
Rod Responds: Ultimatums sre not in the language of love. If this man had any sense he’d come running to join the wise woman your letter reveals you to be. Rethink everything. I’d suggest this is probably not a good match!
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Domination |
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September 26, 2006
by Rod Smith
READER: I am 22 and have been chasing the same woman for about three of four months and she seems less interested in me now than when we first met. At first she was friendly but then when I wanted to ask her out she began to ignore me. Her parents are very traditional in their ways. I think she is scared to be associated with me for fear of what her parents will do because I am from a different language group and we have different customs. Can you offer me any advice? (Letter edited)
ROD’S RESPONSE: Customs, language and parents aside, if you pursue someone who has demonstrated no interest in you, and who is “moving away” from you, your efforts will merely serve to push them further away. If there is no natural attraction, friendliness, warmth, evident from her toward you, I’d suggest you widen your lenses, and look beyond this person in pursuit of a mutual, respectful relationship.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction |
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September 18, 2006
by Rod Smith
Reader: My girlfriend and I have been together for 3 years. At first I was the one who messed around with my ex-girlfriend. I was young and couldn’t let go. However, she stood strong and gave me another chance. Since that day something inside me changed. It was almost as she re-instilled my morals. I go out and go home to her. No cheating in any way. No flirting. She’s the only woman I want to be. For reasons to do with her education she’s moved away and I only see her every second weekend. We hardly talk because she is either busy or with friends who are mostly guys I have never met. I have had an uneasy feeling for a few weeks. What do you think? (Edited for space)
ROD’S REPLY: I trust your change, with or without her, is enduring. If this relationship is to last, you are going to have to learn to trust your girlfriend and resist allowing the distance to so unsettle you. Uneasiness within you will make your occasional conversations and visits feel controlling (for her). Talking with you will feel like a burden, and burdening her with your uneasiness, while she is enjoying herself, will only create a larger distance between you, and she might decide a long-distance “heavy” relationship is not worth the effort.
Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Attraction, Long distance relationships |
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September 7, 2006
by Rod Smith
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.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Communication |
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August 26, 2006
by Rod Smith
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.
Posted in Attraction, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Victims, Violence |
1 Comment »
August 20, 2006
by Rod Smith
Those who are growing in authentic love try to listen, prefer to negotiate mutually agreeable decisions when conflicts arise, yet boldly and lovingly enter disagreements when agreement is not easily established.
Those growing in authentic love know that such love often hurts, perhaps even more than it experiences good, warm, and soothing feelings. This is partly because those who are growing in authentic love are constantly reminded of how little power and control people really have over each other.
Those growing in authentic love forgive people even when forgiveness is not requested. They forgive because they know resentment, bitterness, and hardness hinder everything that is beautiful about the process of personal growth.
Those growing in authentic love expect those whom they love to know what they want from life and from love. They themselves have a clear sense of who and what they are and understand that self-definition is an integral component to nourishing enduring relationships.
Posted in Attraction, Sex matters, Space |
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July 12, 2006
by Rod Smith
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.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Betrayal, Communication, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Long distance relationships, Past relationships, Pornography, Re-marriage, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Space, Victims, Violence, Voice, Young Love |
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June 27, 2006
by Rod Smith
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.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Divorce, High maintenance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Sex matters, Trust |
10 Comments »
May 25, 2006
by Rod Smith
I am a single woman attracted to a married man. We work for the same company. I can see he is lonely and I want to be his friend. He makes eye contact with me but he is uncomfortable about talking to me. Should I meet him where I know he has lunch? (Question submitted online)
You are a relationship piranha. Find ways to address your own loneliness that are not at the expense of a man, his wife and children. The loneliness you perceive within this person is a projection of your very selfish motives. Even if he is lonely, his emotional well-being is absolutely none of your business. You are employed to do your job, not meet the emotional needs of strangers, and not wreck marriages.
Stay away from this man who is (thankfully) uncomfortable with your deceitful advances. Even if you did run into him for lunch, and even if you did alleviate his apparent loneliness, and even if you did start an on-going relationship with him, it would all be based on lies and deception. Since you have already established that you are a dishonest woman I question whether this would be important to you.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Family, Love, Spousal abuse |
27 Comments »
May 7, 2006
by Rod Smith
You might become more seductive, pretend you are wealthier or more educated than you are, change you hair, nose, breasts, accent, interests and lose weight – but none of it will work in helpful ways. Trying to be something you are not, is most unattractive, and nothing you re-create of yourself will be real, convincing, enduring, or – ironically – attractive.
The energy you spend will exhaust you and distort the natural beauty afforded all people. Who you are cannot be successfully hidden for long and hiding behind some fabrication is deceitful and unkind.
If it were possible to do something to make a person become attracted to you, your efforts would have to be more than doubled to maintain that person’s interests.
If you want to increase the possibility of being noticed by healthy people (the unhealthy, who are worth avoiding, are willingly fooled by pretense) master appropriate social skills, personal hygiene; dress well, work hard, be honest, read widely; avoid gossiping and gossips; pursue your faith, loves, skills and interests. Apart from these things, do nothing. Remember: if you think of yourself as bait you might just get eaten!
Posted in Attraction, High maintenance relationships, Long distance relationships, Sex matters, Space, Victims, Voice |
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