No room to move....
While it takes two to tangle (not tango!) it only takes one of the partners to cheat. I trust you will experience greater love than you’ve ever known.
August 22, 2010
My affair gave me courage to leave an abusive marriage…..
August 20, 2010
He never says “I love you” but he shows it….
“In twenty years my husband has never told me he loves me. I know he does but he just can’t say the words. He makes up for this in so many ways but it would be nice to hear. Please help.”
Let him off the hook
Enjoy his love, even if the words “I love you” are never said. Let him off the hook. Love him by relieving him of this expectation.
If your husband were the person writing to me I’d challenge him to learn to love you with both actions and words. I’d suggest he at least take a look at when and how these words lost their legs inside him.
Since you wrote I will suggest you use this circumstance to advance your own growth by resisting the understandable urge to meddle with his head and heart.
August 4, 2010
Handling jealousy
Green-eyed monster!
There are reasons you found each other attractive. So while your partner might play host to the virus of jealousy, somewhere in the mix you may have some limited responsibility for fostering its success if jealousy is an issue between you. First examine your contribution (how have you fed the monster?) before you point fingers at your partner for any expressions of jealousy.
A virus, jealousy is an emotional virus, must have a host to survive. Once hosted, having no capacity to self-monitor, it will run wild within the host. The only effective treatment for the virus of jealousy (as is true with any virus) is starvation. So do not allow it to succeed. Bring it into the light (it hates exposure) every time it shows its ugly, borrowed face. Do not try to work with, understand, or appease jealousy. You cannot reason with a virus so don’t waste time trying.
You do not cause jealousy (by ANYTHING you do) and it is never an indication of love.
July 20, 2010
He’s (She’s) divorced! How can I know he’s (she’s) ready to date…..
How to know it’s “a go” when dating someone who is divorced…
1. His/her divorce has been finalized (that means completed) for more than a year.
2. He/she takes appropriate responsibility for his or her part in the breakdown of the former marriage.
3. He/she wants a healthy spiritual, emotional, and intellectual relationship with a diverse range of people before becoming intimately involved with any one person.
It will be a rough ride if red flags are ignored.....
5. He/she places a high priority on rearing his/her own children, while being respectful toward your children and your relationship with them.
6. He/she can conduct meaningful conversations with the former spouse about matters pertaining to the children. That the divorce is REAL is clear – so there are no intimate, or “throw-back” conversations.
7. He/she is very respectful of marriage, sex, the opposite sex, despite the previous breakdown.
8. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with his/her former spouse or persons associated with the former marriage.
9. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with your former spouse or persons associated with your former marriage.
10. He/she has deep regard for the time and patience required to establish new relationships and is willing allow necessary time for intimacy to properly develop.
July 15, 2010
He’s losing interest in me…….
“My boyfriend (21) is losing interest in our relationships. He’s not running around with other girls or anything like that. He’s just not calling as much and is choosing not to be with me. It is cold between us. I am 19 and I don’t want to be alone. How can I get this going again?” (Letter required extensive editing)
A little separation is helpful....
You will lose yourself in his pursuit and end up with neither.
Explore your fear of being alone. Do you want this particular young man or is he an escape path for your loneliness? I’d suggest you embark upon several years without a romantic interest. Take the time develop a wide, diverse circle of friends. This will allow you to increasingly discover comfort in being “alone” and you will develop the grace to share your life with a chosen partner and enjoy a healthy, sustainable, non-anxious future.
-
AXIOM
Whatever you use to attract and keep someone, you will have to continue and increase to sustain the relationship. If a relationship doesn’t have natural energy, it will become a game of hide and seek, and “catch me if you can”. This is usually way too much work for anyone with a growing, healthy sense of self.
July 13, 2010
Can abuse stop?
“Can abusive behavior like controlling behavior, badgering, jealousy about other relationships, monitoring things like a partner’s phone, and physical pushing, shoving behavior and even more violent outbursts stop?”
[
Yes – but often not within the same entanglement. With close counsel and strong third party monitoring (at least for a period of time) the perpetrator can gain insight, grow, and self-monitor his or her use of unhelpful and destructive interpersonal behaviors.
While it is NEVER the victim’s responsibility (no one is sufficiently powerful to make another abusive) a lot can hinge on the degree of “fed-up-ness” within the victim.
Abuse (all categories) continues and intensifies when the victim covers for the perpetrator, “rewrites” the behavior, excuses it, or when the victim feels he or she deserves to be poorly treated.
Most perpetrators will back off (at least temporarily) when met with a sound and early refusal to allow an abusive repertoire within the relationship’s behavior cycle.
It is never the victim who causes the abusive behavior, but the victim must immediately remove him or herself from the abuse (which is seldom easy because people are attracted to persons who are similarly relationally mature or immature) or the behavior will intensify.
July 6, 2010
Signs you are in newfound love……
“I think I am in love. Please give me some positive signs to affirm that I am in love rather than give me a list of warnings about what could go wrong?” (Edited)
Certainly. It will be my pleasure:
You will find communion rather than anxious attraction.....
2. You are more yourself than ever – there are no eggshells to tiptoe over, no topics to avoid, no facades to perpetuate.
3. You find yourself free of any sense of control or possessiveness when it comes to your newfound love.
4. You maintain a life separate from him or her while you are also becoming closer and closer as the relationship grows.
5. You have had sustained talks about faith, finances, career options, and have discussed the hurdles that accompany matters of faith, finances, and career options.
6. You have met his or her immediate and extended family and are doing what you can to embrace and understand their culture, politics, religion, and a general sense of how they live life.
7. You can’t wait for each new day – that you may embrace the possibilities each new day offers.
May 31, 2010
Nine things worthy of pursuit…..
1. To be the most generous person you know.
2. To hold everything you own with an open hand.
3. To share everything you know with willingness.
4. To do all you can to empower the people within your circle of influence.
5. To be able to say “yes” more than “no” to the adventures that come your way (Ed Friedman)
6. To have the capacity to “see beyond” the limitations set by your family history, your nationality, and your faith story.
7. To be able to live within your means.
8. To embody forgiveness, freedom, and grace for all who will repeatedly and naturally attempt to sabotage you as you live your full and passionate life.
9. To embrace your dark side (everyone has one) by trying to understand it, accept it so that it will not need to push itself onto your center-stage and take you by surprise in response to your denial of its presence.
June 1st, 2010: Today our journey to Australia and Singapore begins. Traveling in the USA used to be a pleasure. Now it is usually a nightmare: no food on domestic flights, heavy security, frequent flight cancellations, lots of impatient “entitled” people. You can only imagine what all this means to my two boys! Hoping for two successful connections: Chicago and San Francisco.
May 25, 2010
He shows a lot of interest in her…….
“My wife has a lot of interest from a man at work where they coach a sport together. What should I do?”
Get face-to-face with the man. Ask him directly what his intentions are and let him know what you are seeing with regards to his interest in your wife.
Ask your wife (who presumably says there is nothing going on) to include you in all correspondences, texts, emails, and so forth. If there is nothing to hide this should be no problem at all.
Volunteer regular hours to assist your wife. I am sure there is always a need for more help and it will be a way of spending time with your wife and getting a taste of what she is facing.
If there is anything going on between your wife and another man the best thing you can do is “push the system” or exert some pressure to have the truth come out. It might not be the truth you want, but then at least you will know it and be able to do what is necessary to get on with your life.
May 24, 2010
The persistent challenge we all face in all relationships…..
Getting “lost” in a relationship, or over investing or over-functioning to the detriment of one’s well being, is very easy to do. The challenge of intimate relationships, including being a sibling, a son or daughter and a parent, having in-laws, growing and developing a career, is not only found in the desire for closeness, but also in the persistent challenge to maintain essential uniqueness. Unless you have both (togetherness and separateness – both at the same time and from the outset) the wheels will certainly ultimately fall off.
Becoming consumed happens between husbands and wives, parents and children, professionals and their jobs all the time. Such “losing” of oneself to another or to a job is often applauded as a mark of true commitment, dedication, the mark of a dedicated parent, spouse, or employee. In truth, distinctness, uniqueness, self-awareness, maintaining integrity, while also being deeply coupled or committed, is the mark or challenge of maturity.
If you do not define yourself in any relationship the relationship will define you. If you do not tell the world who you are and what you want, the world around you will impose its anxious shape upon you.
If you err on the side of deep connection, work on your uniqueness. If you tend toward independence, increase your capacity for deeper connection.
difficultrelationships.com 