Yesterday’s column provoked interesting responses. Here are two:
Some emotional disconnection will be helpful.....
Take full responsibility only for your own life.....
July 20, 2010
“He’s over weight” column (yesterday) provokes interesting responses…..
July 19, 2010
He is overweight and he won’t do anything about it….
“I have been very happily married for 16 of 20 years. The change came when my husband started to put on weight and let himself go. I also put on weight but went on diet and started walking to keep fit. I still exercise and follow a healthy lifestyle. I want to look attractive for my age. Our relationship isn’t good. I have a problem with his weight. We are hardly ever intimate and I’m not attracted to him anymore. I feel I still love him. He says I must love him whether he’s overweight or not. My argument is that I am making the effort to look good and take care of myself and I think he can do.”
This is a power-struggle!
While he is telling you that you must love him despite his weight, he is minding your business. Who, how, when you love, is your business, and not his.
This is a control issue for each of you – yes, the both of you. Get off his scale and he might (only might) stop telling you how to love.
Give up trying to checkmate your mate, begin minding your own business, and you might fall in love all over again.
From Steve, my friend and business partner: I would remind ‘happily married for 16 or 20 years’ to perhaps ask her husband to increase his life insurance policy so that when he dies early of weight related issues she will have enough to live comfortably with her next partner. She can make a deal to never mention his weight again once he has updated the life insurance policy and actually playfully encourage him to eat more. Beyond that, I would hope she continues to stay in great shape with ambitious plans to enjoy her middle age years and beyond – with or without her overweight husband. Cheers, Steve
July 14, 2010
Teenagers are constantly in conflict…..
“My children, a daughter who is 17 and a son who is 19, are fiercely competitive and hardly anything either says goes unchallenged by the other. They verbally attack each other at every opportunity. Please comment?”
Talking it through in a public place.....
Being piggy in the middle is ALWAYS a very draining, anxiety-producing experience for piggy, especially when piggy in the middle is mom or dad.
Your son and daughter are going to be siblings for many years, perhaps for even longer than they will each know you! The sooner they learn to accommodate and love each other the better off each will be. Learning to love and accept each other will do all of their other relationships a whole lot of good.
Discerning your level of intervention will always be your call. I believe your intervention is necessary if blows are exchanged or if unabashed cruelty occurs.
Call a meeting. Have “dinner with a purpose”. Meet them in a crowded restaurant where it is unlikely that tempers will flair and where they will be unlikely to become loud or aggressive. Let them know the degree of grief you experience when they are continually at each other’s throats. Let them know how a parent feels when his or her children seem unable to get along.
Heart-to-heart conversations can go a long way to building bridges that will be necessary to one day walk cross. I do it with my own children (12 and 9) and I am always surprised at how much it means to them, and how much they take our “dinners with a purpose” to heart*. I know, I know: my children are younger and it is probably much easier when dinner with dad is something exciting. But, this is your opportunity to parent with a purpose – and I challenge you to make it happen.
* We even have “meeting chairs” in our home and we only really sit in them for “serious” or “important” conversations.
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?”
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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 1, 2010
I want to get rid of my son’s phone and the Internet – he uses them for porn…..
“My son (15) uses pornography on his cell-phone and on his computer. I think my husband and I should get rid of both. My husband disagrees. We are Christians and I will not allow this sort of thing in our house.”
Technology is not the problem. Monitoring your son’s use of technology is a wise thing to do but getting rid of his access to the Internet is unlikely to solve whatever issue your family has with pornography.
No blame or shame...
Such a discussion will require preparation and unity between you and your husband – it will require acts of purposeful, planned parenting. Dumping the boy’s phone and severing the Internet is easy – but such radical quick fixes will fix nothing and do nothing to enrich your relationship with your son.
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 29, 2010
Dating a single mother sucks…..
“I suggested my girlfriend and her 4-year-old son move in with me. The second day I knew it was a bad idea. Dirty plates, food, clothes everywhere; disorder, chaos. Sometimes I hate the boy. He manipulates my girlfriend. He is destroying our relationship. We talk about it and she says, ‘He’s just a kid.’ He is hyperactive with ADD and she won’t use medicine. Every time we go to the cinemas we have to leave in the middle because the boy can’t sit still. In restaurants he is under the table and throws food. The boy NEVER has a punishment and now he punches us. I doubt our future. I don’t want the boy in my life. She rarely bathes him so he smells bad. She makes him to watch television on my bed and I hate to go to my bed and smell her child. I cannot rest in my bedroom. I really love her. My family says that i must leave her. Dating a single mother sucks.”
None of you is benefitting here....
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.
May 19, 2010
Beware of “nice” – it isn’t always….
When dealing with difficult situations or difficult people…..
1. Your responses are more important than the difficulties or the problems presented. You can choose to escalate (step up) the anxiety or embrace and reduce it (step down). The latter is usually infinitely more productive, although at times, purposefully escalating issues can bring necessary change. It takes wisdom to know the difference.
2. Knee-jerk, reactive behavior will usually hurt you, while planned, creative, and honest responses will facilitate resolution and healing – if resolution and healing are even possible.
3. Not all conflicts can be resolved, nor can all painful or destructive circumstances be healed – but it is possible to allow everything we face to become a transformational crucible, a context that stimulates growth, provokes change, and transforms our character. “What can this teach me?” is a more useful response than, “How can I win?”, “How can I be vindicated?” or “How can I get out of this?”.
4. It is helpful to acknowledge that some people are so toxic, destructive, bitter, or disillusioned that resolution is impossible – and it is better to sever the relationship than it is to play with their fire. By the way, they are often the “nicest” people. Beware of nice! Be even more aware of “religious and nice.” It is often a calculated front. (“Buite blink; binne stink!” This is an Afrikaans idiom: “Outside sparkles; inside stinks.”)
5. As a general rule grace and flexibility will triumph over resentment and rigidity, forgiveness is always more powerful and liberating than harboring resentments.
May 16, 2010
We are in a sinking ship….
“My husband became friends with a girl at work. He started staying at work longer than before. Then he started taking 4 or 5 hour hikes with a few ‘male friends.’ Big surprise! I found out that it was with her and only her. Anyway, she moved a thousand miles away. I thought we could once again be his best friend and get back to normal. After a year he tells me that he doesn’t love me and that he hasn’t since last year. He said he didn’t cheat. I explained that even if he never even kissed her, confiding his feelings to her and not to me is a form of cheating. I don’t know what to do. I feel like we are in a sinking ship. I’m the only one trying to bail us out. He’s waiting for it to sink. I still do dearly love him.” (Letter shortened)
I like the metaphor – but there are three ships: yours, his, and the marriage. Bail out your own ship (work on yourself), let him worry about his (don’t try and rescue him) and the marriage ship will take care of itself (which does not men it will survive). Until you love yourself more than you love him you will all go down.
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