October 6, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I am 12. I have been a friend to a boy who is now getting on my nerves. He always sits next to me. He always begins the day with ‘Did you hear…’ and it’s about an embarrassing fact about someone. He usually asks me what we have next as if I am his personal assistant. I tell him that he should know his own timetable and then, like clockwork, he comes back to me at the end of the next period and asks me ‘What do we have?’ My teacher used me an example of good behavior. I know that being good is never something to be ashamed of, but I am honestly going to blow up soon. I feel very bad (obligated). I know that I am one of the only people who listens to him, but I am getting annoyed.” (Minimally edited)
Feeling overcrowded is seldom comfortable. Your response to this uncomfortable situation is appropriate. Address him directly. I’d suggest a third party facilitate this difficult conversation if he were older than you are. Tell him, as strongly as possible, that you will be choosing to establish some distance from him – while also remaining one of his friends. Both of you stand to learn important life lessons as you succeed in defining yourself to your friend. Learn it now, it will serve you well forever.
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 23, 2008
by Rod Smith
My spouse has “checked out” of our marriage. What can I do? (Prevailing theme of three letters received in the past 24 hours)
1. Relax. While it might seem impossible, the first thing to do is live a “relaxed life.” Don’t go off in a flat spin of activity. Do not presume the breakdown is about anything you are doing or are not doing. Assuming blame will send you on a wild goose chase and you will only end up more exhausted than you probably already are.
2. Hold your tongue. It is in the early or the “desperate” phase, when it seems as if a relationship is failing, that impossible promises are made and many hurtful things are said.
3. Get some distance. Try to see “the whole” rather than spend your energies focusing only on what is painful. Acquiring some distance or gaining a new perspective might only be possible once you have vented everything you are thinking and feeling to a close and trusted friend. Do not be afraid to do this. A good friend will be willing to hear you out.
Of course there is so much more to say, but a good place to begin is with SLOWING down so you have time to THINK! Hurrying to “put things right” or to re-vitalize your relationship will prove to be most counter-productive in the long term.
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 17, 2008
by Rod Smith
“Please tell me why my husband can’t talk to his parents even about the most little things like saying happy birthday to them or inviting them over for a meal. I have to do it all. I make all the plans for everything and he just fits in. I am so tired of being the center of all the plans for everyone and when things go wrong I am blamed when someone in the family could help. We have been married almost 20 years.” (Letter shortened)
I cannot tell you why your husband is the way he is, and I doubt it would be something he himself could articulate, even if he himself did know. In the unlikely event you did reach a convincing diagnosis about why he is the way he is I am not sure you’d have anything useful or helpful. [Gaining understanding or insight does not necessarily lead to change in behavior.]
What I do know is that while your husband has a spokesperson in his wife (and life) there is little reason for him to see the need to have a voice of his own. People tend to fall into roles that most suit them, and I doubt very much that you’d find it very easy if your husband did begin to direct the family traffic.
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 12, 2008
by Rod Smith
You have frequently written that live-in boyfriends or girlfriends or even step-parents, ought to avoid disciplining the children of a significant other. I have never really believed you as it seems counter-cultural to think that one adult be left with the load of guiding and disciplining children when there is another in the house who may be able to help. Please clarify. (Question “lifted” from tone of a longer letter).
A blended family will tend to work better when respect or deference is given to primary and longer-standing relationships.
When an adult moves in with a mother or father who is already parenting children, and begins to exercise authority, while this might be a welcome relief and a great help to all involved, it is a disturbance (small or large) of a deeper and more fundamental invisible loyalty.
Someone in the original relationship will begin to resist the intrusion even if the intrusion is helpful and benign. This is one of many reasons even good and kind stepparents are often rejected.
[Of course, this is not the “whole truth” or even meant to suggest there are not many factors and variables that influence such relationships — it is merely one, partial view.]
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 4, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I’m looking for a perspective regarding a spouse who has been cheated on when family, friends, and coworkers were aware of the affair. I’d like to know if the cheated on spouse would have wanted to be told (or told sooner) about the affair. I read so much about people saying, ‘Do not tell the spouse.’ If I were being cheated on, I would want to know. When the spouse does find out about the affair and that other knew, he or she has to deal with the heartbreak of the affair and the betrayal of others. I just don’t grasp the majority’s mentality to turn their back on this situation. If the sin was embezzlement, the majority would say tell all. Why do the rules change when it comes to affairs?”
Call me...
is being cheated are all scary matters that are much easier to avoid than to face. Besides, seeing it occur to another, means I have to face its possibility of occurring in my own life! Denial of it occurring at all, or the avoiding its exposure to the victim, is much easier! Your observation goes to the heart of a profoundly difficult human issue. Cheating makes everyone uncomfortable, even those who observe it from some distance.
Posted in Attraction, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Victims, Voice |
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August 17, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I always read your column and then the daily ‘tail-piece.’ One of the many things that caught my attention was that marriage is not two people in one boat but two people, each person in his or her own boat. I think my husband would like us to be joined together and have us share a brain (his brain of course). He asks my opinion and then always improves on what I say. When I’m on the phone he tells me what to say and corrects me, sometimes he even shouts at me and the person on the other end can hear. Because we work together I try to ignore it to avoid having a bad day but every now and then I explode. Then it gets nasty and he hurls verbal abuse at me, bringing up my family and poor upbringing.”
This is a fine example my repeated encouragement that readers “focus on your behavior, and not the behavior of others.” The reader tells in detail about the “other” but appears to miss that she has allowed his nastiness to thrive by putting up with it. It is a fool who curses his wife but a very foolish wife who remains a willing target.
Posted in Communication, Voice |
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August 11, 2008
by Rod Smith
How one daughter-in-law chose to treat her husband’s parents…
“I knew that how a man treats his parents is generally how he will treat you. Remember who raised him. Did you think that this wonderful man came full-grown out of the sea? No, that mother and father were the ones who made him that wonderful, so give them a break. Make friends with them and you will never regret it. I had a lot of questions for them before I got married but now I feel like I am their daughter. They include me in everything. But, I made a point to make friends with them both. Without my husband I would call them and do things with them. Doing this once in awhile made my husband relax that he was not the only one ‘responsible’ for his parents. It made them like me so that if he showed up at their house without me they would either call me to come over also or shoo him home! The house next door to us was for sale last year and I begged them to buy it to live even closer. I love them dearly!” (Edited for space)
Posted in Communication |
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August 10, 2008
by Rod Smith
Reader response to questions is usually helpful. In the spirit of trusting readers to know what is helpful and appropriate, apart from my suggesting the correspondent remain defined about who he is and to be patient and kind, I am going to trust I’ll get many responses to this plea which will be publishable over the next few days:
“I am at my wits end. My wife is going through menopause and has become quite maniacal in her behaviour towards others. She has developed a violent temper that leads her to respond with terrifying rage to anything and everyone. Everyone is wrong, stupid and incompetent. She is at war with her family, her neighbours, her transient friends, our pets and me. The advice she gets reinforces her view that she is right and everyone else is wrong. She threatens to divorce me because I am not the person she expects me to be. She seems incapable of any sort of reflection or introspection that might help her see that her reactions are extreme. She will probably do something stupid and dangerous. I want to help but all my efforts are spurned with abuse and contempt. Should I step back, walk away and let things take their course, and hope this will all pass?”
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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August 5, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I am in a three-year relationship and my daughter (14) lives with us. My friend tells me he is tired of commuting from my house to work. He wants me to move to his lake home and put my daughter in school there, which would lessen his commute by 20 minutes. My daughter grew up where we live now and her dad lives close by. She does not know anyone there and moving would also cause a problem in seeing her dad. My friend finds fault with all my solutions. The move would mean my giving up my house and (before that) I want a commitment, like a ring. My friend does not want to get married. He tells me he loves me but marriage is out of the question. I am heartsick. I don’t understand how he says he cares and wants to spend the rest of his life with me but bails when marriage is mentioned. Things are falling apart. What do I do?” (Letter shortened)
Stand firm! Do what is in the best interests of your family. I’d suggest your friend move to his lake house and share weekends at your house. It seems he wants the benefits of being a spouse and co-parent without a legal contract or the responsibility entailed.
Posted in Children, Communication, Voice |
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July 23, 2008
by Rod Smith
1. When a person is moving away from you (separating physically, emotionally detaching) to chase, to persuade, to cajole will be counterproductive.
2. When every move, every expressed thought, every action, on the part of another person has the capacity to upset you or derail you, you are probably too close, too intensely involved with that person in an unhealthy manner. Given time, one or the other of you will begin to act (consciously or unconsciously) in ways to reduce the closeness.
3. When a person seeks a so-called “father-figure” or “mother-figure” in an intimate relationship, intimacy will whither surprisingly quickly once the couple marries.
4. Unresolved conflicts from childhood and adolescence will re-appear later in life within a person’s most intimate relationships, and, as a result, he or she will fight yesterday’s battles, in the present, with the “wrong” people.
5. Intimacy is an individual pursuit and not dependent on the participation of a partner or the partner’s willingness to be equally intimate. A woman, for example, may experience a powerful moment of intimacy when telling her partner about her day without the partner having to share one iota about his day, Of course intimacy is intensified when there is mutual participation but it is not dependent on the participation of both partners.
Posted in Communication, Voice |
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Feeling overcrowded is seldom comfortable. Your response to this uncomfortable situation is appropriate. Address him directly. I’d suggest a third party facilitate this difficult conversation if he were older than you are. Tell him, as strongly as possible, that you will be choosing to establish some distance from him – while also remaining one of his friends. Both of you stand to learn important life lessons as you succeed in defining yourself to your friend. Learn it now, it will serve you well forever.
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