May 18, 2007
by Rod Smith
Chime in, please...
1. Set career, academic, and health goals for yourself, and then work hard to achieve them.
2. Develop a network of diverse and supportive friends both on your own and with your wife.
3. Challenge your wife to be a mutual, respectful, and equal partner in every aspect of your relationship. If you have an urge to be in charge and think being in charge makes you more of a man, seek professional help.
4. Resist any forms of intimacy you or your wife find uncomfortable.
5. Believe in your wife’s honesty and integrity by refusing to lie or cover for her no matter how seemingly justifiable the lie or a cover-up might be.
6. Applaud and support your wife’s desire and her attempts to be close to her extended family.
7. Talk to your wife about what you see, think, and feel regarding matters that are important to you, and offer her opportunities to do the same with you.
8. Resist “shutting down” or playing the silent game or the “hurt puppy” when you do not get what you want.
9. Take full responsibility for your children by spending large blocks of time (three-day weekends) with your children. Do not recruit any help from you wife or extended family to do this.
10. Be as interdependent as possible. Find fulfillment both within your marriage as a husband, and as an individual. Enjoy being husband and dad without losing your capacity to enjoy life outside of each of these wonderful roles.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Love, Marriage, Parenting/Children, Responsive people, Sexual compatibility, Spousal abuse, Victims, Voice |
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May 16, 2007
by Rod Smith
Call me...
1.
Set career, academic, and health
goals for yourself, and then work hard to
achieve them.
2. Develop a network of
diverse and supportive friends.
3.
Challenge your husband to be a
mutual, respectful, and equal partner in every aspect of your relationship.
4.
Resist any forms of i
ntimacy you do not find pleasing or comfortable.
5.
Believe in your husband’s honesty and
integrity by refusing to lie or cover for him no matter how seemingly justifiable the lie or a cover-up might be.
6. Don’t work harder at
his family relationships (on his behalf) than he, himself does.
7.
Talk to him about what you
see, think, and feel regarding matters that are important to you, and offer him the opportunity to do the same with you in return.
8.
Resist making him appear to be a
better father than he really is. If you help him save face with the children he might never need to step up to the plate and be all the dad he could be.
9.
Be interdependent by finding fulfillment both within your marriage and as an individual. Enjoy being both a mother and wife without losing your capacity to enjoy life outside of each of these wonderful roles.
10.
Maintain your voice under all circumstances while realizing that not everything you think or see or feel needs to be expressed.
Posted in Communication, Divorce, Faith, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Love, Recovery, Voice |
8 Comments »
May 8, 2007
by Rod Smith
Let me know...
is one of the most common theme of letters I receive. Here are a few generic principles to jump-start the journey of greater health whether the relationship in question survives or not:
1. Don’t focus in “the relationship” but on doing what is healthy and mature for your individual sake. This is not selfish. Getting your house in order will challenge everyone around you to greater health even if you lose your primary, but toxic, relationships in the process. If you do not have the energy to do this, a simple way to help you access the healthy thing to do is to ask yourself the question What do really well and emotionally healthy people do when faced with such a situation and then try, as tough as it might be, to live the answer.
2. Never participate in sexual behavior you do not want. Good sex, or sex at all, (or what one partner regards as good sex) will not salvage a toxic relationship, but only serve to perpetuate all that is already unhealthy about it. Keep in mind that sex frequently prevents love from growing within a relationship.
3. Talk to close friends about what is really happening to you within a deteriorating relationship. Secrecy escalates toxicity. Opening your life to a trusted friend will help you to see healthier options. While a toxic relationship might be “killing you” allow your community to help save you.
4. Do not go rushing back to anything or anyone simply because they say they are sorry. Being sorry (asking forgiveness) for unacceptable behavior is not, in itself, change. Forgive, yes, but do not forget. Look for the fruit of regret. The fruit of an apology and forgiveness is changed behavior.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Violence, Voice, Young Love |
16 Comments »
April 13, 2007
by Rod Smith
1. Invite your family to a meeting and thank each person for their love.
2. Leave your mobile phone at home and spend a full day with your children (or grandchildren).
3. Consult with the librarian of your old school and buy the library a dozen books.
4. Leave a box of groceries for a family whom you know is in need.
5. Tip waiters three times your normal tip.
6. Take a street person to lunch.
7. Make house calls on people who have enriched your life and express your gratitude.
8. While remaining anonymous, pay for a stranger’s meal in a restaurant.
Business:
9. Help others succeed.
10. Don’t screen your phone calls.
11. Make positive referrals if you have a good business experience. Report negative business experiences only to those empowered to make changes.
12. If you occupy a position of authority (business owner, school principal, government official) make random phone calls to people who’d least expect to hear from you. People in “power” positions can make someone’s day by being friendly and “normal.”
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships |
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April 8, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My parents were very happily married and did everything together. My mom and dad would never go anywhere without the other. I know times have changed and every marriage is unique and I know my husband is not the same as my father, but he (my husband) thinks nothing of planning short golf trips with his friends at least three times a year. He usually encourages me to do some kind of similar trip with my friends. Apart from his involvement in sport, which takes up so much time, I think we are very happy. Please comment.” (Letter edited)
I’d suggest you offer your husband all the support possible in order that he may freely pursue his golf and his friends. Find an absorbing interest of your own so that when he is away and playing golf, you do not place your life on hold.
The greater your genuine ease with your husband’s interests, the less likely it is that these interests will be a point of stress for each of you in your marriage. I should think that a golf course would be a very attractive sanctuary of peace and tranquility if it also must become a necessary escape from a difficult spouse!
Posted in Attraction, Communication, Forgiveness, Victims |
1 Comment »
March 20, 2007
by Rod Smith
QUESTION: My boyfriend goes to visit his ex-girlfriend’s family almost every week. He has meals with them. He drops in on them. He stays in touch with them like he is one of them. I am NOT jealous. He even invites me to join him and I have been with him on a few occasions. His ex-girlfriend is dating someone else and she seems quite comfortable having him around. Here’s the problem: while he likes my family, he LOVES her family. I want him to love my family. Do you think I am being overly sensitive?
Clearly your boyfriend has found community (a place, meaning, significance, a source of pleasure) within the context of his ex-girlfriend’s family. I’d suggest you do nothing at all to try and pry him from this.
The sooner you learn to “go with the flow” and enjoy his community, the sooner he might be as comfortable within your extended family. Here’s the axiom: don’t interfere with relationships that pre-date the relationship you want. Such meddling will almost always come back to haunt you.
Posted in Blended families, Communication, Differentiation |
2 Comments »
March 14, 2007
by Rod Smith
Unhealthy patterns occur in relationships when a person …
- Does not sufficiently, or successfully, sever, and then recover from a previous romantic relationship before a new one begins. (Commonly referred to as “rebounding.”)
- Embraces a false, or faulty, unrealistic, definition of love.
- Gives the relationship an inordinate amount of attention. (This is seen when someone seems to disappear – becomes unavailable to other friends – in the wake of a new love interest).
- Offers too much of themselves (sexual favors, money, unlimited time) to someone whom he or she hardly knows.
- Has unrealistic expectations of any relationship, and therefore believes relationships offer what relationships simply cannot, and do not, offer.
- Thinks (believes, hopes) the other person is all he or she will ever need. [“I can’t live without you, AND you are all I need to live.”]
- Confuses nakedness with intimacy, lust with passion, and touch with love.
- Trades long-term commitment (taking things very slowly) for an immediate thrill (“I want it all now!”).
- Sincerely believes his or her love is powerful enough to change undesired characteristics in another person. (“Once we are married she’ll stop drinking.”)
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Anxiety, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Divorce, Domination, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Long distance relationships, Pornography, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Space, Spousal abuse, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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March 13, 2007
by Rod Smith
1. You entertain no gossip and extinguish it the minute you see it rear its ugly head – even if the source is a longtime friend.
2. You take no sides in other people’s squabbles – even if one person is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong.
3. You stay on task and within the general boundaries of what you are hired to accomplish.
4. You understand that while sound and positive human relationships make for a good working environment, you are at work to complete work-related tasks – you are not at work with the primary goal of making friends.
5. You understand that if you blur the lines between your home life and your work life, you will contaminate both worlds with the anxieties of the other, and, as a result, make life seem impossible for people in both places.
6. You respect your boss and yourself enough to be able to stand up to him/her and directly address any injustice you see or experience within your work environment.
7. You talk directly, and only, with people who are appropriately empowered to act on an issue when you are dissatisfied about something at work – and you resist sharing your dissatisfaction with co-workers.
Posted in Communication |
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March 7, 2007
by Rod Smith
READER QUESTION: Mine is an action-packed story of a marriage of 30 years. It has yielded wonderful children and grand children. Outwardly we are a normal, peaceful family. However, unnoticed by all, was an unfortunate and stressful issue of a wife, who experienced a hormone imbalance issue, which culminated her entertaining several extra marital affairs. Fortunately, or unfortunately, these actions were more an issue of once-off gratification.The mental trauma was indeed very difficult to bear, but some how, for the sake of family unity, all was put to rest and never discussed. I’m finding this whole issue extremely stressful and uncomfortable thoughts of the past flash through my mind. I am finding that my thoughts appear to be sparked off by the lack of an active sex life. At this stage in life, these pleasures of life have dried up for me. Was it my fault? Is it too late for me to get this relationship back on the high road?
ROD’S REPLY: Your moving letter suggests there is much hope for you. In the same manner as I have recruited local experts in areas of teen-suicide, drug addiction and other human maladies, I hereby request a local sex therapist to contact me, that I might put the reader in touch with face-to-face professional help.
For further and excellent reading on love and marriage and relationships in general go to www.lovehonoranddismay.blogspot.com
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Divorce, Domination, Past relationships, Reactivity, Recovery |
2 Comments »
March 6, 2007
by Rod Smith
QUESTION: My parents divorced when my sister and I were very young. My mum had many relationships that did not last. She is now 60 and very bitter. She appreciates nothing and tells us that we owe her everything for sacrificing her whole life for us. We provide financially for her and try and take her out often, but it doesn’t ever seem to be enough. We try our best for her while still keeping it together with our families, jobs, and lives. My sister and I are at our wits ends. She told us for years what terrible children we are. Recently in one of her many outbursts, she told us to forget we have a mother. We are trying to honour her as children should, but she turns every opportunity into an abuse session. How do we handle this ongoing situation without over compensating to our own detriment?
ROD’S RESPONSE: You are no longer children. Honouring your mother will involve steadfastly refusing to be manipulated. Playing into her self-pity will only cause it to grow. Define yourself. Decide, with your respective spouses, what you will and will not do, according to your immediate families’ needs. Allowing your mother to drain you in this manner serves neither you nor your children well.
Further readings… see: www.RichardMcChurch.wordpress.com
Posted in Boundaries, Communication |
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