January 7, 2011
by Rod Smith
He or she who enables
1. Lies, covers-up, runs interference, for the enabled.
2. Feels over-burdened or rewarded with responsibility for the enabled.
3. Feels like he or she is living more than one life each day; as if the choices (good and bad) of the enabled are his or her responsibility.
4. Endures “borrowed” anxiety – bears anxiety about choices made by the enabled.
5. Seems unable to see the “self” as disconnected to the self of the enabled, and will often see this connection as “oneness” or love, or a soul-tie, or the “oneness of marriage” making the enabling somehow inescapable.
He or she who empowers
1. Learns to allow others to speak for themselves (“I will not lie for you. If you have to call in as sick when you really are hung-over you will have to make that call yourself.”)
2. Understands the critical distinction between being responsible to others and for others.
3. Learns to allow most choices (not all) of those he or she loves and their consequences to run their course.
4. Learns to distinguish between helpful pain, useful anxiety, and what is and is not legitimate cause for concern.
5. Works at healthy, necessary separation, even while being married, in love, or having soul-ties.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Responsive people, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust |
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January 6, 2011
by Rod Smith
“I am single male 30, educated, professional. My parents’ background is Pakistani. I have never been married and never had any children. A woman I know is 31 and from Germany where she lives with two boys ages 3 and 2. I have known her for nine years. We met and she moved to Germany. She always rejected me when we were young and she was single. She now wants to divorce her husband and spend the rest of her life with me. My family will never accept her and her family will never accept me. Please guide me.” (Edited)
You potential relationship sounds fully loaded with problems. First off, she is married. If she divorces, and is single, for at least two years, and then wants to be with you that it another matter.
It seems you are an escape route for her right now.
You are going to need and want family (your family) and so I’d respectfully submit to you that the scenario you are placing before me is not a good platform for a healthy life together.
Of course I can be wrong, but I suggest your single life will be far more attractive to you than the complications you will invoke if you head in her direction.
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships |
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January 6, 2011
by Rod Smith
New day – and an opportunity to value adventure over safety, challenge over empathy, and to develop the stamina to face natural systemic resistance (sabotage) that comes with being alive.
(Rabbi Ed. Friedman’s books are a must!)
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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January 5, 2011
by Rod Smith
Please could you tips on how to tell the difference between being “in love” with someone and being “in love with the idea of being in love.”
Being in love with the idea of being in love is essential to genuine, lasting love. Without desire the real thing has no entryway.
Genuine love, while quite able to be caught up in romantic fantasy resists losing self, self-insight, the urge for self-preservation, and the urge to self-govern. True love sacrifices, is humble, serves, can desire to move heaven and earth for another, yet it never abdicates personal responsibility or enables others to do so. It has long-haul vision. It seeks little or nothing in return, yet it is also first self-preserving. Somewhat ironically, it is able to care for itself (love itself) just a little more than it cares for a significant other.
Loving the idea of being in love tends to make us responsive to anyone who reaches out. We become somewhat ill defined and demonstrate acts of romantic desperation. We idealize the candidate whom we deem will help us fulfill that fantasy and remain committed even when faced with urgent symptoms (warnings of friends and family) suggesting the relationship is ill fated. Reality doesn’t seem to matter. It’s “I’ll-make-this-work-even-if-it-kills-me” attitude and, sadly, it often does.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Love, Trust, Young Love |
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January 5, 2011
by Rod Smith
A new day. A new opportunity to create, communicate, be empowered and to empower others. “There’s no knowing,” said some wise person, “what greatness you may achieve if you have no interest in who gets the credit.”
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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January 4, 2011
by Rod Smith
“My wife does our son’s homework. Our son (14) gives her his few ideas and she takes them and puts them into complete answers. Since everything is typed I don’t think the schoolteachers are aware. Our daughters also did this until they themselves saw that it was not helpful and weaned their mother off their homework. Our son is less motivated and is unlikely to follow his older siblings. He chastises his mother if he doesn’t get a perfect score. If I try to intervene I am told I do not understand. She says she is ‘modeling’ something and that he is learning by watching her. I say she is enabling his laziness. Please help.”
They will ultimately untangle
presenting his mother’s work as his own – I must believe that your wife has been suckered into doing more than she perhaps at first anticipated. While I know you have not said as such, I am aware of how these “help” sessions grow and how the pressure from a child to a parent can steadily increase. Your beliefs are well known. Try to stay out of it and your wife and son will ultimately untangle. If you intervene you will be polarized. Let them dance until one of them drops.
Posted in Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Triangles |
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January 3, 2011
by Rod Smith
I try to remind myself of these things everyday
Therapists, leaders, pastors, teachers, and others in the “helping professions” – in the event you want to grow in your chosen area, here are a few challenges for us all:
1. Manage you own anxiety only and resist attempts to manage the anxiety of all in your sphere of influence. This is the consummate triangle and it will suck you in and drain you of all creative energy.
2. Increase your capacity to embrace the pain of those in your sphere of influence. Your ability to “allow” it to play its course, rather than succumb to the pressure to alleviate it in any manner, will facilitate growth in all parties. Some pain is very helpful. Can you tell the difference between helpful and unhelpful pain? There are no easy formulas.
3. Keep in mind that those who seek your guidance (counsel, assistance) cannot out-grow you while they stay within your assistance and influence. Herein lies the reason it is paramount for you to consciously seek opportunities to fully develop your personal life.
4. You cannot save the world – and while you think you can or should, and while you behave as if it is your responsibility, you will place your family and your health at great risk.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Therapeutic Process |
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January 2, 2011
by Rod Smith
There are some things a person simply cannot do for or to another person, no matter how much commitment there is, how noble are the goals, how much effort or determination is involved, or how significant the need.
This is especially true when people are in love, a condition where people are most inclined to believe in their power to change another person.
It is impossible to make another person:
1. Be happy or fulfilled, angry, change, succeed or fail.
2. Become healthier. (This does not mean that two people cannot work toward their individual health together. It means that one person cannot make another person grow in any manner.)
3. Love you, want you, need you, miss you, or trust you.
4. Love, want, need, miss or be glad to see someone else.
5. See, feel or think in a certain manner for an enduring period.
6. See the light, or get some sense into their lives.
7. Lose or gain weight, save money, want or not want sex.
8. Use or stop using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes or bad language.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Trust |
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January 2, 2011
by Rod Smith
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health. The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 190,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 8 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 243 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1167 posts. There were 110 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 40mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
The busiest day ever (all years) was July 17, 2008 with 1732 views. The most popular post that day was Best things you can do if your husband says he doesn’t love you…. a woman (Ann) writes…!.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were networkedblogs.com, difficultrelationships.com, facebook.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for difficult relationships, manipulation in relationships, rodney smith , what to do when your husband doesn’t love you anymore, and when your husband doesn’t love you.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
Best things you can do if your husband says he doesn’t love you…. a woman (Ann) writes…! January 2008
92 comments
2
When your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore or want to be married anymore…… November 2006
341 comments
3
My husband told me last night that he did not love me anymore… May 2007
80 comments
4
My wife and best friend had an affair….. November 2007
18 comments
5
Three poisons for love: Manipulation, Intimidation, and Domination March 2006
37 comments
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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January 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
I watch my two-year-old son bending at the hip, one foot raised and turning until he falls gloriously to the floor in convulsive laughter. A momentary pain lights somewhere so deep inside me I can hardly tell in which of my internal galaxies it sits. It is swift and pointed, like the touch of a darting and determined fly set loose in my emotional innards.
Then the pain is forgotten, swamped in the exceeding happiness of watching him attack life’s toddler challenges. He’s hungrily learning a language now, having conquered walking and running, and expressing his brand new heart sweetly in partial, ill-formed words and sentences which tumble, jumbled and joyed up all over the house.
Sometimes he runs, singing at the top of his voice like an emergency vehicle out of control. With siren blaring, he sprawls across the floor and careens into a heap of toddler chaos. Recovering, he mounts the coffee table against my flagging will and “hee haas” astride his horse, a precocious knowing smile flashing from his distant meadow.
In all of this activity and fun he eases his way further into my being, a steel pylon thrust securely into waiting, willing ground.
Rod’s road-post from DROID.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Living together, Parenting/Children, Single parenting |
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