My son (9) comes home from school with things that he says he traded or he won. They are small toys and games. Should I trust him or should I check it out with the school. Stealing is not beyond his capabilities?

I’m inclined to suggest you err on the side of trust than impose your suspicions upon your son. When he tells you he won or traded these items you are surely aware that he is doing what children have done for generations.

I clearly recall trading marbles, yo-yos, Durban City soccer cards (I couldn’t get rid of my Durban United and Addington cards quickly enough) and all manner of items on the Northlands Primary soccer field – without ever stealing.

Clearly there is some history regarding your son and stealing but I’d rather be fooled for trusting too much than be guilty of trusting too little.

While we are talking about trading and soccer cards, I think I have an “Alan Varner” and I really want a “George Wooten.” Any offers?

Reminder: “Love in Harsh Palces” contest will end November 30th. Submit, by email, your 200-word account where you encountered love where it was least expected. Prize: $200 Exclusive Books Gift Card.

“My husband calls me stupid. He gives me the ‘silent treatment’ for days. He says things like ‘I’ll talk to you when you say something intelligent’. What am I to do?” (Edited)

Romantic attraction resulting in marriage is usually only possible with persons of similar emotional maturity and psychological functioning. Given you are married, and presuming he is too bright to have been tricked into marriage – I’d suggest he is equally as “stupid” as he perceives you to be.

But, hold that thought. Expressing it to him is likely to generate unhelpful conflict.

Remove yourself when he’s abusive, and, at least for a time, hold your tongue. The less you respond the greater will be the possibility that he will hear his own cruelty. For a few days, even weeks, offer no comeback to stoke his fire or stroke his foolishness.

Then, when the atmosphere is right (few couples fight round the clock) initiate a conversation. Tell him how his words damage both of you, how unattractive it is to be labeled, debased. Suggest his callousness says nothing about you and everything about him. Inform him that even “stupid women” have limits to accommodating abuse, and that he ought to seek professional help before he grinds all the goodwill out of his marriage forever.

“My husband gains pleasure just by being awkward. He is not the biological father of my 2 boys although he has been a stepfather to them for 17 years. If any events concerning my boys arise he just coldly refuses. When I ask for an explanation he says he doesn’t have to give a reason. My son’s have been badly bitten by his spiteful behavior and I have had many sleepless nights wondering how anyone could be so cruel. I have looked in to the psychology behind such spiteful behavior and am convinced that these men have underlying desires to want to have the woman to themselves. Subconsciously they are hoping that the woman cuts down the amount of time she gives to the other people she loves or severs any emotional ties altogether. These men are secretly jealous of anyone else that the woman loves and will never change their behavior unless they tackle the root cause.” (Edited)

While I honor your desire to understand your husband’s behavior, your own is also interesting. You have participated in it for 17 years. Perhaps a good area to study next would be why any woman would tolerate a man who has subjected her, and her sons, to spiteful, cold, cruel, and jealous behavior.

“It blows me away to see those who have strayed and used the ‘bad marriage’ moniker to rationalize their actions of divorce. What kind of moral callousness flows through another human being’s blood to actually want to put someone else through such tortuous pain? Granted, there are those marriages that deserve to go, those involving physical abuse and other demeaning actions that dehumanize the spouse, but for those who simply drifted apart and decided to leave for the guy/girl down the street without trying to get something back…I have no respect for you. Yours was a marriage meant to survive…you just gave up, demonized/devalued your spouse to the point where you could justify your actions, and put him/her through a living hell. It probably felt right at the time, but faith, understanding, and a little counseling could have saved a marriage.” (Edited)

Of course, reader, you are correct. Our first line of action is to salvage, to repair, and to find reconciliation. As your letter points out, sometimes this is not possible.

Like you, I am taken aback at the couples who now cannot tolerate breathing the same air as someone to whom they once swore undying love. Let all cruelty end – and let it end with me.

Have you ever wondered why a gathering if supportive mothers, or the church committee you are on, or your annual family gathering can become so intense and complicated – and become a minefield of human conflict and emotion?

Every person is a unique, deep well of thought, feelings, conflicts, memories, ambitions, and motives. Many well-meaning persons, like the people on that team with you, have hidden scores to settle (sometimes even hidden from themselves).

When people get together, bringing equally unique, deep and complex issues together, things can begin to be intense. This is especially true when people “unite” for a cause.

It is these very complications, these undercurrents that can offer insight into the emotional processes of any group or community for the person looking to be helpful.

Developing an eye (an ear, a feel) for emotional process among people, and allowing what you see to help you grow and behave in an adult manner will help you negotiate the best possible outcome for everyone, especially when things become messy.

Listen for what is unsaid in groups, look for the push and the pull, listen to the “meetings before the meeting,” to identify something of the group’s emotional process.

Listening, watching, will help you garner useful keys to helping groups and individuals make wiser and more helpful choices than simply (only) reacting to the reactivity within self and others.

May you become fully human knowing that the natural human urge toward inhumanity helps no one.

May you live fully and completely given that most people don’t.

May you have all the beauty life offers with minimal experience of life’s unavoidable brutality.

May you be rich enough to eat a little everyday and be able to give away something everyday.

May you be poor enough to have to work and discover the holiness of hard work.

May you love and be loved and therefore find your place and significance in a community.

May you learn the fine art of “give and take” and that your giving would far exceed your taking.

May you understand that anger, resentment, failure to forgive, are uniquely individual pursuits.

May you understand that blaming others for anything never helped anyone to become something worth becoming.

An emotionally healthy person allows himself to honor his deepest inclinations for AUTONOMY and INTIMACY both in himself and others. I call them DUELING DESIRES…..

AUTONOMY: The powerful instinctual longing to be self-directed and separate from others. It is the “you” who wants to be free of all ties, all responsibilities. It is the “you” that fears absorption by others; the “you” who wants to let your hair blow in the wind, feel the sun on your back and live a carefree life without things that tie you down. This is the spirit of the Wild in you, the lone-ranger, and pioneer. This desire, I believe, is God-breathed, God-inspired, and a necessary part of your survival and growth.

INTIMACY: The powerful instinctual longing to be close with others. It is the “you” that wants to belong, be known and be part of a family, a team. It is the “you” that fears abandonment and desertion; the you who longs for a unified journey with others, the you that wakes up at night and wonders with horror, what it would be like to be totally alone. This is the nest-making part of you, the part who longs for the sounds, symbols and reality of a shared life. This desire, I believe, is God-breathed, God-inspired and a necessary part of your survival and growth.

“I really need some space in my relationship. We’ve been together for about two months now and it has been a whirlwind of a romance. I am missing my family and my friends. She, on the other had, can’t even begin to think of her life before we met. She wants to merge bank accounts, phone accounts, and doesn’t want to have a single meal without me. As I said, I, on the other hand, really need some room to move. I am having a lot of fun and I do love her, I just need a little time alone now and again. How do I break this to her?”

Gently. Firmly. Immediately. Admit your role in failing to declare your need for “space” at the outset. Apologize. Suggest a plan. Before you meet, decide how much breathing space you need (two evenings a week, all of every Sunday, alternate weekends?) and be fully prepared, at least in the immediate future, to stick to it. It is likely you will face some backlash – but I’d suggest you face it now rather than later.

Once one person begins feeling trapped, unless there is a radical willingness to shift things from both parties, things usually go downhill once the sentiment is expressed.