“My boyfriend tells me what I can and cannot wear and gets all crazy and moody if I don’t agree or obey. What should I do?”

Buy him a mannequin and flee! He can dress the dummy in whatever clothes he deems suitable as often as he pleases. The mannequin will give him the total control he wants over you, and, since dummies are brainless, he will be able to win all arguments and keep “her” in total submission. 

That you ask the question suggests you are putting up a fight and resisting his advances on your brain. Small-minded men (any who dictate what “their” women wear, to whom they talk, how they spend and arrange their time) usually flee any sign of independent thinking on a woman’s part if, at first, they cannot kill it. Strong women frighten them since they confuse control and “love.” 

Don’t fall for it. Love and control are not even in the same family. A man who wants to dictate how you dress will also want to tell you how to think, feel, and see before long. Men who want to control “their” women do so because they are rarely capable of feeling in control of anything else. A healthy man will leave your clothing choices up to you unless you specifically elicit his opinion or unless he’s praising how you make an outfit come alive!

Have you been a caregiver?

If you have been a caregiver to your spouse, a parent, friend, for any length of time and now that person has died, you may expect:

• To feel that part of you is lost or gone because it is. Caring (end of life health care) requires love and deep unique bonding, a bonding other than how you are already bonded as spouse or son, daughter, parent or friend. In the separation, in your own way, you yourself are or probably wounded. Not damaged, wounded. Know the difference.
• To feel you are rattling in a cage of caring habits — no more required — and not quite sure of what to do or where to be. You feel pulled between responsibilities that no longer exist and feel irresponsible for not being present where you once were. In short, you don’t know where to be or what to do. It’s dizzying.
• To experience some guilt about the way things turned out, developed or did not develop. You flood with questions: was there more you could have done to ease pain, prolong life, usher healing? Was something crucial missed, forgotten?
• To feel guilty – at least momentarily – if you have fun.

Take heart. Like a child, who, arms outstretched, turns and turns until dizzy, falls to the ground, then rises to walk and appears to have had too much to drink, in the act of walking, balance and order gradually returns.

You will reorient after your double loss: a loved one and an integral role and find your feet.

May your heart be renewed and be full of warmth for others and full of great expectations. May you be sufficiently resilient to be able to embrace those who are unfamiliar with a warm welcome and are therefore prone to regard it and you with suspicion.

May you know and see and experience the goodness of which you are capable and the courage to let it have its full way with you.

May you have childlike eyes. May they be filled with joy and wonder as you allow yourself to see familiar things in new ways with “new” eyes.

May your thoughts dwell on the goodness around you. May you spread the goodness you enjoy and focus on your great and healthy future. 

May your words be soft and sweet and encouraging, while, at the same time, you remain unafraid to speak your mind with courage and conviction.  

May your hands be open to give and to receive. May your touch be gentle and comforting on the lonely and those who are afraid. May your touch bring comfort,  healing, kindness, and relief to those who most need it and who may least expect it.

May your friendships deepen and expand.

May malice and contempt from you, and for you, cease that you return to no person evil for evil.

“My daughter was previously married and has two children from that marriage. Her two boys are five and eight. My daughter married again, a man with twin sons (9). Together, in the new marriage, they have a girl. My daughter has an ex-husband (who loves his children). Her new husband has an ex-wife (who loves her twins). There are periods when this ‘blended’ family seems to work, but it seems things are unraveling and the marriage will soon end. My daughter is asking for help.”

My heart goes out to all the participants in this difficult circumstance. 

Blending families is among the hardest challenges any couple in second and third marriages will ever face. 

There are always multiple levels of loyalties and commitments, pushes and pulls, recognized and unrecognized. 

There will be times when everybody will feel “in the middle” and “left out” and “picked on” purely as a result of the number of relationships in the family and the busyness of daily living.

I trust your daughter and her husband both know that ending the marriage will only multiply complexities.

While your daughter may not have the time or desire to read I’d strongly suggest “Extraordinary Relationships” by Roberta Gilbert. It’s quick, it pulls no punches, and it empowers the willing reader to make healthy shifts in the most difficult and complicated families.

Closeness, vulnerability, illness,  can evoke common fears: 

• The fear of exposure, of being discovered as a fraud, fake, failure, someone  who has been able to masquerade successes.
• The fear of abandonment, of discovering no one stayed or remained faithful to friendships, even to the continued enjoyment of familial connections.
• The fear of aloneness, of discovering there is no-one in your circle, your corner, there is no-one on your team. 
• The fear of total dependence, of discovering you are in the hands of strangers, helpers or nurses who talk loudly, speak in commands, regard you as overly needy, a person without a story and without a rich history. 
• The fear of having unfinished business, of having no time or opportunity to find or establish completion, to close the circle, to express regrets, to ask for forgiveness. 
• The fear of being surrounded by people for whom being right, being correct trumps and semblance of mercy. 

Love drives fear. Fear drives out love. May you and I, by grace alone, be the antidote to men and women who harbor such fears.

Loss, grief, mourning

A few things I’ve seen, known, experienced about significant loss, grief and mourning:

• Grief can go into hiding and emerge months, even years later, as something quite unexpected – like anger, disappointment or cynicism, or kindness, joy, softness, and appreciation.

• Time itself doesn’t heal, not usually. Some grief is never “healed” and some losses never find “closure” but the lack of either does not mean survivors will not, or cannot, live full, productive, beautiful lives.

• Replacing a loss with another person “too quickly” may be unwise, unfair, irresponsible (all things I’ve heard) but it doesn’t feel that way for the one who has suffered and insisting on expressing this is usually alienating and counterproductive and can rip already suffering families apart.

• Mourning has a life of its own, at least initially, and it’s best not tamed by the untrained.

• When a person who had suffered loss declares he or she’d rather not talk about “it” the desire is best respected.

• Our uniqueness as individuals is reflected in how people respond to difficulties associated with significant loss and it’s ridiculous to approach a grieving person with a step-by-step generic packaged formula.

• Non-possessive warmth, listening ears, and hot cups of tea may be the most powerful gifts a person can offer one who has suffered loss.

Making it a week of grace… 

The challenge is simple: be a presence of grace and healing wherever you are. 

Think ‘forgive’ not retaliation. Answer quietly, even if another roars. 

Listen, even when it is something you’d rather not hear. 

Resist return attacks with your own verbal volley when words are thrown at you, even if those words are untrue, unfair, and unwarranted. Don’t defend yourself, or attack anyone. 

Grace is about presence, and service. It is about declaring your willingness to comfort, to assist, to encourage. 

Grace is not demonstrated in blind giving, or indiscriminate enabling of the poor manners or the laziness of others, but it is shown when burdens are shared or when friends ‘clear the deck’ and so empower others to find their greatness. 

Grace is about perseverance, perseverance in love, truth, friendship, loyalty, and in finding humor even in the darkest of hours. 

May you make it, as far as you are able, a week of grace.

Three interlocking and overlapping qualities worth striving for in every adult relationship: 

Equality. 

We are equal. 

You may be wealthier than I am, more educated than I am, and had more experiences in a wide range of significant areas of life but, we are equals. 

You are not above me. I am not above you. 

If I have the lowliest job on the street while you command an army of assistants to do yours, we are equals. 

We contribute differently to the community but we are of equal value, divine value. 

Mutuality: 

Neither of us is more important than the other. 

I will pay for things as often as you do. I can choose our shared activities as often as you may. My voice in our relationship is as important as yours. We will each have our say in matters important to both of us. 

You are not in charge of us. I am not in charge of us. 

We are mutual participants in this friendship, marriage, or partnership. 

Respect: 

We respect each other. 

We speak well of each other to outsiders and talk warmly and kindly to each other. We honor each other with appropriate confidentiality and promote each other’s talents, dreams, and skills.

We give much consideration to how our individual actions impact each other and our friendship, marriage, or partnership.

A boundary is a line (usually invisible) that separates a person from all other people.

Each person is responsible for the wellness of his or her own boundaries.

Indications of poor or troubled boundaries:

• Sharing too much too soon.
• Falling in love quickly and with anyone who reaches out.
• Being preoccupied with someone.
• Going against your values to please someone.
• Hoping someone you meet will have poor boundaries.
• Accepting food, gifts, touch, or sex you do not want.
• Taking for the sake of getting.
• Giving for the sake of giving.
• Letting someone be in charge of your life.
• Allowing someone else to say what you feel and see.
• Believing someone can and should anticipate your needs.
• Being moody and withdrawn to get attention.
• Expecting people to read your mind and know what you want or need.
• Habitually stealing the agenda, taking center stage, occupying the spotlight.
• Falling apart to get care.
• Eating for destructive reasons or with destructive results.

The above list is from observing self and others and collated from a variety of sources over many years. I’d love to acknowledge all the sources and would if I had them.

Whatever your faith persuasion, or the decision to have none, you may or may not agree that it is time to pray for the residents, legal or illegal, of the cities across this land and around the world. Please pray, even if it is to a God in Whom you do not believe!

Oh God, our differences in faith and differences in our approach to you, divide those whom they ought to unite and incite those whom they ought to calm. May this not be true for me.

Help us to love, embrace, and understand authentic humility. Help us to honor mercy and to seek justice even if it is personally inconvenient and costly. Help us to live lives of love and truth and to seek the greater good of the community. Help us to place aside the desire for revenge and to seek the growth and beauty that comes with hospitality, acceptance, and forgiveness of others.

Help me to understand that peace begins with me, that hospitality and kindness and generosity begin with me.

May violence end. May leaders, official and unofficial, learn to embrace love and justice rather than be or become intoxicated by their limited powers.