… I took my children to Jamaica last week. No cell. No Internet. Nothing but beach, fun, and games …. which is the reason your posts were not updated and the reason why I have not posted any new articles….

Keep reading and writing. I will.

This is to let you know I am back and still listening.

The ONLY thing I ask in return is that YOU spread the word about this website and that you let me know (through a comment) that you are doing so.

Rod Smith

Let me know if you’d like to talk — I will make myself available….

Several years ago you wrote about “high maintenance” people and described my then-girlfriend to a T. Please publish it again. It was hard to believe a person who had never met my girlfriend at the time was able to describe her with such accuracy.

High maintenance people require constant attention and approval. They crave to be the center of almost every conversation and will often become symptomatic (moody, resentful, loud, threatening) when they are not. They analyze every move, thought, word and action of their friends and then tend to read more meaning into everything than was ever intended. They are easily hurt, quickly offended, quick to rebuke when they do not get the kind of attention they think they deserve.

High maintenance people are difficult, sometimes impossible, even in the most relaxed of circumstances. They pick fights, find fault and personalize almost everything. They argue with people who are closest to them for no apparent reason. They often pick on strangers (waiters, helpers). They often live in a world of cut-off relationships where everyone else is an idiot.

What can you do if you are in a relationship with a high maintenance person? You can do very little that will not hurt, offend them, or get a reaction out of him or her – but you must make a stand. High maintenance people seldom benefit from pity or patience or empathy. They will only benefit from being constantly challenged to grow up.

“We have a spare room with a bathroom and my husband has moved into that part of the house at my request. He’s been living there since October. He told me he had ‘a’ love for me, but didn’t love me like he should. So I grieved and then told him I couldn’t share my bedroom anymore. He understood and agreed. Neither of us wants to get divorced. The situation, while sad, is working. Someone said to me, ‘How can you begin to heal when you are in the process of being hurt?’ I knew that I needed my own space and my own room where rejection was not constant. For now it’s a solution.”

You are right – it is a temporary solution. How long can you both live like this? The bedroom is the crucible, and I’d suggest that after some meaningful discussion (including helpful conflict) both of you assess how love can realign (re-shape, change, modify) itself. You will not be the first married couple to live separate lives while sharing a house, but this does not make it less regretful. Talk. If you stop talking you could become so accustomed to living this way you will never grow beyond this point.

“Spoiling a child” is more than giving him whatever he wants and creating unreasonable expectation of how the rest of life works. Such children often grow up to be self-centered, demanding adults, but humans, even those who have not been “spoiled” seem endowed with a natural propensity toward this anyway.

The real terror of spoiling a child is that he grows up without having had to develop innate skills and abilities to cope with adversity, because one or both parents (or teachers and coaches) refuse to allow natural consequences following the child’s choices to occur. Such parents (and others) constantly interject themselves as buffers between the child and what the world will naturally deliver. “They (indulgent parents) spend huge amounts of time and energy trying to separate cause and effect, behavior and consequence,” a high school football coach told me recently.

Pain is a wonderful teacher and motivator. It develops character and promotes the development of crucial survival skills. While no loving parent wants his or her child to be deliberately subjected to pain, there are enough natural moments in any childhood where “clean” pain comes to teach, and the wise parent gets out of the way and allows it to do its necessary work.

My fiancé and I are getting married in about a year and her mother is dominating every aspect of the wedding. Because she is paying for it does it give her the right to get her way in every detail? This upsets my fiancé so much and yet she will not say anything to her about it. Please write something about this – perhaps her mother will read it and back off a little.

I applaud your attempt to triangle me, but I am going to jump out of the middle of this once I have encouraged you to see: 1. It is your wedding. 2. She is your future mother-in-law. 3. You are engaged to a woman who has a voice she might want to use.

You’d all be better served if you all started to talk directly with each other regarding how each of you sees the big day, and what role each of you has in making it happen. If you really desire your bride’s mother to have no say in the design of the wedding, pay for it yourself. A better option would be a series of prolonged, honest discussions.

“My wife insists on making food for ill neighbors, baking cakes for the church, mending clothes for the homeless, knitting this and that for some missionary, and driving me crazy because she is so busy with doing things for others. I want some time for us to relax together and do some activities that do not always have to involve helping ‘the needy’ as she calls it. Our neighbors are far from ‘needy’ but she seems overly invested in doing things for other people at the neglect (‘neglect’ is too strong a term) of her husband. Maybe she’ll read this and know the letter is addressed to her.”

It appears you have been married for many years. I’d suggest you make requests of your wife to join you in activities you enjoy. If she chooses to proceed with her kind deeds, get out of her way, applaud her efforts, and continue to do what you enjoy.

You remind me somewhat of my father who’d playfully say our mother gave her parakeet more attention, and spoke to the bird, more than she spoke to him. He wondered if he should sit in the cage with the bird! All things considered, I’d suggest my parents were rather happily married.