My husband of 15 years has been having an affair for 5 years and he still denies it. He sends the other woman text messages everyday saying how much he loves her. I asked him to decide whom he really wants and not to let me stand in their way of happiness. If he loves her I’ll set him free even though this will hurt the children but I cannot stay with someone who doesn’t love me. Otherwise he is a very good husband and father. Am I doing the right thing? (Minimal edits)

Essential to being a “good husband and a good father” is emotional, physical, and financial faithfulness. While your husband is invested in romantic pursuits outside of the marriage all he is really good at is make believe.

No one can tell you the “right thing” to do. This is something you have to decide.

It seems both your husband and the other woman have little dissonance regarding their duplicity.

The inner-part of you that cannot tolerate the pretense, or the lie, or playing second fiddle, is the healthy part of you, and it ought not to be denied or silenced.

My son (24) is the most unmotivated person I know. He lives off us. He complains about everything. He goes out until all hours and sleeps into the afternoon. He’s not had a job for more than a few weeks and always says the work doesn’t suit him. Please don’t tell me to make him move out and get his own place because I just couldn’t do that. What can I do to get him to work and to pay his share of the expenses?

Nothing. With your willing cooperation he has created the perfect spot for himself. Clearly it suits you to fund his lazy life and who am I to make suggestions to upset this apple-cart? You are each getting what you want, and, until the way things are, is not the way you want them to be, you will continue to underwrite the apparently meaningless existence of your more than spoiled son.

“The woman my son married is verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive. We have a strong suspicion that she is bi-polar. She ruins family occasions with her foul moods and aggressive demands. She never listens to anything anyone else says. When she started being difficult this year on my grandson’s birthday I requested that she please take it up with her husband in private. She went crazy and switched the target from my son and grandson to me. Now I can’t hear her voice without feeling ill. I don’t feel I made an unreasonable request. I am very concerned about the abuse my son and grandson endure. She refuses any suggestion of counseling, as she is not the problem. Everyone else is. She has no relationship with her own family, and no friends and is gradually cutting our family out too. Her own children hate her for the abuse they have endured and can’t stand being around her.” (Edited)

Don’t attempt to fight your adult son’s battles. Protect yourself and leave your son to defend his himself and his son from what seems to be a difficult woman. I’d suggest you avoid contact with this woman as much as possible. Remember the fruitlessness of trying to reason with unreasonable people!

1. Being “sharp edged” is more desirable than being “balanced” or “well rounded.” Put yourself out there!
2. Adventure and risk are necessary to foster desired growth. All growth requires some loss!
3. “Safety” (risk avoidance) and the need for consensus (so no one feels left out) can get in the way of discovery and growth. You will never change the world without suffering some loss or without offending someone!
4. Being “nice” can get in the way of being helpful and honest. You can always be loving but you cannot always be nice!
5. A “closed door” sometimes means you have to break the door down. Without persistence you will change nothing!
6. Generosity is evidence of divine intervention. Giving IS better than receiving.
7. Anxiety seldom gives birth to great ideas. You want to accomplish more than mere survival!
8. Great ideas are usually initially dismissed. There is always someone waiting to rain on your parade!
9. Playing “hide and seek” or “ducking and diving” (avoidance) is unproductive and unkind. Facing your detractors will help you more than avoiding them!
10. Every great idea, program, or project has to begin somewhere. Embrace your dream and work on it today!

Going home is a strong human desire. I have seen it so frequently in South Africans living abroad, and I experience it myself. Yes, I long to spend extended hours with old friends at one of Durban’s Indian restaurants, or order tea and scones from Gordon, my favorite waiter in all the world and sit in the sun at the restaurant in Mitchell Gardens.

But circumstances dictate that my visits are vicarious, and so this mornings You and Me takes the form of a personal welcome to some of my favorite friends from where I make my home Indianapolis who will land today in your beautiful city and taste of your excessive hospitality.

Retired businesspersons and spiritual leaders Don and Linda Fledderjohn, their daughter, pediatrician Dr. Erica Fledderjohn-Smith, and toddler granddaughter Beatrice Smith will visit the childhood home of husband, entrepreneur, golfer, and now Hoosier, Nolan Smith (no relation to me) formerly of Beachwood Boys’ High School. I know this fine group will be enriched while visiting family, resting on the beaches, eating in your fine restaurants and spending lots of money!

For the record “Hoosier” is pronounced “HooSSHHier” and is the nickname given to persons who call Indiana home. “Banana Boys” is or was to persons from Kawa-Zulu Natal what Hoosier is to persons from Indiana.

“How can you make someone love you or stay in love? My wife just turned 40 (she looks 30) and I think she thinks she old and I think she has needs for attention. She thinks if she doesn’t get out of our marriage now, she will be too old to attract anyone else.  Any input?”

I’d suggest the harder you try to make someone love you, the more of a controlling person you will become. Because love is a choice there is therefore nothing you can do to force love either into, or out of, someone.

As is often true, your marriage is facing deeper issues than your wife’s need for attention, or her (inevitable) aging!

Things might significantly improve in your marriage if you focused your anxiety elsewhere other than on your apparently high-maintenance wife.

I think you’d be amazed at how much people can grow and be transformed when left to do it.

“I read today’s column (Monday 5th: ‘Family misreads kindness for weakness’) and cheered for the woman who wrote it. Perhaps she should invest in a copy of ‘Boundaries’ by Cloud and Townsend. She has made the first step and said no, but people don’t always take no for an answer. They may use guilt and manipulation to challenge her stand. She will need to constantly remind and reassure herself that she has done, and is doing the right thing. I lent my copy of ‘Boundaries’ to my sister and she keeps it next to her bed. She consults it regularly to remind herself that when she says no, it is her right to do so.”

You are correct. Also, when a person has been unsure of his or her boundaries it is common to be filled with self-doubt once appropriate boundaries are established. Healthy boundaries can feel wrong, selfish, or unkind. Remember, there is some “positive” return for having poor boundaries making a person feel needed, wanted, or important and so, when this “positive“ return ceases (as boundaries are established) the one who newly asserts his or her boundaries can feel abandoned, unwanted, or unimportant, and then even desire to recant on what really is a very necessary and healthy stand. Health demands unrelenting courage and it will always be tested and challenged.

Perhaps it is hardly significant by some standards, but reaching half-a-million hits for this website is significant for me….

My thanks to all who read http://www.DifficultRelationships.com

Rod Smith