March 18, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I have a daughter who is married but lives with me. Her husband comes on weekends and takes her out. He does nothing else for her. In four years of marriage she lived with him for only about 3 months. He said he made a mistake. I have tried to stop her going with him but my sisters say she should be allowed to go out with him otherwise she get depressed. She is quiet reserved and has no friends. She waits for Saturdays. She gets happy and bubbly. She loves to be at home and loves to cook. She is not ambitious. I tried telling her in the past that she should divorce him and get on with her life and improve herself. I can’t tell her to leave home because she is not working and is on disability. What can I say or do to give her a wake up call?” (Minimal edits)
Your daughter and her husband have found the perfect accomplice in you. What incentive is there for change to occur? Your mothering days are long-gone and yet you (understandably — I think!) provide a safe place for your daughter. Earlier accommodations on your part have created the way your family functions. Nothing will change until you do.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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March 17, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I am seeing a man who, after a very physically intimate time, told me he wants a break. I just wish I knew how two people could be so intimate, so close, and share everything and then just cut himself or herself off totally from that person as if they were never a part of each other’s lives.” (Letter edited)
Sounds like you are dating a person with a propensity toward sexual addictions. Such people will do almost anything for a sexual “fix,” and then, once “satisfied” will move on. Your encounters are not about love or intimacy but lust and conquest. Don’t confuse sex with intimacy. Sex (what you do with your body) is the easy part. Intimacy (what you do with your head, your will, and your heart) is one of the toughest relational challenges humans face – and almost impossible to achieve outside the safety of marriage.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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March 12, 2008
by Rod Smith
I find it fascinating that after seven years (I think it has been that long!) of You and Me I still get a stack of mail every day. Thanks. Thanks a lot! Three years ago I had so many readers asking for back issues of the column that I began posting the column on a website. This has resulted in almost half-a-million hits on www.DifficultRelationships.com from readers all over the world. I find all of this greatly satisfying and I owe the men and women of The Mercury and The Mercury readers much gratitude.
I am frequently asked about the column, about whether I get tired of reading about people’s problems, and whether I print letters as they come. I am also asked about the most common issues people face, and I am asked if I really do phone readers on occasion.
I do not get tired of hearing from readers no matter how troubled the circumstances may be. I do reduce letters to 200 words and I try to remove clues to the reader’s identity. Perhaps the most striking issue or theme unifying most family problems is the seeming unwillingness to speak up when problems first emerge. And, yes, I really do phone readers from time to time.
Thanks for reading You and Me.
Posted in Differentiation, Difficult Relationships |
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February 21, 2008
by Rod Smith
Our daughter is going through a rough time. She was married and widowed. She has a teenage child. She remarried and has a child from her second marriage. Her husband is unpredictable and throws tempers and clashes with the teenager. He tends to live a life as if he were a bachelor and barely helps as a father and husband. The children are here every day we get caught in the trauma as our daughter does confide in us. My husband and I are devout Christians and long to see God take control of their home, which is like a war zone! Can we, as grandparents help, or should we not try to help at all?
Is your daughter “confiding” in you, or is she saying things to you in order to help her to avoid saying what needs to be said to her husband? The difference is very subtle: the results will be very stark.
Throwing a temper suggests your son-in-law feels trapped or overwhelmed, which the couple will need to address, if the marriage is to survive. Helpful help (from you) will support and steer your daughter toward addressing her issues directly with her husband. Unhelpful help occurs when you are enrolled as a shield for one person or the other.
Posted in Difficult Relationships |
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February 11, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I am sorry I have facilitated your insecurities by allowing your jealousy to influence my behavior. I will try not to do this anymore. It is not good for either of us. Walking on egg-shells is not how I like to spend my energy.”
“Going out to dinner with my friends (daughter, son, mother, father, brother, sister) is something I like to do and I sometimes like to do it alone. You are perfectly capable of understanding that having other important relationships does not mean I am rejecting you. Healthy adults can keep many relationships going at the same time. Why don’t you try it sometime?”
“We are each better off when honest, even if what we have to say is painful. Keeping you happy is too large a task for me. I hereby give that responsibility back to you. Anger, resentment, and the failure to forgive – all fruits of jealousy – are individual pursuits. You have to take care of this on your own. I am not going to interfere with your journey by trying to resolve your issues for you.”
“To love you is to stay out of your control. I’d rather have no relationships than relationships that inhibit who I am.”
Posted in Anger, Attraction, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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February 6, 2008
by Rod Smith
1. Blind you from the real issues you and your family are facing.
2. Distort your thinking either by amplifying or by minimizing the real issues.
3. Make you inordinately suspicious of others and so you create “necessary” enemies.
4. Make you inordinately trusting of a few in whom you place all your trust.
5. Suck all the energy out of you so you can hardly function, or,
6. Shift you into a high gear of over-functioning (doing for sake of doing) until you all but collapse in exhaustion.
7. Make you overly nice (superficially pleasant, kind, or generous) in order to keep people from wondering what is really going on with you.
8. Isolate you from the people who love you so that you are “outside” of the walls of your own helpful, loving community.
9. Keep you up at night so you are rendered too tired to function well during the day.
10. Drive you to temporary relief found in substances, alcohol or unhelpful sexual or damaging religious activity.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Victims, Voice |
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February 2, 2008
by Rod Smith
“My ex-wife still tries to dominate me and interfere in my life. I have moved on and have a new woman. My teenage daughter and I have a very good relationship but whenever my ex-wife is around I am reminded why I divorced her. How do I get her to understand she is divorced and must get a life of her own?”
Your mutual connection, the daughter whom you co-parent, will remain integral to both of your lives. It will therefore be to the advantage of all concerned if you remain kind, forthright and strong in all of your dealings with the woman whom you once loved enough to marry.
Include your “new woman” in as many interactions with your ex-wife as possible. This will serve as a constant reminder to your ex-wife that you have, in fact, moved on.
As an aside, I’d suggest that while your ex-wife’s behavior continues to elicit a strong reaction from you, you may not have “moved on” as much as you might think.
You remain as powerless over your ex-wife as you were when you were yet married. I’d suggest you take time to evaluate the reasons she can so effectively get under your skin. What is it about you, that her behavior so gets to you?
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, High maintenance relationships |
2 Comments »
January 30, 2008
by Rod Smith
“My parents are heavy smokers and I don’t want them smoking in my home. I am Biblically constrained to obey my parents and therefore feel I cannot ask them not to smoke when they visit me. Please help.” (Letter shortened)
You are an adult and therefore you are not “Biblically constrained to obey” your parents. Children are commanded in Scripture to “obey” their parents – and you are no longer a child. You, an adult, are to honor your parents and I’d suggest you could honor your parents while also requesting your mother and father to not smoke in your home.
Go ahead: speak up! It is your home and you are the one who must live with the lingering odors. An adult son or daughter who can engage in adult-to-adult conversations with his or her parents is indeed behaving in an honorable manner!
I am “constrained” declare that the Bible certainly does not expect any child to be blindly obedient to a toxic parent, and therefore be submitted to danger or abuse or unacceptable behavior of any kind. Integral to honoring anyone, is the ability to stand up to that person and refuse to be manipulated or intimidated, especially in the name of love or obedience.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Victims, Voice |
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January 29, 2008
by Rod Smith
Did you hear about the mother who complained her children were always in her hair? Now that her son and daughter are adults she can’t get them to return her phone calls. They are out of much more than her hair.
What about the dad who buried himself in his work just to find some peace and quiet? Now that he’s retired and his adult children are living such busy lives he never sees them. The peace he craved is driving him crazy. He had no idea quietness could be so loud and unsettling.
Then there’s the one about the mother who complained the children slowed her down in the mornings making her late for everything. Now, with nowhere to go, she’s never late for anything. Her daughter texts her saying, “Can’t talk. Will phone next week.” Her son ignores her voicemails altogether.
And while these scenarios are birthed in my mind, the situations are very real. Go to any retirement home and you’ll hear tales of abandonment and woe. But here’s the really scary part: in so many ways we get what we want, and then discover we didn’t want it that much in the first place.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Parenting/Children |
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January 28, 2008
by Rod Smith
“Our daughter is seeing a man and with a bad track record. She has already been married once before. The problem we have is the impact her life has upon her children. The children (9 and 7) are torn between their mother, father, and the new man. They want to be loyal to all the adults in their lives but it seems no one stays for very long. The children get let down constantly. As grandparents we try to be as consistent as possible without interfering in our daughter’s affairs. Our only issue is the amount it affects the lives of our grandchildren and we often talk about how this will impact their relationships one day.”
Like each adult must, you grandchildren will face their individual histories and have to decide to make the best of what they have been offered.
Few people, without considerable work, can break the orbit a parent provides and so, yes, it is likely (although by no means inescapable) that your grandchildren will face some relational issues in their futures.
Continue to provide the sound platform you do provide, and trust the children to gain progressive and helpful insight into their lives.
Your job is to continually expose them to what is possible in a healthy relationship.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships |
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