May 30, 2008
by Rod Smith
Lizz,
There are a whole range of responses that men have to women being pregnant and giving birth. Difficult though it is for me to understand, I’m aware that a significant number of men find pregnant women to be unusually attractive, even to the point of becoming fantasy objects. Likewise, some men see mothers as more attractive than non-mothers, possibly because of personality traits that seem to come to the forefront in a woman after she has a child.
At the other end of the spectrum are men like your husband, who feel that pregnancy and motherhood somehow diminish a woman’s femininity and sexuality. It’s easy to suggest that his view is wrong or short-sighted, but that doesn’t help anyone in this situation. To me, this sounds like a great time to engage a professional marriage counselor.
While it’s possible that this might cause your husband to see you in a different light, it may also bring to the forefront emotional issues that your husband is dealing with, but unable to talk freely with you about. In my case, seeing the birth of my oldest son caused me to feel a huge sense of responsibility that i was completely unprepared for. This may not be the case with your husband, but such things are always a possibility.
Regardless, if you can sit down with a third party who has professional credentials, he or she may be able to help both of you discover things that have become factors in your change in relationship. If cost is an issue (and when I was a new father, it most definitely was), look into counseling options subsidized (in part or in whole) through a local church or synagogue.
One last thing: Your husband’s response to you may feel like something that defines you as a woman, but it doesn’t. You remain a person of worth and value, regardless of anyone else’s actions. Your husband’s response being strong does not make you “more of a woman,” and his lack of response does not make you less of one. The role of mother need not diminish the role of wife, any more than becoming a father keeps me from being a husband. Yes, your body changes with childbirth, but I would suggest that your husband has changed (and will continue to change) just as much between his ears.
Becoming parents changes us. We can fight this, and refuse to accept it, or we can be the master of our path and define the role instead of allowing it to define us. My best wishes for you, your husband, and your children. – Tim
www.timthefoolman.com
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Pornography, Re-marriage |
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April 22, 2008
by Rod Smith
“My boyfriend and I are about to get married. I have a problem. He’s insecure that my daughter’s father is in her life. What do I do to assure him that nothing is going on between my ex and me other than taking care of our child? What do I do?” (Edited)
It is not you who has the problem. He is the one who is insecure and he is the one who has the issue.
If the man is troubled that his soon-to-be stepdaughter is co-parented by her biological father, the man is not ready for marriage, let alone is he ready to assume duties as a stepparent.
Do not try to reason with insecurity (or jealousy, or possessiveness) or to pacify it. Don’t modify your acceptable and normal responses to your daughter and to her father in an attempt to appease the spirit of insecurity living within him.
Your attempts to please and pacify him will not succeed in anything but in making you into far less the woman you have every potential to be.
Such living will grind you down until you feel like nothing.
I’d suggest you run very fast in the other direction. Once you have gotten over the breakup, find a man who does not behave like a spoiled, hurt child. Such men do exist.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce |
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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 |
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December 5, 2007
by Rod Smith
“I want to save my marriage. Our situation has risen to a new level with issues of jealously and trust. He takes my car keys, he checks up on me, I no longer have friends around, and am no longer allowed ‘ladies nights.’ My brother is not allowed to visit. My husband doesn’t want children. He picks on me constantly. He complains that I don’t give him enough sex. He checks on my cash slips so I don’t spend too much money. I have the urge to run and run. I was independent and a professional artist but he took it away. I am constantly walking on eggshells not to upset him. He turns things around so I look bad. Please help. (Minimal edits for space)
Dance on the eggshells, invite your brother, and make a spare set of car keys, invite friends to visit, go out as often as you want. Initiate sex only when YOU want sex. Take back your power or this will never be a marriage. Control is never love so stay out of it. Get your life back: you are a wife, not a prisoner. His jealousy is HIS issue. Don’t make it yours. Until you focus on your behavior and not on his, this marriage will not improve.
Posted in Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Grief, High maintenance relationships |
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November 13, 2007
by Rod Smith
The power and sacredness of sex …
Morality, religious beliefs, and family values and expectations aside, which, by the way I believe is impossible to do, don’t have sex with a person whom you do not know, and are not committed to in every area of your life, for the long haul.
To say “it (sex) is just a physical thing” is naïve, shortsighted, and misguided.
Sexual behavior is powerfully connected to the essence of who and what each of us is, and to regard it lightly or with flippancy, dismisses the powerful, creative, and beautiful place sex occupies in the engine room of each our lives, whether married or single.
To regard sexual acts as purely (only) physical is absurd.
Sexuality, and its expression through physical acts, potentially combines your whole heart, mind, your spirit (or inner being) and your body – in a sacred act of shared love, resulting in mutual replenishment, mutual recharging, and the willing refocus, as a couple on all that is mutually and individually important.
It is impossible to get the best out of sex (or put your best into sex) with a stranger, or with someone you hardly know, and with whom you have no long-term shared responsibilities and commitments.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Long distance relationships, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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November 3, 2007
by Rod Smith
I am listening....
1. Neither client nor therapist exaggerates therapist’s abilities or the client’s condition.
2. Therapist sees role as helping client steer toward a more productive, healthy future.
3. Client sees the “big picture” over the “long haul” rather than immediate relief in the “here and now.” (Patience, patience, patience).
4. Client and therapist maintain a sense of humor (a sure indication of health) while facing life’s inevitable challenges. Not everything can or will be better no matter how much therapy you throw at it!
5. Client and therapist call forth the client’s strengths and the innate human desire for adventure, rather than engage in the seemingly endless pursuit to understand a client’s pathological history, weaknesses, parents’ weaknesses, and debilitating reasonable, and unreasonable fears.
6. Therapist and client understand the limited benefits of empathy in exchange for the overwhelming benefits of challenge and adventure.
7. Client realizes that psychological insight without action (acting upon the insight) is a waste of money, time and useful therapeutic process. Sometimes a person has to actually DO something rather than be filled with insight about what needs to be done.
8. Client is willing to increase the ability to tolerate necessary pain (both within self and within others) and resist the understandable pressure to alleviate the very pain essential for growth to occur.
9. Therapist challenges the client repeatedly toward self-definition (to grow up!) in the face of life’s natural obstacles.
Conditions under which counseling or therapy will be of little or no value…
Time and again I hear “If I could just get him/her to see a counselor” as if a counselor can work magic to heal and solve all personal and relationship problems. Few trained counselors would see themselves as possessing such unrealistic powers. Here are some conditions (there are others) under which even counseling will be of little or no value:
1. When a person is forced, or cornered, or manipulated into seeing a counselor.
2. When a person has no motivation for change.
3. When a person agrees to see a counselor because he/she believes counseling will “fix” someone else in the family.
4. When the person’s mind is already made up over and issue (a pending divorce, continued involvement in an affair) and goes to counseling so he/she can say he/she tried it and it was no help.
5. When a person is resistant to getting help (doesn’t see the need for help) and offers counselors little or no respect in the first place.
6. When the person is combative from the outset and sees the therapeutic hour as time to show how clever (or funny, or morose, or argumentative, or stubborn, or intellectual) he/she can be.
7. When the person has already made up his/her mind that there’s no hope (”we’ve tried it all before”) or that counseling is a waste of time and money.
Posted in Anger, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Re-marriage, Recovery, Responsive people, Sexual compatibility, Step parenting, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Voice, Young Love |
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October 25, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My wife spends a lot of time at home because of family commitments and I understand that she needs to circulate with other people. When she does go out she seems to go over the top and stays out late. She doesn’t want to talk to, stating that she knows everything about me. When she spends a lot of time with other men, I tend to get jealous. I have been married before and I am scared that my wife will leave me for another man which is what happened in my previous marriage. She says she loves me but I don’t know whether of not to believe her. I am really fighting with my self internally to give her the space she requires and to not stifle her. Is there some things I might read, or things I should do to try and releive my fear, or try and get to the bottom of how she feels.”
Getting to the bottom of how you feel is sufficiently difficult, let alone trying to get to the bottom of how she feels. Leave her feelings alone. Read David Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage. The book will help you see where you end and she begins – that is what is at the core of your troubles.
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Listening, Living together, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Schnarch, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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October 16, 2007
by Rod Smith
Dear Stuck:
Note I have broken my own rules about keeping every entry to fewer than 250 words! But Stuck – I wanted you to hear from me, even if you might not like what I have to say.
Your letter appears below with my comments in BOLD and italics. I am sorry it took me so long to get to your letter:
“My best friend and I have known each other for 8 yrs. I have been in love with him for 5 years. He knows how I feel, but when I realized how much I cared, he was in a relationship. They even had a child together. They ended the relationship about 18 months ago and she is dating someone new yet continually professes her love for him still. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with her in that way.
I understand “in that way” but what is he doing about parenting and supporting the child they share? If he is not supporting his child – you have not said where the child is – I would move on no matter how much love you feel.
“He also began working with me and even relocated to living with me to get out of a bad family living situation.
I trust he is paying his way while living in your home?
“His ex has actually moved with his family since she lost her job. So he is living hours away with me while she is down there living with his sisters. He says he loves me but he is not ready for a relationship.
I’d suggest this is true. He is not ready for a relationship when he has a child from whom he is separated. I must assume he is busy being a dad (driving back and forth to see his child) while also trying to earn a living.
“We are not intimate (good – this would not be good for your long-term health and friendship) but we are together basically 24/7.
“Occasionally he will try to get me to go out on dates (how valiant of him) since he says he is not ready yet and doesn’t know when he will be. He doesn’t want me to wait for him. I feel really stuck.
The feeling is appropriate – you are stuck and it is not about him or your love for him but about you who seems to refuse to move on from a man who has declared he doesn’t want an intimate relationship with you.
“I have tried to tell him that while I have feelings for him I cannot remain friends with him if we never go anywhere simply because as long as he is in my life I feel as though I will never fall in love with someone else.
You got it. You don’t need me to tell you these things. You already know the answers. So have him move out. Today.
“His ex really broke his heart. He honestly felt that it was forever and he gave himself completely to her. However she cheated and lied and destroyed him. Now I am the only woman he trusts and talks to. He hasn’t even been with anyone since her. My dilemma is this. Do I try to wait to see what develops? Do I walk away? What do I do?? I am so confused. And every time people see us together they always think we are married. It doesn’t help that he is very affectionate with me, arms around me, flirting with me, wrestling with me and so forth. But that’s how its been for 7 yrs. what do i do? Please help.
Stuck”
Wow – this guy’s got you eating out of the palms of his hands and he has you believing he is so hurt and such a victim to his ex! Move on….. He doesn’t have what you are looking for. Send him on a journey to fend for his child.
From Stuck – sometime later…..
“So I haven’t seen any reply from you regarding my situation. Did I do something wrong? Am I not doing this correctly? I see others leave comments and you respond. I leave one and get nothing. Am I supposed to leave money somewhere or something to get you to respond? Or is my situation not valid enough for your response… confused… and still…STUCK.”
I am pleased to respond to you but I do not OWE you a reply. Yes your issue is VALID but you already know what you need to do and I am not sure you will hear anything from me anyway! You will continue to be STUCK until you change directions and meet some new people and move in the circles of people who make wiser choices than the man with whom you are currently involved.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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October 16, 2007
by Rod Smith
“I married 26 years ago out of a sense of guilt and it has never left. We have had a very difficult marriage and yet we both have a high level of commitment. I want a healthier relationship but I don’t know how to get it. I know a healthier relationship starts with a healthier me, but as I try to get healthier, I feel a wider distance coming between us. I have never felt emotionally bonded to my husband, and for years it was heart breaking. I have talked with him hoping things would get better. He justifies his distance, which makes it harder for me. He compares himself to a cripple in a wheel chair. He knows that I would not insist on a cripple walking. He believes himself to be emotionally crippled and I should not expect something that he is not capable of giving. I am at the place where I feel I want to move on, but my sense of loyalty will not let me. I thought I had moved through the bitter stage but now I am not so sure.”
Repeatedly challenge his dramatic metaphor. It’s possible to remain married while also refusing to share his wheelchair. I’d suggest you do all you can to get healthy and well despite his protestations (the distance you feel, and so forth).
Let’s talk further. Until you leave him (I do not mean divorce him) in the “safety” and the “comfort” of his emotional wheelchair you are also in it! Grow on your own. Your personal development is not contingent on his cooperation.
Posted in Anxiety, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Divorce, Domination, Victims |
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October 10, 2007
by Rod Smith
Take up your life....
Are you emotionally out of shape? Psychologically exhausted? Tramped on? Feel trapped? Just as a person can be physically run down, so also can one become emotionally depleted. Here are simple, not easy, steps to getting your internal life into shape. Each will do your internal life as much good as frequent exercise does for a person who is physically out of shape:
1. Speak up where you might previously have remained silent.
2. Realize that not everything you think and feel has to be said or reported.
3. Focus on your own behavior and not the behavior of others. (This might be the most difficult of the 11 suggestions).
4. Rid your life of all blame.
5. Realize you are where you are as a result of your own choices.
6. Set small, secret goals involving no one but you.
7. Refuse to compromise when it comes to telling the truth no matter how much love may be involved.
8. Forgive where you might have previously have been resentful.
9. Do not function in roles not legally yours (don’t play wife if your are not, or dad if you are not).
10. Grasp the fact that emotional health is an individual journey and no one can be held responsible for your journey toward greater emotional health but you.
11. Clarify, for yourself, where you end and others begin. (This IS me, my issue, my responsibility: this is NOT me, my issue, my responsibility).
Posted in Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Long distance relationships, Marriage, Meditation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Pornography, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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