October 16, 2016
by Rod Smith
Secrets to working relationships:
- See every opportunity or challenge as a potential to learn something new or to grow in new ways. No matter how many years experience you have there’s always room to learn and to grow. Your teachers may often be half your age. Get used to it.
- See every conflict as an opportunity to learn more about grace and forgiveness. This is not some odd subservience or rolling over and playing dead. It’s acknowledging your possible part in any conflict and the willingness to learn from it – even if you didn’t cause it.
- Do what you can to cooperate even with those who are not necessarily in your camp or on your side. Building bridges is usually better than burning bridges.
- When you are wrong or make a miscalculation or a misjudgment or you over react to something admit it and make things as right as you are able. The truth is always better and easier to deal with. Nothing can be solved if you are protecting image over integrity or accuracy.
- Volunteer wildly, but stay within your skills and talents. Things work better in organizations when people do the jobs they are hired to do and resist “bleeding” into other areas they are not necessarily skilled to work in – even as a volunteer.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family Systems Theory, Grace, Manipulation, Reactivity |
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December 22, 2014
by Rod Smith
Perhaps I was not like other children and the differences I experienced were as profound as they felt.
Perhaps not.
Perhaps all that separated me from what I perceived was the experience of other children was amplified in my young heart.
You know, you know how children are said to amplify things.
Who can tell these many years later?
But the things I wanted for Christmas when I was very young, and I mean as young as 7 and 8 and up until I was 10 and 11, required no batteries or remote devices or charging.
I wanted safe adults. I wanted adults whom I could trust. I wanted them sober. I wanted them sober all the time, not just in the mornings.
I wanted my dad to be as sober as my mother always was.
I wanted a peaceful home.
I wanted to live in a house where people didn’t live on the edge of financial ruin and where the anxiety over lack of resources was not repeatedly temporarily eased by very excessive drinking.
You can think I am exaggerating if you want. I’m not.
I did get it – I got all I wanted for Christmas when I was 12.
Dad stopped drinking.
Forever.
Posted in Adolescence, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Grace |
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October 8, 2013
by Rod Smith
“With regards to your article of 10/7/2013: Times are tough right now globally. We here in Durban have not been spared. Allowing someone into your home for a month is well within the spirit of Ubuntu.”
Allowing an adult woman and her mother into ones home for a month would indeed express the spirit of hospitality, generosity, and openness typically associated with the spirit of Ubuntu – if both the decision makers in the home were comfortable in seeking to offer such hospitality.
The husband’s spirit of Ubuntu surely loses its power and meaning, and is perhaps therefore not an expression of Ubuntu at all, when it is expressed at the cost of his wife’s well being.
Hospitality, like generosity, and charity, begins at home.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Marriage |
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October 6, 2013
by Rod Smith
“What’s your opinion on this quotation by TV relationship expert: ‘If your wife has a problem with your mother, it is your job to intervene and try to fix it.'”
A husband could intervene and try to “fix” a problem between the two important women in his life but the results will be temporary and playing superman will get old. Intervening in others’ conflicts is the springboard to burnout.
And, he’ll be signing up to intervene in many more conflicts, which, except for the conflicts they mutually enjoy, will have nothing to do with him.
If a wife can’t negotiate with her mother-in-law she’s likely to fight with many.
Besides, trying to fix a relationship from the outside, encourages participants to think the issues stem from the outside.
Here’s an axiom: problems between two people are seldom about the “other” person. I’d suggest each woman deeply consider what it is about herself that conflict seems to be a worthwhile pursuit.
If a wife really wants to fix her relationship with her mother-in-law a good place to begin is with her own mother – go authentically deeper with mom, and she’d be amazed at how much else will begin to fall into place.
So, I think “TV relationship expert” is incorrect.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith |
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April 24, 2013
by Rod Smith
A man responds to the column of April 22, 2013 about being a stepfather…..
“You are correct. You will never replace you step children’s father. The children did not ask for the divorce or for you to be in their lives. Their mother will never put you ahead of her children, nor should she.”
I hear often that a mother will never place the new husband (in fact even the children’s father) before the children.
This is often touted as “good mothering.” While no counselor would suggest a parent ought to neglect children, there is a distinct difference between being a parent and a partner. It is a very healthy parent who exercises the difference.
There are conditions under which it is a healthy for parents to allow their primary commitment as a spouse to take priority over their commitments as a parent. Yes, you read correctly!
Just as it is a travesty to neglect a child, it is also a travesty to neglect a spouse, especially in the name of “putting the children first.”
I’ve seen parents hide behind “putting the children first” as a means to avoid the bravery required to be a full and functioning partner.
Sometimes it’s good for children to be in second, even third, or fourth place!
Posted in Blended families, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family Systems Theory, Parenting/Children, Trust, Voice |
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July 20, 2012
by Rod Smith
Watch. In no time at all some will blame the parents of the infant who was shot. It’s common to blame victims in our culture.
This is a travesty. Everyone of us ought fall to the ground in grief that such a thing occur in a cinema anywhere, let alone in the USA.
Posted in Anger, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Victims, Violence |
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July 14, 2012
by Rod Smith
1. You experience greater OBJECTIVITY and can “see” your most important relationships as if looking at them through someone else’s eyes.
2. Despite any pain, any trauma, any uncertainty, you can see some HUMOUR in what you are experiencing even if it is short lived.
3. You are progressively gathering a small community of friends who know everything (or almost everything) about you and their SUPPORT is becoming easier to trust.
4. You are seeing with greater and greater CLARITY what are and what are not your responsibilities within your most important relationships.
5.”No” comes easier and it is not accompanied by guilt. “Yes” is your response when you really want what you agree to. You begin to BELIEVE the words you say. Your words reflect you, your desires, and are not said from guilt or the impulse to keep the peace or make others happy.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Schnarch, Sexual compatibility, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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June 5, 2012
by Rod Smith
Two readers respond….
“Thank-you so much for answering my question. Those are very helpful points. I think the most difficult part of divorce for me has been learning to ‘unlove’ my ex-husband. Only ONE of us changed our mind in our marriage. I made a commitment to love this man until death parted us. Perhaps it was further complicated by the fact that I had already lost one husband to death and this was my second marriage. But I am SO much healthier now, in every way. A new relationship is not my goal, but I would like that to happen ‘one day’. I feel that if I am healthy within myself, keep busy and have a full life, the right relationship will come along at some stage.”
“I believe that being “Healthily Divorced” is the ability to stand emotionally independent, yet having the ability to empathize and relate to those around you. Resentment and bitterness are probably the most hindering factors to being healthily divorced – it is perfectly possible to be divorced and respectful of the other party. Letting go of the blame and pain and striving towards an amicable solution in the face of difficult odds creates the foundation to being healthily divorced. Making another person miserable can never bring you happiness.”
Posted in Communication, Divorce, Education |
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July 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
1. Enriched is the woman who does not lose herself to her marriage or motherhood. She has a strong spirit of independence while being a loving wife and mother.
2. Enriched is the woman who does not accommodate poor manners (being taken for granted or being victimized) from anyone (not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, or her parents).
3. Enriched is the woman who lives above manipulation, domination, and intimidation. Her relationships are pure and open; her boundaries are defined, secure, and strong.
4. Enriched is the woman who does not participate in unwanted sexual activity. She honors her body as her private temple and shares it, even in marriage, only by her own deliberate choice.
5. Enriched is the woman who has developed a strong, clear, identity. She regularly articulates who she is, what she wants, and what she will and will not do. She is unafraid of defining herself.
6. Enriched is the woman who knows that pursuing her dreams to be educated, to work, to accomplish much, to expect much from her life, are profound acts of partnership in marriage and profound acts of mothering. She knows that the woman who “takes up her life” does more for herself, her husband, and her children than the one who surrenders it.
Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Leadership, Listening, Living together, Love, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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June 29, 2011
by Rod Smith
Addictions and addicts are swamped in denial.
The use of any substance or participation in any behavior is a problem (an addiction) for you if one of the following is true for you.
As a result of the use of a substance or engagement in a behavior:
- You’ve lost, or come close to losing, a significant relationship or a job.
- You’ve had a run in with the law.
- Your children are unsettled by your activities.
- You have physical cravings when you have been without it for a few minutes or a few days.
- You violate your values, or appear to have no values, to sustain your activity.
- You build your life around something people who love you wish you wouldn’t consume or do.
- Your life – finances, faith, and relationships – has become progressively unmanageable.
- You hide or you lie about your whereabouts and/or behavior.
- People who love you are put “on duty” and you expect them to lie for you.
- People, especially those you love, are embarrassed by your behavior.
- You hate a list like this list and hope certain people won’t see it.
- When confronted with this list you argue about definitions, display anger or rage, or write the writer off as an idiot.
Please, get help, AA, AL-ANON, and similar organizations are able to assist you. You do not have to live like this!
Posted in Addictions, Anxiety, Boundaries, Education, Victims, Voice |
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