November 21, 2006
by Rod Smith
“I am involved with a woman I have known since our early teens. She was married and got divorced. She has two children and I love them all very much. My relationships (with them) are fine but I feel great insecurity about her ex-husband. I tell myself that I must be better and bigger. I don’t think this is healthy. What can I do to make the feelings go away? What can my partner do to help?” (Letter edited)
Rod’s response: Insecurity is both pervasive and generic. It will rear its head whenever its host is threatened or challenged. I’d guess you’ve had similar feelings stirring within you long before you became romantically involved.
Your partner can do nothing since your feelings are your business. Don’t try to make them her business. This is not about her ex-husband.
While you compete with her former husband, your new family (if you marry) will not know you for who you are. I challenge you to establish your unique approach to love and parenting without reference to the man with whom you may share parenting responsibilities.
Your feelings will not go away until you appreciate your unique contribution to the children and their mother, a role which, at its best, will compliment the ex-husband’s role with his children.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Divorce, Family, Love, Parenting/Children, Step parenting, Stepfather |
1 Comment »
October 17, 2006
by Rod Smith
“I wish my ex-husband were more involved in our children’s lives. He pays child support without fail and he sends birthday presents and he phones the children but he doesn’t see them very often. Even though he lives in another town it is not that far for him to come and see them but he only comes down about once a month. The children get so excited to see him but I just wish they could see him more often. He is re-married and has two more children.”
It appears that your ex-husband is meeting his financial obligations and is keeping in contact with his children. This is to be applauded. Of course you (and the children) would like his greater involvement with the children, but it appears that this is something over which you have no control.
Try to keep your focus upon being the healthiest mother you can be given the circumstances you find yourself in with your children. It is understandable that you might readily reflect upon what their father is or is not doing, but this will not do you or the children any good.
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Family, Love, Marriage, Past relationships, Recovery |
1 Comment »
October 16, 2006
by Rod Smith
“I am dating a woman who has three children (8, 13, 15) from a marriage that ended long ago. She is determined to be a good friend to her ex-husband. This means the ex-husband is almost always in the picture and it seems like he is still part of the family. I am uncomfortable with this. It feels like they have never really divorced in some ways. Please help.” (Paraphrase of a much longer letter)
Get out of the middle!
No matter how much love you may develop for each other, as father of the children, her ex is going to be a part of the family equation. Any attempts, on your part, to interfere, or restrict his involvement, will come back to haunt only you. If the day comes that she wants to lessen her contact with him, I’d suggest it be at her initiation, not yours. I am fully aware that this may seem “off the wall” to many, but if you, the new man in the children’s lives, try to construct the dynamics according to your will, it will all begin, over time, to cave in on you. Leave any social re-organizing to the woman whom you are dating and offer her all the support she needs in facing her very tough task.
Posted in Children, Communication, Divorce, Family, Marriage, Re-marriage |
40 Comments »
October 8, 2006
by Rod Smith
In relationships:
Toxic patterns, abuse, excessive use of alcohol, lying, anger, jealousy, infidelity, to name a few, seldom improve without intervention, but will only increase in intensity, without some form of disruption. Unless toxic, or destructive patterns are addressed, they will only grow.
Self-definition, being willing to declare who and what you are, and what you want from a relationship, will be a healthy exercise even if, at first, such action seems fraught with potential to ruin a relationship. Any relationship that demands a person “tone down” who and what they are, is probably not a healthy one.
Forgiveness is not based on who is wrong or right. The stronger partner, or the one with the insight that forgiveness is necessary, is the one who takes the initiative toward forgiving. Problems arise when one partner is always expected to be the one initiating forgiveness. In this case, a relationship is lacking equality, mutuality, and respect: something deeper is amiss.
Regular sexual activity is a vital part of any marriage, well beyond childbearing years, and ought to be as important to both persons, and as central to both persons as are the mutual planning of finances, the mutual support of the children’s education and as important for a couple as regular worship at church, temple or synagogue.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Faith, Family, High maintenance relationships, Love, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Trust |
Leave a Comment »
October 5, 2006
by Rod Smith
Reader Writes: “I don’t believe my spouse had a sexual affair, but he definitely was too involved with a female coworker. I just found out that they have been talking on the phone for the past 16 months (January 05 to May 06) behind my back. They talked every morning and two and three times every night, and then on weekends. He says they are just friends and they talked about ‘work and general stuff.’ I know everyone he works with, and all his friends. I even know this woman, yet I never heard one conversation they had in those 16 months. He says I need to put it in perspective and move on. He has ended their communications and has apologized for his ‘transgression.’ So yes, I consider myself ‘cheated on.’ If she is such a friend, why isn’t this friendship shared with me and his family like every other friendship we’ve had?”
Rod Responds: Your reasoning is superb, and your question utterly valid. I hope your husband values the treasure he has in you, his wife. Any friendship consuming the time and energy you have described is most certainly not a healthy liaison. That it ever had to be secret is the largest and most glaring red flag.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Communication, Divorce, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Pornography, Re-marriage, Space, Spousal abuse, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
2 Comments »
October 4, 2006
by Rod Smith
“My seventeen-year-old stepson is not required to do any work around the house, clean his room, earn money, or go to school when he does not feel like it. He talks to his mother like (she is) a dog and gets into our private business as adults. Several times has sworn (cussed) and shouted at me with no consequences for it. I am supposed to do everything I can for him and yet he treats me with no respect at all. His mother will bend over backwards to do anything for him and I am always (made out to be) the bad guy. I am leaving this relationship.”
Rod Responds: The young man did not get to this point alone. He had at least three adults help (enable) him to become this difficult. It is likely that the viruses that came with the re-marriage (guilt, over-compensation, avoidance, lack of definition, and so forth) remained latent in the early years of the new marriage and while he was younger.
When a person is allowed to violate the boundaries of others, relational diseases grow. When ignored, relationship viruses will multiply, and relationships will reach the state described by the reader. These relationships may be irreconcilable.
Some foresight, planning and clarity, offered by the adults, might have avoided this bitter ending.
Posted in Blended families, Children, Differentiation, Divorce, Family, High maintenance relationships |
1 Comment »
September 11, 2006
by Rod Smith
Reader: “My boyfriend says that I don’t trust him. When I am not around he gives his cell-phone number to women without telling me that he has made a new friend. I find this out when I see messages on his phone. It upsets me when he can’t talk to me but can do so with a stranger and flirt with them. We are about to start our own home and family. I think he is afraid to commit to me. When he was an infant his parents gave him to relatives to raise and they kept their other two kids. He did not find out about this until he was older. He has resentment towards his mother. Maybe he feels that if his own parents can give him up, that I may do the same to him? I love him, so very much and I want to help him. Please help.” (Letter edited)
Rod: Analyzing his adolescent behavior will send you on a never-ending wild-goose chase that will have you justifying your pain, and excusing his irresponsibility, for many years. Don’t do it. Take a break. Give yourself time to see the gravity of what you want to enter, with a man, who is yet behaving as a young boy.
Posted in Affairs, Family |
Leave a Comment »
September 6, 2006
by Rod Smith
READER’S QUESTION: Our daughter is 17 and will hardly go anywhere with her very few friends and wants to be at home all the time. She is a good student and works very hard at everything she does. Should we be worried that she has hardly any friends and seems to be hiding by staying at home?
ROD’S RESPONSE: While your daughter may, or may not, be able to tell you the answer, ask her if there are ways in which she thinks she’d like to change anything about her social life. Ask her how she thinks you might be able to be a help to her in this regard.
My hunch, since you have not mentioned excessive sleeping, unpredictable mood swings, or any manner of disturbing patterns of eating (or not eating), I’d suggest she daughter is doing what is most comfortable for her at this time.
Enjoy her presence around your home. Many a parent would give a limb to have their son or daughter at home more often.
Posted in Children, Communication, Differentiation, Family, Listening |
Leave a Comment »
August 31, 2006
by Rod Smith
Yesterday’s column generated much response. One response (edited for space) appears below. To respond to points of contention: the husband’s role ought not be “less” because he has been inconsistent. His role is not “earned.” He is dad. Suggesting he has less of a “voice” is a cop out for a girl making adult choices. Contrary to what most teens perhaps believe, a teenager’s relationship with his/her parents is more important than any romantic relationship.
“If I were the girl even being as mature as I was at 15, I must say that I would not ‘opt for what my parents preferred’ if they had allowed me to act a certain way for an extended period of time and then tried to implement a new rules. While it’s true that although the dad should still have some authority, it would be stronger if he were consistent with his daughter. Were I his daughter, I would be less willing to listen to him. Although 15 is a young to be sexually active, it’s not abnormally young and it sounds like her choice of partner is not a bad one. It would be a good idea for her parents to discuss positive sexual relationships and birth control — so she should at least be educated in the subject.”
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Family, Teenagers |
3 Comments »
August 18, 2006
by Rod Smith
Please write, I'm reading...
There are some things a person simply cannot do for another person, despite love and commitment. This does not mean that two people cannot work together towards shared goals.
It is impossible to make another person:
1. Be happy. Be fulfilled. Become angry. Change. Succeed. Fail.
2. Love, want, need, or miss you. Be glad to see you. Love, want, need, miss, or be glad to see someone else.
3. Trust you.
4. See, feel or think in a certain manner for an enduring period. Most people are willing to “sell out” their minds, ideas and dreams for the sake of romance, but this (“selling out” your mind) does not usually last for very long.
5. See the light, or get some sense into their heads.
6. Lose or gain weight, save or spend money, want or not want sex.
7. Use, or stop using drugs, alcohol and cigarettes or bad language.
As far as other people’s relationships are concerned, it’s impossible to keep people apart who want to be together, and keep together, those who want to be apart. Embracing such goals is likely to have the opposite effect. People feel closer when their relationships are threatened and tend to resist relationships when coerced by others.
Posted in Communication, Family, Manipulation |
Leave a Comment »
difficultrelationships.com 