July 26, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My younger brother (19) just got out of jail with nowhere to go because our mother has kicked him out for good. He walked to my dad’s who, with loving arms opened his home to his him. He has been here for four weeks but after two weeks he picked back up on his old life: smoking pot, stealing money from us, lying, not coming home, and lying more. My mother (our parents are divorced) catered to this lifestyle for about two years until she had nothing left. I cannot bear to see this happen to my dad. My brother is the sweetest kid in the whole world but a habitual liar and a thief. I have begged my dad to kick him out but he is still under the illusion that his son might change.”
Rod in about 1962!
as all of you have over your brother. It took your mother two years to reach a point that you want for your father to reach in a month. Until your brother sees the light and your father sees his enabling role, all of you better lock your valuables in a safe place.
Do all you can to stay out of the middle, to allow your brother and father to have to face each other, and increase your tolerance for your father’s pain. While this might sound hard or uncaring, nothing will change for your family while everyone is doing what everyone has always done The healthiest person in the family usually holds important keys for beginning transformational processes, and it can’t happen without the willingness to upset the applecart, and sometimes, even watch it crash.
While ANYONE but your brother assumes responsibility for your brother, he will continue to use behavior that has worked for him in the past – and something must be working if he keeps repeating it.
It is important for you to see that you are not responsible for either of these grown men in your life. You are responsible to each, but not for each – understanding the difference will make a world of difference for you and even potentially for your father and your brother.
Posted in Adolescence, Anger, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Teenagers, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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May 16, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My husband became friends with a girl at work. He started staying at work longer than before. Then he started taking 4 or 5 hour hikes with a few ‘male friends.’ Big surprise! I found out that it was with her and only her. Anyway, she moved a thousand miles away. I thought we could once again be his best friend and get back to normal. After a year he tells me that he doesn’t love me and that he hasn’t since last year. He said he didn’t cheat. I explained that even if he never even kissed her, confiding his feelings to her and not to me is a form of cheating. I don’t know what to do. I feel like we are in a sinking ship. I’m the only one trying to bail us out. He’s waiting for it to sink. I still do dearly love him.” (Letter shortened)
I like the metaphor – but there are three ships: yours, his, and the marriage. Bail out your own ship (work on yourself), let him worry about his (don’t try and rescue him) and the marriage ship will take care of itself (which does not men it will survive). Until you love yourself more than you love him you will all go down.
Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Recovery, Schnarch, Spousal abuse, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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April 19, 2010
by Rod Smith
The crematorium called to say my mother’s ashes were “ready.” I found the term somewhat amusing! Ready for what? And so I picked up the box, wrapped in brown paper (her name and the date were hand-printed on the box as if I was to deliver it to her) and took it home. I couldn’t immediately bring myself to perform the priestly act of dispersal and so it was months before I retrieved them from a dark corner under my bed.
One morning, and I am not completely sure what compelled me to do it on this particular morning, I made my way to the Japanese Gardens she loved and chose a spot I considered beautiful and held the box to my chest and waited to begin this sacred task.
Surprising myself, a little like a child playing in beach sand, I sprinkled her dust gently into the wind and felt none of the expected terror. Rather, I was reminded of the talcum powder she so liberally used in the steamy bathroom of runny mirrors, slippery floors, and twisted towels. I could even smell it.
Sandy remains powdered my hands and fell easily through my fingers to the buffalo grass around my feet.
Then I threw the drab box and its wrapping into a bin attached to a nearby tree and broke into a steady jog toward my car and cried all the way home. The closer I got the more my chest heaved, my body rocked and my throat clogged with phlegm, so I stopped at a firebreak in the sugar cane fields to vomit.
Spreading mother’s ashes was easier than I thought. I should have done it sooner.
Posted in Grace, Grief |
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November 9, 2009
by Rod Smith
Your brief question leaves many unaddressed variables. That you desire sex might be considered a positive thing in the wake (no cheap pun intended) of your loss. Yet, if you have used sex in the past as an escape, rather than as a means to contributing to a mutual, respectful, and equal relationship, you will be furthering behavior that is ultimately destructive for you. Then, if you adhere to a faith tradition which precludes you from engaging in sex outside of marriage, you might find some short-term relief in sexual behavior, but you will ultimately self-inflict emotional and spiritual discord.
But I will assume you, an adult who has endured a significant loss, are understandably reaching out for love and affection.
Three things:
1. You are not betraying the deceased.
2. You and your faith tradition decide on when is acceptable to you to have sex (it is not up to anyone else).
3. You will take into account that sexual behavior is never purely recreational.
It is impossible to do something so profoundly intimate with your body that doesn’t also impact every other aspect of your emotional and spiritual life.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Listening, Living together, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Voice |
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June 18, 2009
by Rod Smith
“Thank you for your column that appeared 18 June 2009. I have been feeling particularly sorry for myself after the death of my wife 18 months ago. The added responsibility of bringing up a family on my own and holding down my job has made me feel this way. I guess it is just time to grow up and get over myself at my age? You are so right. I am the only person who can change my life!”
This letter makes it worth it.
Yes. It is deeply sad that your wife will die at any age, especially at a young age. Yes, it is deeply difficult to simultaneously rear children, hold down a job, and mourn great loss. Metaphorically speaking you have been hit by several buses and have much reason to feel sorry for yourself. But, it will probably not be helpful to you to remain in a condition of feeling sorry for yourself. Of course grief is absolutely necessary and appropriate. Dwelling the rest of your life in a state of grief will certainly not be helpful to you, your children, to the memory of your wife, or to anyone with whom you work.
Posted in Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Grief |
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June 3, 2009
by Rod Smith
Let's talk
(a non-sexual inordinate attachment with someone other than the spouse) will be very tough on a committed spouse. If this affair is full-blown you will probably feel as if you are living with someone who is absent in every manner but physically. He or she would really rather be elsewhere.
Calling attention to this hurtful inordinate attachment will probably result in flaring tempers and/or in further distancing which are designed to silence you. Consequently you will find yourself watching every word you say lest every encounter results in a flare up and/or in your spouse walking out the door.
Suggestions:
1. “Steel” yourself. Remind yourself that you are strong, deserving of the very best in all your relationships, that you are unwilling to tolerate “sharing” your spouse. This is a reasonable position to hold.
2. Do not keep it a secret. Draw attention to the emotional affair even if it disrupts the peace in your home.
3. Be prepared to take radical stands. Be willing to ask your spouse to move out and do not cooperate with the affair any more than you would were it fully sexual in nature. That the affair is non-sexual does not make it acceptable.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Living together, Long distance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Schnarch, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Therapeutic Process, Triangles |
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April 6, 2009
by Rod Smith
Infidelity is hard to forgive. Not forgiving it is harder. One is a severe punch. The other is a double whammy, its impact potentially outlasting the memory of the betrayal.
Unwillingness to forgive is often the only thing onto which a slighted spouse can hold, the only available ammunition to make a spouse pay. It’s easy to understand. Logical. It’s predictable. But, it ferries undesirable consequences.
Resentment might feel like a good and effective tool to hurt a partner for misdeeds, but it will make you most unattractive. Bitterness might be the most prevalent and obvious
emotion to feel, to use, but it will persistently eat you from the inside, leave you feeling even angrier, even more powerless over your life. Then, apart from punishing your spouse, they (resentment and bitterness) will punish you and contaminate all your relationships. In short, they have no boundaries and they are on a mission to deface all that is good and pure.
Who, from any arena of your life, wants to engage a bitter and resentful person in anything meaningful? His or her infidelity might make a spouse untrustworthy, but your resentment and bitterness will ultimately make you most unattractive!
A partner’s infidelity may rob you of trust, rob you of the sacredness of what you had in marriage, but given time, given time to hurt and to express feelings of appropriate anger, I suggest you relinquish your legitimate right to be angry, and forgive.
This is the high road. And your inner beauty will be strengthened, your light will once again begin to shine. And, your unfaithful spouse will no longer be in control of you or your future whether you remain married or not.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Living together, Marriage, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery |
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December 26, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My sister-in-law died two years ago and her husband is still grieving for her. He continues going to work everyday and is slowing starting to pick up his life. However, he has not yet disposed of her personal items. Some other relatives feel that he should have done so by now and they may be considering doing it themselves. I do not agree with them. Two years is not a long time. Please comment.”
Leave the man to do what he needs to do, and to do it in his own time. Of course meddling relatives ought to be persuaded to mind their own business, and to leave him and the belongings of the deceased alone.
Posted in Grief |
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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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May 8, 2007
by Rod Smith
Let me know...
is one of the most common theme of letters I receive. Here are a few generic principles to jump-start the journey of greater health whether the relationship in question survives or not:
1. Don’t focus in “the relationship” but on doing what is healthy and mature for your individual sake. This is not selfish. Getting your house in order will challenge everyone around you to greater health even if you lose your primary, but toxic, relationships in the process. If you do not have the energy to do this, a simple way to help you access the healthy thing to do is to ask yourself the question What do really well and emotionally healthy people do when faced with such a situation and then try, as tough as it might be, to live the answer.
2. Never participate in sexual behavior you do not want. Good sex, or sex at all, (or what one partner regards as good sex) will not salvage a toxic relationship, but only serve to perpetuate all that is already unhealthy about it. Keep in mind that sex frequently prevents love from growing within a relationship.
3. Talk to close friends about what is really happening to you within a deteriorating relationship. Secrecy escalates toxicity. Opening your life to a trusted friend will help you to see healthier options. While a toxic relationship might be “killing you” allow your community to help save you.
4. Do not go rushing back to anything or anyone simply because they say they are sorry. Being sorry (asking forgiveness) for unacceptable behavior is not, in itself, change. Forgive, yes, but do not forget. Look for the fruit of regret. The fruit of an apology and forgiveness is changed behavior.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Single parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Violence, Voice, Young Love |
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