Archive for ‘High maintenance relationships’

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May 31, 2006

Divorced dads – living without blame and loving your children

by Rod Smith

Children will, at various times, blame both parents for a family’s breakup, no matter who is to blame. Don’t try to get your children to be on your side even if your wife was wrong on every count and you, in your perfection, sprouted angel wings. Two people marry and both contribute to the need for a divorce when it becomes necessary.

I’ve met men (and women) who claim to be innocent victims of divorce but I hardly ever buy it.

Look a little deeper at what you did or did not do in the marriage. Get your focus off your ex-wife and ask yourself what your role was in the deterioration that necessitated dissolution of the marriage. Growth, and healing in your relationships with your children will elude you until you assume full responsibility for your part of the family’s breakup.

Until then, until you are cognizant of your role and take responsibility for it, any strategy you employ to more effectively love your children will serve only to create a further wedge between you and seem to “push” the children further from your urgent love. Until you stop all blame and victim thinking, your toxicity will permeate all your relationships, especially the one you want with your children.

Posted in Divorce, High maintenance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Victims | 4 Comments »

May 18, 2006

Difficult or “high maintenance” people

by Rod Smith

(Published in The Mercury – 05/19/06)

Several years ago you wrote about “high maintenance” people and described my then-girlfriend to a T. Please publish it again. It was hard to believe a person who had never met my girlfriend at the time was able to describe her with such accuracy.

Comments come to me as Emails. I will make time if you want to talk.

Comments come to me as Emails. I will make time if you want to talk.

High maintenance people require constant attention and approval. They crave to be the center of almost every conversation and will often become symptomatic (moody, resentful, loud, threatening) when they are not. They analyze every move, thought, word and action of others, and then read more meaning into things (statements, looks, sighs, attitudes) than was ever intended. They are easily hurt, quickly offended, quick to rebuke when they do not get the kind of attention they think they deserve. Threats of withdrawal or desertion become a way of life.

High maintenance people are difficult, sometimes impossible, even in the most relaxed of circumstances. They pick fights, find fault, and personalize almost everything. They argue with people who are closest to them for no apparent reason. They often pick on strangers (waiters, helpers). They often live in a world of cut-off relationships where others are idiots and no one understands.

What can you do if you are in a relationship with a high maintenance person? You can do very little that will not hurt, offend, or get a reaction – but you must make a stand. High maintenance people seldom benefit from pity or patience or empathy. They will only benefit from being constantly challenged to grow up.

Posted in Anger, High maintenance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Voice | 11 Comments »

May 18, 2006

Partner abuse

by Rod Smith

(Published in THE MERCURY, 05/18/06)

Partner abuse is not restricted to physical abuse. This is misleading. Emotional and psychological abuse, while not requiring visits to the hospital, can be as equally devastating as domestic violence. It (emotional abuse) IS also Domestic Violence.

If your relationship drains your self-esteem, isolates you, feels more like a prison sentence than a loving relationship, it is likely you are in a controlling, abusive relationship.

If any one of the following is true I’d suggest you get immediate outside help:

1. When you talk about your feelings your partner railroads the discussion and gives you no time to think or express yourself.

2. You can’t discuss what is bothering you for fear of things getting out of hand.

3. Your partner criticizes, humiliates and undermines you.

4. He or she ridicules you when you express yourself and ridicules your family and friends.

5. He or she keeps you “in line” by withholding money, the car, the phone.

6. He or she has stolen from you and run up debts for you to handle.

7. He or she has thrown away or destroyed things that belonged to you, opens and reads your mail, checks your phone bill and reads your emails.

8. You are often afraid of the person you are supposed to be closest to.

Posted in Anger, Domination, High maintenance relationships, Sexual abuse, Space, Spousal abuse, Victims, Violence | 18 Comments »

May 15, 2006

Ten signs that all is not well with your primary relationship..

by Rod Smith
  1. He/she has excessive unaccounted for mileage on the car and chunks of time and money for which he/she will not account.
  2. He/she hides bills for credit cards, cell phones and bank statements.
  3. He/she uses lower or different tones on his/her phone when you are around.
  4. He/she is present in body alone because his/her head seems to prefer living or being elsewhere.
  5. You are checking the mileage on the car, clockwatching to know where your he/she is, and counting his/her money to know where every cent goes.
  6. You are rummaging through bills for credit cards, cell phones and bank statements in an effort to retrace his/her steps.
  7. You are trying to listen to every conversation he/she has with anyone.
  8. You are present in body alone because you spend your waking moments trying to get into his/her head to see what he/she is thinking, feeling, planning, and wishing.
  9. Details for business trips (who, when, why) are obscure or hard to pin down.
  10. Compliments feel like efforts to manipulate; apologies feel like warnings; looking in each other’s eyes feels very unsettling.

  

Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Betrayal, Communication, Family, High maintenance relationships, Marriage, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Voice | 1 Comment »

May 10, 2006

I don’t want to hurt him…….

by Rod Smith

“I do not want to hurt my ‘partner’ to get what I would like so I have given him – we have been in an affair since 1985 — an ultimatum. I am moving on with my life. I really want to move on but I am deeply in love with him. He always told me that he was not having an intimate relationship with his wife but I could never believe that and never will. All I am seeking is a closure on this fairy tale story. He is an excellent gentleman and I do not like to hurt him. I am getting hurt all the time. He is finding it difficult to accept my decision and he can’t come up with a decision.” (Letter edited)

Rod’s response: This is no fairy tale. It is a nightmare! You will not live with this man without being married to him – but you will see him behind his wife’s back? What nonsense. He is NOT an EXCELLENT man.

Excellent men do not treat their wives (or women) this way. You need professional help to rid yourself of all these ridiculous double standards and the deep-seated deceit in which you have engaged for so very long.

Posted in Anger, Betrayal, High maintenance relationships | 11 Comments »

May 7, 2006

What can I do to make be someone who doesn’t seem to notice me become attracted to me?

by Rod Smith

You might become more seductive, pretend you are wealthier or more educated than you are, change you hair, nose, breasts, accent, interests and lose weight – but none of it will work in helpful ways. Trying to be something you are not, is most unattractive, and nothing you re-create of yourself will be real, convincing, enduring, or – ironically – attractive.

The energy you spend will exhaust you and distort the natural beauty afforded all people. Who you are cannot be successfully hidden for long and hiding behind some fabrication is deceitful and unkind.

If it were possible to do something to make a person become attracted to you, your efforts would have to be more than doubled to maintain that person’s interests.

If you want to increase the possibility of being noticed by healthy people (the unhealthy, who are worth avoiding, are willingly fooled by pretense) master appropriate social skills, personal hygiene; dress well, work hard, be honest, read widely; avoid gossiping and gossips; pursue your faith, loves, skills and interests. Apart from these things, do nothing. Remember: if you think of yourself as bait you might just get eaten!

Posted in Attraction, High maintenance relationships, Long distance relationships, Sex matters, Space, Victims, Voice | Leave a Comment »

May 2, 2006

Jealous girlfriend — I can’t even have fun with my sisters and she goes all moody

by Rod Smith

“My girlfriend is very jealous. If I have too much fun with my sisters she retreats into a dark mood. Then, if I am not having fun with her — which is hard to do once she has drawn my attention to it — she gets all sorry for herself and says our relationship will “never work.” Then I try to console her but it ends in a long discussion about why I love my family more than I love her! Please help.? (Letter edited)

You have more fun with your sisters because they more fun! Your sisters are not studying your every move under an intense, distorted microscope. Your girlfriend probably needs to grow up or very skilled professional help. No amount of your convincing her will ease the pressure on you. Until she sees that it is she, herself, and not you, who is to take charge of her jealousy, it will erode your odd liaison until it will “never work.”

This is a very high-maintenance relationship! No wonder you are not having much fun. Peer just a little closer, try a little harder, convince her a little more, and you will have glimpsed into the bottomless pit of trying to solve a problem that is not, in the first place, yours to solve.

Posted in High maintenance relationships | 1 Comment »

March 13, 2006

Jack was unfaithful and Jill can’t get over it…….

by Rod Smith

“Jack” and “Jill” have been married for twelve years. “Coincidences” lead Jill to stumble on Jack’s affair. She is “mortified.” He confesses. He wants to “get on with my life and marriage.” Jack is angry because Jill can’t “get over” the affair. She wants to talk about it “all the time.” He cannot understand why she doesn’t trust him or want intimacy. He says she can’t forgive. (Theme from several letters)

Dear Jack: Thank God your wife talks with you at all. Be surprised if she is ever willingly intimate again. Your betrayal challenges the foundation of your lives. Forgiving you, and desiring you, have very little in common. Marriage without fidelity is not a marriage. You are lucky to still have one.

Dear Jill: Trusting Jack is up to you, it is not up to him! I’d suggest “guarded trust” for about two years. Request, if you are up to it, that Jack arrange for you to meet the “other woman” so that, in your presence, he can tell her he really wants his marriage and that he was at fault for deceiving and hurting you. Decide how long you need to refrain from physical intimacy. Challenge yourself not to let it linger indefinitely. Marriage without sexual intimacy is not a marriage – and he is lucky he still has one.

Posted in Affairs, Divorce, High maintenance relationships, Marriage, Victims | Leave a Comment »

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