June 23, 2011
by Rod Smith
“A friend brought your column to my notice this morning. I cannot believe it! It’s like you were reading my mind! I’m trapped in my marriage of 27 years. My husband and I hardly communicate as he disagrees with everything I say. I have now chosen to communicate as little as possible in order for us not to get into an argument. I too walk on eggshells of fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. Everything around the home has to be done his way. My suggestions just fall by the wayside. He has not been able to contribute financially for years so maybe this is his way of retaining his ‘head of the family’ role. I think I’ve written to you ten years ago and nothing has changed since. Maybe I need to change. I’ve been unhappy for so long that I may never have a normal relationship again.”
Ten years is a small price to pay to learn that you are the one who might need to do some changing – many people never discover this. If your husband is unable to manage his own happiness, why on earth would you think he can take care of yours?
Gather trusted women.
Carefully (slowly) hatch a plan.
Implement it.
Take back your future.
[If you want something better in the future than you have had in the past it won’t just happen to you. You must engage in the planning, you have to do something different in the present, if you want the future to look different from the present and the past.]
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Grace, Love, Voice, Womanhood |
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June 8, 2011
by Rod Smith
Love is not possessive. It does not try to keep you from other important relationships. A person who tries to restrict your freedom does not love despite what he or she might say. Sometimes a possessive person will say, “I am just this way because we are not yet committed,” or “because you are so beautiful.” The truth is that possessive people seldom become less so. Their hold will only increase as you permit it.
Love is not jealous. A person who loves you will celebrate your strengths and successes. A person who loves also applauds you when others do. They work to enhance your popularity with others. Sometimes a jealous person will say, “I am jealous of you because I love you,” or “my jealousy shows I care.” Nonsense. People are jealous for many reasons and it is never a sign of love.
Love is not only a feeling. It is measured in financial, spiritual, and sexual fidelity. The loving person does not play games with your feelings, spend your resources, or keep as a secret from you, matters that pertain to your friendship. Love seeks the highest good of all the people in your family. It has no desire to exclude or separate you from you family.
Posted in Differentiation, Love, Voice |
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June 5, 2011
by Rod Smith
You may earn more than I do and live in a nicer house – but our loneliness is probably the same. When it rips us apart it doesn’t really matter who has the most cash or the nicest home. Loneliness doesn’t care where we live or about our financial status. Invite me in – perhaps we can be friends and ease our common pain.
You may be more educated than I am and you may have graduated from a respected university – but I know that if you regard anyone, anywhere with contempt, your education has given you little worth knowing. I may not be very bright by your standards but I do know that truly educated people never use it as a weapon. Talk to me – I might be able to teach you a thing or two.
You may be more travelled than I am and can talk about places I have not heard of or could afford to visit in my wildest dreams – but if travel has made you contemptuous of your homeland and its peoples then travel has not done its finer work in you. Citizens of the world find beauty and wonder everywhere. Come to my house – my culture is as interesting as any you will find on any distant shore.
Posted in Anxiety, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Love, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Voice |
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May 15, 2011
by Rod Smith
Take UP your life - it is an act of LOVE
1. It is
self-initiated and no one is “sending” you to therapy.
2. You are motivated to see change in your life and understand that it could mean an increase in your discomfort and some disruption to your relationships.
3. You are willing to recognize your sacred cows even if you are initially unwilling to lead them to the slaughterhouse.
4. You read widely about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things with their lives.
5. You are willing to see the fruitlessness of blaming others (parents, boss, your ex, the economy, and politicians) for what you are facing.
6. You are willing to shift your focus off the behavior of others and be fully responsible for your own behavior.
7. You are willing to understand that others can only entangle (trap, manipulate, bother) you to the degree you allow.
8. You understand your therapist is a person just like you – but for his or her training. Elevating your therapist will prove to be unhelpful to you and it will obstruct the very process you wish to assist you.
9. You understand that all desired and healthy growth requires some loss, pain, and grief.
10. Your goal is to grow up and to fully live your own life – no matter what your age.
Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Voice, Womanhood |
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May 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
Is it okay to hate my mother? She is loud, inappropriate, pushy, and demanding. I know I can’t change her but I must be able to change how guilty I feel about not being happy to see her. She barges into our house. She talks crudely to my children. She is mocking of any attempts to talk on any meaningful level. I am a single mother of two teenagers.
Hate is an emotional toxic spill
You may break the law, set your house on fire, and even abandon your children.
As long as you are able and willing to face the consequences, you can do anything you want.
Of course, not everything you are able to do is helpful, wise, or accompanied by helpful outcomes. This is something we are repeatedly told as children and sometimes fail to learn even as adults.
So – yes, you are free to hate your mother. The consequences of doing so are unlikely to be helpful to you. Hating anyone is usually harmful to the one who does the hating, but hating a parent, is especially personally damaging.
Hating a parent erodes essential, vital, invisible connections that help us all to remain somewhat sane.
Hating anyone allows the hate to do a number on our insides. It distorts our responses, reactions, perceptions, and attitudes to ALL other people, and not only our relationship with the person whom we have chosen to hate.
The hate may be targeted; the results are generic. Hate is an emotional toxic spill. It ruins the host more than the victim.
While your mother’s repertoire is jam packed with unattractive themes, hating her will ultimately destroy you, burn your house down (figuratively, of course) and alienate you from your own adult children.
You will move toward greater, and real love for her if you increase your capacity to be rejected by her and stand up to her and refuse to be her victim. Do not give your mother free passage to pollute your family yet, at the same time, offer her some manner in which to remain connected with you on terms that are acceptable to you.
Yes, hate is an option, but it is not an option that will result in the kind of growth (not all “growth” is helpful) within you that will be helpful.
Walking powerfully toward her (initiating, defining, declaring, welcoming, clarifying) will empower you with ALL other people.
You are no longer a child. Use your adult voice and do not allow her to manipulate, dominate, or intimidate you. Strive for an equal, mutual, respectful relationship with your mother so that she will learn how to behave herself when she is with you and your family.
I know this is a tall order, but the results, of even failed attempts on your terms, will result in the kind of empowering and growth you want, rather than lead you ever deeper into the shame you are already feeling.
Rejecting her will diminish you. It will rob you of your voice. It will enlarge her power to dominate and control you.
If you hate your mother she won’t have to barge into your house to upset you, she’ll be living in your head, even if you never see her or have nothing to do with her.
Posted in Adolescence, Anxiety, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Reactivity, Recovery, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Triggers, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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April 21, 2011
by Rod Smith
“My husband says I am obsessed with our children. He says they take up all my time and leave little for him. I tell him that is what it means to be a good mother. We discuss this a lot. Please comment.” (Synthesized from a very long letter)
Mutuality is a challenge
signs: your husband is speaking his mind; you are listening enough to write for my opinion; you are able to have some reasonable dialogue on the topic without either of you closing down to the other.
I am in no position to comment on your particular relationship but I have seen women hide from their husbands in the name of being a good mother. I have seen women bury themselves in the children in order to escape the call of mutual, respectful, and equal relationships with other adults. Likewise, of course, men can also “hide” from wives – they can hide behind children, careers, and sports.
While a woman is enmeshed with her children she will rob herself, her husband, and her children of the beauty and freedom that comes with respecting the space and the distance everyone needs in order to grow.
Even trees cannot reach full height if they are planted too close to each other. Give your children some space and face whatever it is that makes them a useful shield. It will do you all a service.
Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Responsive people, Sexual compatibility, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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March 31, 2011
by Rod Smith
Edwin Friedman – a pioneer in family therapy, writer, teacher, and rabbi and who was trained by Murray Bowen who is considered the “father” of family therapy and “Bowen Theory” – wrote about helping couples to separate, establish space, maintain individuality and secure room to breathe and room to move in order to help the couple avoid radical separation (divorce) in their future. Friedman suggested sometimes couples were “too close” meaning that everything done one or both persons seemed to unsettle or rock the world of the other or both.
Identifying couples who are “fused” or who are too close:
1. Every thought, move, glance, blink of the eye, every gesture is interpreted to mean something by the other person and the meaning is usually negative.
2. Mind reading is at its most intense. What is damaging is that what is “read” or interpreted is believed as fact. “I know exactly what you are thinking when you look at me like that.”
3. There’s no room for change or growth because there’s no emotional “wiggle room.” If one person is convinced that he or she knows exactly what the other person will do and will think there is no room for anything new to occur.
I have named these writers to facilitate reading beyond this column.
Posted in Affairs, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Family Systems Theory, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Schnarch, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Voice |
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March 23, 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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January 17, 2011
by Rod Smith
80,000 online views
Of course you are going to fall apart, and mourn the loss of the future you thought you’d have.
You will feel like death itself and even welcome your own.
Then, when your mind somewhat clears, you’ll wonder what really occurred. You will question what you might have done to cause the marriage breakdown and wonder what you might have done to save it.
Then you will bargain with God, your husband, even your children, or with anyone who will listen as you urgently try to get things back to normal, and get yourself back into his heart, head, and bed.
And, when things somewhat settle, and you’ve gotten some rest, and you emerge from the initial impact of what has occurred, you will see that this is not about you, or what you did or did not do. You will see there that there is no real power in bargaining with him, or real value in your becoming whatever you think he’d prefer you to be.
You will see that, quite apart from whatever he decides to do, there is great power and value in picking up your life, one emotion at a time, and doing what is best for yourself and your children.
(November 2006)
Tell me your story. I am listening:
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Schnarch, Sex matters, Single parenting, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Voice, Womanhood |
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January 7, 2011
by Rod Smith
He or she who enables
1. Lies, covers-up, runs interference, for the enabled.
2. Feels over-burdened or rewarded with responsibility for the enabled.
3. Feels like he or she is living more than one life each day; as if the choices (good and bad) of the enabled are his or her responsibility.
4. Endures “borrowed” anxiety – bears anxiety about choices made by the enabled.
5. Seems unable to see the “self” as disconnected to the self of the enabled, and will often see this connection as “oneness” or love, or a soul-tie, or the “oneness of marriage” making the enabling somehow inescapable.
He or she who empowers
1. Learns to allow others to speak for themselves (“I will not lie for you. If you have to call in as sick when you really are hung-over you will have to make that call yourself.”)
2. Understands the critical distinction between being responsible to others and for others.
3. Learns to allow most choices (not all) of those he or she loves and their consequences to run their course.
4. Learns to distinguish between helpful pain, useful anxiety, and what is and is not legitimate cause for concern.
5. Works at healthy, necessary separation, even while being married, in love, or having soul-ties.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Responsive people, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust |
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