May 17, 2009
by Rod Smith
Get out of the middle!
(short-fuse living, attacking, failing to listening, assuming you know what others are saying anyway, harboring damages, gossiping, transmitting unhelpful or damaging information, being sarcastic) usually hurts others and our relationships.
Responsiveness, on the other hand (embracing and listening to what others are saying before responding or acting, allowing the full story to be told without making judgments, holding onto ourselves in the face of trouble or anxiety and the anxieties of others, not falling when all the other dominoes are falling) usually helps heal others and our relationships.
Yet it is important to realize that responsive people or those persons whose behavior is usually characterized by being responsive, did not get there by sheer willfulness or determination. Becoming a “non-anxious presence” is the result of the long, and often very slow work of making peace with every possible relationship and human connection (past and present) a person has. Reactivity (anxiety) and Responsiveness (non-anxiety) are not willful choices but rather the product of individual journeys.
Finally, reactive behavior and responsive behavior are not “bad” and “good” respectively. A person can be display both. A parent can be viciously reactive if a child is threatened (appropriate) and yet warm, nurturing, and protective toward the same child all in an instant.
Posted in Anxiety, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Reactivity, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles |
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November 6, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I read the 26 points and most of them relate to my situation. I was widowed 3 years ago after 30+ years of marriage. I was so very lost and it was suggested by a neighbor that a friend of his could help me with my plight. Two years on I am totally and utterly miserable, but feel unable to leave the situation. I don’t know why – perhaps its because I have never been alone to ‘find the real me’. He bombarded me with flowers, gifts, my son thought he’d walked into a florest shop! Very slowly he started to close in by saying that he didn’t see that much of me and I felt guilty – so eventually he was there every single day from 2pm onwards 7 days a week. If I went out to see a girlfriend during my day off from work he would ring me several times and if I didn’t hear or didn’t answer he would sulk (pout) and get ‘stroppy’ (ill-tempered). He accused me of having affairs with my colleagues, he read my emails, checked my phone. Before this all happened he wanted me to buy a house with him 1/3rd him 2/3rds me. (He got divorced last year 2007).
“Every holiday we have been on he has more or less ruined. If I fall asleep in the car he suddenly brakes to wake me up – says he is worried that I may injure myself if we have an accident! – my children hate him – he is coarse and abusive at times but comes across as a very nice man to others. His language is foul at times, he ripped his shirt off and grabbed a knife saying ‘use it on me’. His friends think he is Mr. Wonderful – this is just a short list of things he has done – he has hurt me physically but the worst thing of all is that he has played with my mind. I don’t know if its me half of the time because he says, ‘you don’t mean that, this is what you mean.’
“I believe he ‘preyed’ on me during the early stages of my loss and I was so alone I was grateful. He really did seem a nice person, but he has turned out to be something quite the opposite. I am still with him but don’t think it will be for much longer as he is getting fed up with me not making a commitment to him. I will not sell my house and buy one with him.
“I feel dreadful most days – so whoever reads this – please – if you know or know of someone who has recently been bereaved – tell them to beware – there are men out there that prey on the vulnerable.”
Four pointers to assist reader:
1. While this is not helpful now, a good rule of thumb is to NOT enter any new relationship until at least a year has passed after a divorce or the loss of a spouse. I believe one should wait for at least three years after a thirty-year marriage.
2. When things are “too good to be true” they almost always are. Wanting you home ALL the time, waking you up when you’re asleep in the car, checking your phone – all these are warning signs that you have met an abusive and controlling man. Control and love cannot co-exist. Run the other way no matter how many flowers he sends you.
3. Your future is not in this man’s hands, and nor is your future in the hands of any man or any relationship. You suggest he is “getting fed up” because you will not commit to him. It is time for your “fed-up-ness” to drive you to some important changes you want. Your emotional well-being is more important to you and you do not have to wait around until he decides he’s ready to make a change. Ask your adult children to help you get out of this situation as soon as possible. I am sure they will more than run to your help.
4. Expose ALL violent behavior, all abusive behavior – no matter how “nice” the man is to others. No person ever deserves to go through what you are enduring.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Schnarch, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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December 6, 2007
by Rod Smith
You advise women to stand up to their jealous or controlling husbands. Don’t you know the Bible says wives must submit to husbands?
Please write, I'm reading...
I do. Paul says, “wives submit to your husbands,” and one can safely assume Paul is addressing all of his writings to both men and women. A husband who loves according to Paul’s descriptions of love is both safe and worthy of submission! Such a man will indeed not be going out of his way to secure the obedience of others.
Beware of any man whose knowledge of Scripture begins, and ends, with “wives submit to your husbands.” Loving men (leaders, bosses, teachers) have no desire (or craving) for the submission (obedience) of others. “Love seeks no power, and therefore has it,” says Alan Paton.
Submitting (“giving in”) to jealousy or controlling or abusive behavior is certainly not very helpful to the marriage, the husband or wife.
The Bible doesn’t require anyone to submit (accept, obey) anyone’s pathological behavior, whether it is from a spouse, pastor, or any leader. To resist (stand up to) pathological behavior, however (wherever, whenever) it rears its ugly head, is to do the perpetrator (spouse, pastor, leader) a loving service.
Submitting to damaging behavior can hardly result in helpful long-term outcomes.
Sadly, I have seen many a woman hang onto the hope that the husband will eventually change (stop drinking, beating, swearing, and go to church!) if she could just learn to really “submit.” I know women who believe their husband’s abuse is deserved – a “reward” for the failure to really submit. If abusive men (yes jealousy and control are forms of abuse) were as interested in Paul’s injunction to men: “love your wife as Christ loved the Church,” we’d be pleasantly engaged in a completely different discussion.
No. The monster (jealousy) will not go away if continually fed. It only gets more controlling, more demanding, and more viscous when it is not appeased.
Posted in Anger, Attraction, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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November 29, 2007
by Rod Smith
Reader asks: There’s a counselor who works out of my wife’s church counseling center who is a Christian sex therapist. If I decide to consult with him, what sort of questions should I ask him in an initial contact? What might I expect from a competent counselor in an initial visit?
Rod responds: I’d be more concerned about what the counselor asks you than I am about what you are planning to ask him.
Is he (the counselor) focused on CHALLENGE and GROWTH primarily of the individual and then of the couple – or is trapped in the idea of trying to be so empathic that it will take weeks or even months before you and your wife can really get to talk?
Has he studied David Schnarch? Avoid him if he has not.
Is he himself FREE, or is he anxious, and highly-strung?
What does his theology tell him about who women are? Are women COMPLETELY equal with men and if not, I’d avoid him. Fully mature sex is impossible with (perceived) un-equals. If a man perceives himself as above a woman or “in charge” of his wife his very mindset it robbing him of the very joy and sexual fulfillment he is seeking.
Posted in Attraction, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Listening, Living together, Love, Manipulation |
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November 17, 2007
by Rod Smith
The successful, or enriched woman …..
1. Knows she never has to participate in sexual activity that she does not want; and knows that her body is her own and private temple which she shares, even in marriage, only when it is by her own sacred, deliberate choice.
2. Does not lose herself in her marriage, or to motherhood, or in taking care of her family, but who is able to develop a strong, vibrant sense of self even while being a loving wife, mother, friend and professional in her career of choice.
3. Does not allow herself to be taken for granted, to be sworn at, to be victimized by anyone, not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, parents or co-workers.
4. Lives above manipulation, domination and intimidation, and has relationships that are therefore pure and open, mutual and respectful.
5. Is able to articulate her deepest dreams, desires, and fears to those whom she loves, without fearing a response of indifference or rejection.
6. Is a woman, who, in the midst of the pressures of work, motherhood and marriage, maintains her unique and powerful voice.
7. Is able to delay gratification for the greater good of her family and community.
8. Has a playful, open, adult relationship with her mother and/or woman in her mother’s age group, and is therefore free of feelings of jealousy and envy with her peers.
Posted in Faith, Family, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Womanhood |
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November 3, 2007
by Rod Smith
I am listening....
1. Neither client nor therapist exaggerates therapist’s abilities or the client’s condition.
2. Therapist sees role as helping client steer toward a more productive, healthy future.
3. Client sees the “big picture” over the “long haul” rather than immediate relief in the “here and now.” (Patience, patience, patience).
4. Client and therapist maintain a sense of humor (a sure indication of health) while facing life’s inevitable challenges. Not everything can or will be better no matter how much therapy you throw at it!
5. Client and therapist call forth the client’s strengths and the innate human desire for adventure, rather than engage in the seemingly endless pursuit to understand a client’s pathological history, weaknesses, parents’ weaknesses, and debilitating reasonable, and unreasonable fears.
6. Therapist and client understand the limited benefits of empathy in exchange for the overwhelming benefits of challenge and adventure.
7. Client realizes that psychological insight without action (acting upon the insight) is a waste of money, time and useful therapeutic process. Sometimes a person has to actually DO something rather than be filled with insight about what needs to be done.
8. Client is willing to increase the ability to tolerate necessary pain (both within self and within others) and resist the understandable pressure to alleviate the very pain essential for growth to occur.
9. Therapist challenges the client repeatedly toward self-definition (to grow up!) in the face of life’s natural obstacles.
Conditions under which counseling or therapy will be of little or no value…
Time and again I hear “If I could just get him/her to see a counselor” as if a counselor can work magic to heal and solve all personal and relationship problems. Few trained counselors would see themselves as possessing such unrealistic powers. Here are some conditions (there are others) under which even counseling will be of little or no value:
1. When a person is forced, or cornered, or manipulated into seeing a counselor.
2. When a person has no motivation for change.
3. When a person agrees to see a counselor because he/she believes counseling will “fix” someone else in the family.
4. When the person’s mind is already made up over and issue (a pending divorce, continued involvement in an affair) and goes to counseling so he/she can say he/she tried it and it was no help.
5. When a person is resistant to getting help (doesn’t see the need for help) and offers counselors little or no respect in the first place.
6. When the person is combative from the outset and sees the therapeutic hour as time to show how clever (or funny, or morose, or argumentative, or stubborn, or intellectual) he/she can be.
7. When the person has already made up his/her mind that there’s no hope (”we’ve tried it all before”) or that counseling is a waste of time and money.
Posted in Anger, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Re-marriage, Recovery, Responsive people, Sexual compatibility, Step parenting, Teenagers, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Voice, Young Love |
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October 25, 2007
by Rod Smith
“My wife spends a lot of time at home because of family commitments and I understand that she needs to circulate with other people. When she does go out she seems to go over the top and stays out late. She doesn’t want to talk to, stating that she knows everything about me. When she spends a lot of time with other men, I tend to get jealous. I have been married before and I am scared that my wife will leave me for another man which is what happened in my previous marriage. She says she loves me but I don’t know whether of not to believe her. I am really fighting with my self internally to give her the space she requires and to not stifle her. Is there some things I might read, or things I should do to try and releive my fear, or try and get to the bottom of how she feels.”
Getting to the bottom of how you feel is sufficiently difficult, let alone trying to get to the bottom of how she feels. Leave her feelings alone. Read David Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage. The book will help you see where you end and she begins – that is what is at the core of your troubles.
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Listening, Living together, Manipulation, Marriage, Past relationships, Schnarch, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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September 27, 2007
by Rod Smith
I am married to a very jealous man and, although I am completely faithful, I am accused of all kinds of things all the time. What can I do to help him?
Nothing. Jealousy is an individual pursuit. The one who is caught in its relentless grip is the only person who can address it. If you are a faithful person you must leave him to deal with his own feelings of jealousy and take no responsibility for his feelings at all.
If you try to convince him of your faithfulness, a jealous person will ultimately interpret your convincing as confessions. If you try to placate him, to reassure him, you will only have to repeat all your reassurances the next time he feels jealous (and to a greater extent every time).
Nothing you have done causes your husband to be jealous, and no amount of dancing (submitting) to his pathology (think of jealousy as a virus!) will result in its disappearance. A most unloving response on your part would be to behave as if somehow it is you who makes him jealous. Do not curb your natural, innocent behavior in the fear that it might stimulate his jealousy. Jealousy has already got him; don’t let it get you.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Sexual compatibility, Spousal abuse |
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September 24, 2007
by Rod Smith
Axioms (observations that are almost always true) for families:
A man or woman who has an open, friendly, respectful, and playful relationship with his or her own parents will seldom have problems with his or her in-laws.
Extra-marital affairs are symptoms of a troubled marriage and not the cause of trouble in a marriage.
The teenager who is open and friendly and kind to his or her parents is laying the foundation for a happy and open and friendly relationship with his or her future spouse and children.
When children “take over” a family, and become the center or the glue of a marriage, relational carnage (with the marriage and even possibly with the children) waits in the wings.
The couple that engages in sex, but never discusses it, will finally end up discussing (or arguing about) why one or the other partner has lost all interest in sex.
People who can stand up to each other (resist poor treatment; declare what he or she will or will not do; speak up about what he or she really feels) are more likely to have a lasting relationship than people who relent or give in to each other’s wishes in the name of love.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Domination, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Long distance relationships, Manipulation |
4 Comments »
September 18, 2007
by Rod Smith
I am in a “friendship” that is too much. A co-worker wants all of my time. She wants me to phone her to see if she is having a good day (she’s an office away!) and then when I do she says I am only doing it because I know she wants me to – and that the phone call is therefore not real! I have a husband and children and she wants me to be her best friend. Almost everyday there is an issue about my not being a really true friend. Is it acceptable to cut this relationship off?
Yes. Cut it off, or establish very firm, non-negotiable boundaries. Do it firmly, kindly, gently (“quick and clean”) and with the full knowledge that you are going to be considered the “bad guy” once the break is made or the boundaries declared.
This person wants (needs) from you what innocent and casual friendships are not of capable of offering, and the pressure for each of you is destructive. Be assured that it is very unlikely that yours is the first relationship with this person within which she has demonstrated similar symptoms.
A good mental health professional could assist your troubled “friend” – but allow her the space to discover that for herself.
Posted in Boundaries, Friendship, Love, Manipulation, Space, Therapeutic Process, Voice |
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