June 6, 2006
by Rod Smith
Q: I had a miserable childhood and an even more a miserable life. I never get along with my family I am what you call a black sheep. I am now married and have one child. My marriage is on the rocks. My child and career are draining every bit of energy from me. I am in debt up to my eyeballs. My husband has a gambling problem! My credit cards are maxed out and I am trying to pay all the bills. I have no time for myself and even if I tried it still is not enough. I am losing my mind?
A: You have a very good mind and are apparently a high-functioning person: you work, can write a good letter, care for a child while under duress, and so there is always hope.
Redirecting these very skills, I believe you can find the help you need to gain some semblance of control over your destiny. Find a credit counselor at a church or place of worship; join a small group of healthy people who are working on their own lives. Make some legal plans so you are not victim of your husband’s bad habits. Things might start to change when you begin to move beyond victim thinking.
Posted in Anxiety, Love, Victims, Voice |
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June 5, 2006
by Rod Smith
Since I make it almost essential (occasionally I agree it is inappropriate) for both parents to attend appointments with me (even if the parent are divorced) when the topic is a child, I was faced once again with divorced parents of a young girl. Dad was upset. The daughter, they reported, no longer wants to visit him every second weekend. Dad’s no longer her idol. Mom can’t get her to want her dad. The child misses her friends. Dad’s house is “boring.” All the moving unsettles her.
I suggest the parents consider switching houses every second weekend leaving their child permanently in one home. This way mom and dad would see the daughter as frequently, the child would remain near her friends, and her need to travel back and forth would be eradicated. An added bonus, which is obvious to me, involves the parents getting to know what it is like to live in two places and have to pack up and move every second weekend.
My clients were at first confused, and then furious that I would consider suggesting such disruption to their lives! Of course they had spent very little time considering how much children are “punished” and how significantly children’s lives are disrupted by visiting schedules that appear to be designed solely around the needs of the adults.
Posted in Adolescence, Blended families, Children, Communication, Divorce, Marriage, Single parenting, Victims, Voice |
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May 31, 2006
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
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 |
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May 16, 2006
by Rod Smith
Loving my children will be a, and not the, central priority of my life. Parenting, and loving my children will not consume me. I will not allow it to.
If loving my children has an all-consuming effect upon me, the parent, it will certainly also consume my children!
Undiluted, laser-like love, and focused attention, directed at any child will bother him, will unsettle him, more than empower him. Rather than helping him feel loved and secure he will feel unduly responsible for my emotional well-being, and that will feel like a mountain too high to climb.
Children deserve freedom from the intense, even loving gaze, of a parent.
Oh, of course, children want their parent’s undistracted focus, and of course they want the parent’s loving interest, but when a parent has too much love, and too much interest in their children (to the exclusion of other interests) then this becomes a burden for the children.
Children want our love, not the sacrifice of our lives on their behalf. Children do not need parents to be martyrs. Children want parents to be parents.
Posted in Children, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Victims |
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May 9, 2006
by Rod Smith
Reader’s Letter and Question:
“I am in a relationship with a married man since 1983. My family was totally against this. When the relationship started I was informed that my partner was going through a rough time and he had only married his wife because she was pregnant and he was responsible to take care of the children. As my relationship developed, when I questioned him about my future he advised that his children were still young and he grew up without a father and did not want the same to happen to his children. I have been waiting since then for him to make up his mind and make a decision but to date he has not. The relationship was ‘on and off’ as he was always insecure about me because of my openness with people and my previous relationships. He has not learnt to forgive me. He keeps telling me that he loves me and things are going to work out but all this time have past and I am now in my early forties and am getting lonely.”
Response:
You have been thoroughly duped by a very selfish man. He HAS made his decision and it is to use you for his own ends for as long as you will allow it.
Posted in Affairs, Betrayal, Domination, Victims, Violence |
7 Comments »
May 7, 2006
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 |
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April 24, 2006
by Rod Smith
My boyfriend has broken up with me but I can’t get him out of my mind. I still love him. He is with a friend of mine but he still sees me on the side when she is at work. It hurts me that he cheated on me with her. Now I am glad he is cheating with me on her. He flirts with me by sending me text messages and says he misses me. We get together when she is working and then after we’ve been together about an hour of two, I don’t hear from him for about two weeks. He has a way with women that everyone he has been with still knows and likes him. He brags he can get back with any of his old girlfriends. What should I do? (Letter edited)
This toxic entanglement reveals such selfishness and immaturity on the part of each participant that only severe cut-off from all these “relationships” on the reader’s part might give her sufficient room for insight and growth.
Pain is a wonderful motivator, and there does not appear, at present, to be enough of it to move this toxic bind to greater health.
Posted in Victims |
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March 13, 2006
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 |
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