September 17, 2008
by Rod Smith
“Please tell me why my husband can’t talk to his parents even about the most little things like saying happy birthday to them or inviting them over for a meal. I have to do it all. I make all the plans for everything and he just fits in. I am so tired of being the center of all the plans for everyone and when things go wrong I am blamed when someone in the family could help. We have been married almost 20 years.” (Letter shortened)
I cannot tell you why your husband is the way he is, and I doubt it would be something he himself could articulate, even if he himself did know. In the unlikely event you did reach a convincing diagnosis about why he is the way he is I am not sure you’d have anything useful or helpful. [Gaining understanding or insight does not necessarily lead to change in behavior.]
What I do know is that while your husband has a spokesperson in his wife (and life) there is little reason for him to see the need to have a voice of his own. People tend to fall into roles that most suit them, and I doubt very much that you’d find it very easy if your husband did begin to direct the family traffic.
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 12, 2008
by Rod Smith
You have frequently written that live-in boyfriends or girlfriends or even step-parents, ought to avoid disciplining the children of a significant other. I have never really believed you as it seems counter-cultural to think that one adult be left with the load of guiding and disciplining children when there is another in the house who may be able to help. Please clarify. (Question “lifted” from tone of a longer letter).
A blended family will tend to work better when respect or deference is given to primary and longer-standing relationships.
When an adult moves in with a mother or father who is already parenting children, and begins to exercise authority, while this might be a welcome relief and a great help to all involved, it is a disturbance (small or large) of a deeper and more fundamental invisible loyalty.
Someone in the original relationship will begin to resist the intrusion even if the intrusion is helpful and benign. This is one of many reasons even good and kind stepparents are often rejected.
[Of course, this is not the “whole truth” or even meant to suggest there are not many factors and variables that influence such relationships — it is merely one, partial view.]
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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September 4, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I’m looking for a perspective regarding a spouse who has been cheated on when family, friends, and coworkers were aware of the affair. I’d like to know if the cheated on spouse would have wanted to be told (or told sooner) about the affair. I read so much about people saying, ‘Do not tell the spouse.’ If I were being cheated on, I would want to know. When the spouse does find out about the affair and that other knew, he or she has to deal with the heartbreak of the affair and the betrayal of others. I just don’t grasp the majority’s mentality to turn their back on this situation. If the sin was embezzlement, the majority would say tell all. Why do the rules change when it comes to affairs?”
Call me...
is being cheated are all scary matters that are much easier to avoid than to face. Besides, seeing it occur to another, means I have to face its possibility of occurring in my own life! Denial of it occurring at all, or the avoiding its exposure to the victim, is much easier! Your observation goes to the heart of a profoundly difficult human issue. Cheating makes everyone uncomfortable, even those who observe it from some distance.
Posted in Attraction, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Victims, Voice |
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August 17, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I always read your column and then the daily ‘tail-piece.’ One of the many things that caught my attention was that marriage is not two people in one boat but two people, each person in his or her own boat. I think my husband would like us to be joined together and have us share a brain (his brain of course). He asks my opinion and then always improves on what I say. When I’m on the phone he tells me what to say and corrects me, sometimes he even shouts at me and the person on the other end can hear. Because we work together I try to ignore it to avoid having a bad day but every now and then I explode. Then it gets nasty and he hurls verbal abuse at me, bringing up my family and poor upbringing.”
This is a fine example my repeated encouragement that readers “focus on your behavior, and not the behavior of others.” The reader tells in detail about the “other” but appears to miss that she has allowed his nastiness to thrive by putting up with it. It is a fool who curses his wife but a very foolish wife who remains a willing target.
Posted in Communication, Voice |
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August 10, 2008
by Rod Smith
Reader response to questions is usually helpful. In the spirit of trusting readers to know what is helpful and appropriate, apart from my suggesting the correspondent remain defined about who he is and to be patient and kind, I am going to trust I’ll get many responses to this plea which will be publishable over the next few days:
“I am at my wits end. My wife is going through menopause and has become quite maniacal in her behaviour towards others. She has developed a violent temper that leads her to respond with terrifying rage to anything and everyone. Everyone is wrong, stupid and incompetent. She is at war with her family, her neighbours, her transient friends, our pets and me. The advice she gets reinforces her view that she is right and everyone else is wrong. She threatens to divorce me because I am not the person she expects me to be. She seems incapable of any sort of reflection or introspection that might help her see that her reactions are extreme. She will probably do something stupid and dangerous. I want to help but all my efforts are spurned with abuse and contempt. Should I step back, walk away and let things take their course, and hope this will all pass?”
Posted in Communication, Difficult Relationships, Voice |
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August 6, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I feel compelled to respond to your letter from the ‘other woman’ in a relationship with a married man.
“My husband conducted a two-year extra-marital affair after many years of marriage. We survived the shocking discovery of my husband’s infidelity, but trust and respect, once broken, are difficult things to re-build. Understanding why a husband strays from a happy and long-standing marriage is totally impossible.
“Why did your reader end the three previous relationships that ‘were headed nowhere’? She says that there was no talk of marriage yet reveals total disrespect for marriage by her actions. Why is she now conducting an illicit affair expecting nothing? Perhaps she needs to carefully consider her apparent fear of long-term commitment and the motives of both parties.
“She needs to consider the damage that she and the married man are doing, not only to themselves but to his wife and family. She selfishly asserts that he is attentive and good to her, yet tacitly accepts that he is a cheat who, by his liaison with her, desecrates what should be the most important relationship in his life. My advice to your reader is to get out of this affair now, before hearts are broken by discovery and disclosure, and seek the counseling that she obviously needs.”
Posted in Voice |
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August 5, 2008
by Rod Smith
“I am in a three-year relationship and my daughter (14) lives with us. My friend tells me he is tired of commuting from my house to work. He wants me to move to his lake home and put my daughter in school there, which would lessen his commute by 20 minutes. My daughter grew up where we live now and her dad lives close by. She does not know anyone there and moving would also cause a problem in seeing her dad. My friend finds fault with all my solutions. The move would mean my giving up my house and (before that) I want a commitment, like a ring. My friend does not want to get married. He tells me he loves me but marriage is out of the question. I am heartsick. I don’t understand how he says he cares and wants to spend the rest of his life with me but bails when marriage is mentioned. Things are falling apart. What do I do?” (Letter shortened)
Stand firm! Do what is in the best interests of your family. I’d suggest your friend move to his lake house and share weekends at your house. It seems he wants the benefits of being a spouse and co-parent without a legal contract or the responsibility entailed.
Posted in Children, Communication, Voice |
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July 23, 2008
by Rod Smith
1. When a person is moving away from you (separating physically, emotionally detaching) to chase, to persuade, to cajole will be counterproductive.
2. When every move, every expressed thought, every action, on the part of another person has the capacity to upset you or derail you, you are probably too close, too intensely involved with that person in an unhealthy manner. Given time, one or the other of you will begin to act (consciously or unconsciously) in ways to reduce the closeness.
3. When a person seeks a so-called “father-figure” or “mother-figure” in an intimate relationship, intimacy will whither surprisingly quickly once the couple marries.
4. Unresolved conflicts from childhood and adolescence will re-appear later in life within a person’s most intimate relationships, and, as a result, he or she will fight yesterday’s battles, in the present, with the “wrong” people.
5. Intimacy is an individual pursuit and not dependent on the participation of a partner or the partner’s willingness to be equally intimate. A woman, for example, may experience a powerful moment of intimacy when telling her partner about her day without the partner having to share one iota about his day, Of course intimacy is intensified when there is mutual participation but it is not dependent on the participation of both partners.
Posted in Communication, Voice |
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July 12, 2008
by Rod Smith
Weeks ago I began a series of columns entitled “A is for Autonomy.” Here is more in my series of “ABCs for Growing Adults”:
B is for Boundary: an invisible line that separates you, making you distinct from others. When blurred, it will be hard for you to tell the difference between your thoughts and feelings, and the thoughts and feelings of others. Good boundaries are part of your emotional life’s healthy immune system. They keep the undesirable out and allow the desirable in. Boundaries change with different people. You will have very different set of boundaries with a lover, best friend, or parent, than you will with casual acquaintances. Your boundaries are always your responsibility except in cases of unusual illness or frailty.
C is for Challenge: an impetus for change or growth. You might feel a stirring from within, read something, overhear a conversation, glimpse what a friend has achieved, and, as a result, desire to make changes in your life. A challenge can be private or shared. It might take minutes to complete, like learning a new skill on your computer, or it could take years of constant effort. Most people enjoy a realistic challenge: it can bring greater health and enthusiasm and restore vision to do greater things.
Posted in Communication, Voice |
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June 30, 2008
by Rod Smith
1. Even though you do not feel like it, “force” yourself into a loving and supportive community. Go out with old friends, join a club or a church, find a new interest that is shared with “new” people.
2. Tell one person everything. Don’t choose someone too close to the situation, or someone who has also recently faced a break-up, or someone who already has an ax to grind with the ex. Avoid turning these discussions into “pity parties” or “beat-up” sessions – neither will serve your greater mental health.
3. If it is at all possible, get with supportive members of your family, especially your parents. Re-visiting your roots will be surprisingly refreshing even if difficult.
4. Don’t beg or bargain for reconciliation no matter how much pain you are in.
5. Learn as much as you are able from the breakup and see what elements of the relationship you will determine not to repeat in the future.
6. Focus on your behavior and not on the behavior of you ex.
7. Avoid waiting for a phone call, an email, a text message, in the hopes he or she will make contact. Find your freedom apart from him or her even if you have to fake it for a while.
Posted in Differentiation, Voice |
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I cannot tell you why your husband is the way he is, and I doubt it would be something he himself could articulate, even if he himself did know. In the unlikely event you did reach a convincing diagnosis about why he is the way he is I am not sure you’d have anything useful or helpful. [Gaining understanding or insight does not necessarily lead to change in behavior.]
difficultrelationships.com 