January 19, 2011
by Rod Smith
“In 2001 I got a job overseas. I met a special person and now a child together. While pregnant I came home without him. He decided to break up with me when our daughter was two days old. He is now married and has another daughter. I managed to get over him. I met another man and I ended the relationship when I find out that he was married. Since 2008 I’ve had hard time finding a man. It is hard for me because I sometimes wish to be touched and have a companion. I’m a very loving person who has so much love to give. I will be turning 35 and I’m not married. In our culture a woman is looked down at if she is not married. Worse, younger men don’t respect you. My self-esteem has gone down and I’m always depressed.” (Edited)
Shift your focus
You’ve already demonstrated the ability to resist cultural pressures. It is time to do so again. Try to shift your focus onto finding the strong, woman, and mother within you – rather than another man. I’d suggest your daughter needs you infinitely more than you need a man. A strong, defined, woman of integrity will be attractive to a strong, defined man of integrity.
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Boundaries, Family, Forgiveness, Listening, Spousal abuse, Victims, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love |
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January 5, 2011
by Rod Smith
Please could you tips on how to tell the difference between being “in love” with someone and being “in love with the idea of being in love.”
Being in love with the idea of being in love is essential to genuine, lasting love. Without desire the real thing has no entryway.
Genuine love, while quite able to be caught up in romantic fantasy resists losing self, self-insight, the urge for self-preservation, and the urge to self-govern. True love sacrifices, is humble, serves, can desire to move heaven and earth for another, yet it never abdicates personal responsibility or enables others to do so. It has long-haul vision. It seeks little or nothing in return, yet it is also first self-preserving. Somewhat ironically, it is able to care for itself (love itself) just a little more than it cares for a significant other.
Loving the idea of being in love tends to make us responsive to anyone who reaches out. We become somewhat ill defined and demonstrate acts of romantic desperation. We idealize the candidate whom we deem will help us fulfill that fantasy and remain committed even when faced with urgent symptoms (warnings of friends and family) suggesting the relationship is ill fated. Reality doesn’t seem to matter. It’s “I’ll-make-this-work-even-if-it-kills-me” attitude and, sadly, it often does.
Posted in Affairs, Attraction, Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Love, Trust, Young Love |
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December 28, 2010
by Rod Smith
Fully live (women, too!)
do not “allow” women to have a voice, make choices, speak up to husbands – having regularly addressed men and women from such cultures for years. I remain convinced that this robs said cultures of half of its creative capital.
Keeping women “down” must be consistently challenged. Thus my suggestion the woman in yesterday’s column (12-28-2010) define herself to her husband. Of course it flies in the face of many cultures – but if she is to give of her best to herself, her husband, to anyone, speaking up to all in her context is the place to start.
What can be so threatening for some men that some are terrified if women (whom they love) makes their full contribution?
Yes. It will more than ruffle the marriage. Rather a ruffled marriage than a life-time of control, submission, manipulation, leading to intimidation, then domination – not that all men in said cultures are this way at all.
If he really “treats her like a queen” he will also grow. If not, he will reject her; even leave her. At least she’d have expressed herself as a woman and be able to achieve, albeit at great cost, her selfhood as a woman and will have discovered she requires permission from no one to BE.
PS: I have delivered lectures in several Asian countries where it seems women are strongly discouraged from expressing their voices. While trying to be as culturally sensitive as possible, I did not water down my message at all and called on all men and all women to encourage all men and all women to find, express, and use their voices. While I have had some strong kick-backs (some rejection and exclusion) I have always been invited back. I’ve even asked leaders and organizers the reasons I am invited back despite my contrary message. I am told, “Yes. Your message is dangerous for us but we still need to hear it.”
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Meditation, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Schnarch, Space, Spousal abuse, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Victims, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love |
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November 17, 2010
by Rod Smith
It's the journey, remember...
A healthy family – and I will remind you that no person or family is healthy all of the time (that’s unhealthy!) – sets itself on broad and healthy goals that include being:
1. Unpredictable, spontaneous, flexible; allowing each person and each generation, to be different from the former generations.
2. Forgiving (reflective, gracious) – allowing little or no time for the gathering of injustices.
3. Funny – often self-deprecating.
4. Hospitable – welcoming of strangers and guests.
5. Generous – eager to share with persons in need.
6. Open – willing and able to embrace difficult issues.
7. Diverse – welcoming of persons of all shades, creeds, and ages.
8. Free – creative, honest, displaying growing integrity.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Listening, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Young Love |
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August 20, 2010
by Rod Smith
“In twenty years my husband has never told me he loves me. I know he does but he just can’t say the words. He makes up for this in so many ways but it would be nice to hear. Please help.”
Let him off the hook
For some people the words “I love you” get trapped where head, heart, and history intersect and the love can find no escape but through loving acts.
Enjoy his love, even if the words “I love you” are never said. Let him off the hook. Love him by relieving him of this expectation.
If your husband were the person writing to me I’d challenge him to learn to love you with both actions and words. I’d suggest he at least take a look at when and how these words lost their legs inside him.
Since you wrote I will suggest you use this circumstance to advance your own growth by resisting the understandable urge to meddle with his head and heart.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Trust, Voice, Young Love |
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August 1, 2010
by Rod Smith
Each of the following is in response to a MIS-use of my column…..
I get letters about this all the time.....
into the face of your partner (mother, father, in-laws, boss, lover) to “prove” yourself “right” about any issue. My writing is not the final word on any matter. I’m expressing my opinion over relational matters, over which readers have often provided me with very limited information. Be assured, I have often found myself to be thoroughly misguided.
Don’t look for others and for what you perceive they are doing “wrong” in my column. If you have read my work for any time at all you will know I am going to encourage you to focus on your thinking and your behavior as keys to alleviating the discord in your life. Allow my column to be one of many sources to challenge how you operate in your life.
Don’t confuse this daily newspaper column with therapy. It is not. While it might be a therapeutic exercise, reading it will not replace the need for a real, live, face-to-face encounters with a mental health professional if you need one. The complexities of human relationships cannot be captured in fewer than 210 words a day. Reading my column will not enduringly assist you if what you really need is face-to-face professional help.
Posted in Anxiety, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Manipulation, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Voice, Young Love |
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July 20, 2010
by Rod Smith
How to know it’s “a go” when dating someone who is divorced…
1. His/her divorce has been finalized (that means completed) for more than a year.
2. He/she takes appropriate responsibility for his or her part in the breakdown of the former marriage.
3. He/she wants a healthy spiritual, emotional, and intellectual relationship with a diverse range of people before becoming intimately involved with any one person.
It will be a rough ride if red flags are ignored.....
4. He/she is involved in his/her children’s lives and willingly, generously, and punctually pays child support.
5. He/she places a high priority on rearing his/her own children, while being respectful toward your children and your relationship with them.
6. He/she can conduct meaningful conversations with the former spouse about matters pertaining to the children. That the divorce is REAL is clear – so there are no intimate, or “throw-back” conversations.
7. He/she is very respectful of marriage, sex, the opposite sex, despite the previous breakdown.
8. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with his/her former spouse or persons associated with the former marriage.
9. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with your former spouse or persons associated with your former marriage.
10. He/she has deep regard for the time and patience required to establish new relationships and is willing allow necessary time for intimacy to properly develop.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Education, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Living together, Long distance relationships, Marriage, Past relationships, Re-marriage, Recovery, Sex education, Step parenting, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Victims, Young Love |
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July 6, 2010
by Rod Smith
“I think I am in love. Please give me some positive signs to affirm that I am in love rather than give me a list of warnings about what could go wrong?” (Edited)
Certainly. It will be my pleasure:
You will find communion rather than anxious attraction.....
1. You find it easy, or it seems natural, to include many of your long-lasting friendships in activities with your newfound love.
2. You are more yourself than ever – there are no eggshells to tiptoe over, no topics to avoid, no facades to perpetuate.
3. You find yourself free of any sense of control or possessiveness when it comes to your newfound love.
4. You maintain a life separate from him or her while you are also becoming closer and closer as the relationship grows.
5. You have had sustained talks about faith, finances, career options, and have discussed the hurdles that accompany matters of faith, finances, and career options.
6. You have met his or her immediate and extended family and are doing what you can to embrace and understand their culture, politics, religion, and a general sense of how they live life.
7. You can’t wait for each new day – that you may embrace the possibilities each new day offers.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Family, Grace, Leadership, Love, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Voice, Young Love |
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June 7, 2010
by Rod Smith
“I have been with my boyfriend for two years. All our arguments are about me ‘cheating.’ He wants me to delete my Facebook account and change my phone number. He is constantly tormenting me about who phoned me, ‘hit on me,’ and texts me. He’s talking marriage. Would he be the right man to live with for the rest of my life?” (Grammar modified)
The controlling / jealousy virus to which he plays host will not disappear because you get married – it will get worse. If this is how the man treats you when you are dating (when he is being most romantic) you can only imagine what he will be like when you are married.
If you want your wings permanently clipped, your hands in handcuffs, every move, friendship, and thought monitored (and you consider these manifestations of jealousy to be expressions of love) then, of course, he is the man for you.
The man needs help and you are not the one who can provide it.
Travel aside: My childhood in Red Hill exposed me to the best curry dishes on the planet. I’ve spent the last 20 years in the USA craving Natal curries! Singapore has it. I found it. Dinner in the Geylang District of this great Island Nation caused me to sweat with joy.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Friendship, Manipulation, Reactivity, Sexual abuse, Triangles, Victims, Violence, Voice, Young Love |
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May 31, 2010
by Rod Smith
1. To be the most generous person you know.
2. To hold everything you own with an open hand.
3. To share everything you know with willingness.
4. To do all you can to empower the people within your circle of influence.
5. To be able to say “yes” more than “no” to the adventures that come your way (Ed Friedman)
6. To have the capacity to “see beyond” the limitations set by your family history, your nationality, and your faith story.
7. To be able to live within your means.
8. To embody forgiveness, freedom, and grace for all who will repeatedly and naturally attempt to sabotage you as you live your full and passionate life.
9. To embrace your dark side (everyone has one) by trying to understand it, accept it so that it will not need to push itself onto your center-stage and take you by surprise in response to your denial of its presence.
June 1st, 2010: Today our journey to Australia and Singapore begins. Traveling in the USA used to be a pleasure. Now it is usually a nightmare: no food on domestic flights, heavy security, frequent flight cancellations, lots of impatient “entitled” people. You can only imagine what all this means to my two boys! Hoping for two successful connections: Chicago and San Francisco.
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Responsive people, Triangles, Trust, Voice, Young Love |
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