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Anger
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How to have good conflict with somene you love
06 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“Stop. Look. Listen,” is a well-known maxim used to teach children to safely cross the street. It’s also helpful when employed by loving adults who are in conflict with each other. Flying off the handle, jumping to conclusions, and speaking before listening can result in unnecessarily hurtful exchanges.
Both persons would benefit from agreeing to:
Stop: Remind yourself that your conflict is with a person with whom you have significant history. While stopping is not easy, when you feel attacked or betrayed, slowing yourself down will reduce the damage that can result when words are hastily exchanged.
Look: Look at the person with whom you are in conflict. Look into his or her eyes deeply enough until you can see into their heart. It is unlikely the person before you is purposefully trying to hurt you.
Listen: After you have stopped and looked, listen to the issue at hand. Listen to what is being said, to what is not being said. Listen without interrupting, whether you agree or not.
In stopping, looking and listening you might learn about your blind spots, your potential for denial and the perspective of others — and you might find some resolution without causing unnecessary pain and hurt.
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Early signs of an unhealthy alliance – avoid intimate relationships with people who —
17 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Letters consistently pour in from men and women in unhealthy relationships. I think often of how much pain could be avoided if people were simply willing to see the warning signs before marriage, before children, before hearts harden and before bitterness sets in. Here are some, of course not all, of the early warning signs that a relationship will sour short of a miracle. Although cumbersome, I have used “he/she” on each occasion for neither gender appears to be without guilt when it comes to distorting intimate relationships:
He/she does not respect his or her parents.
He/she lies about “little” things.
He/she is in debt at a young age.
He/she sees people as expendable.
He/she gets angry very quickly with waiters or servers of any kind.
He/she feels entitled to respect he or she has not earned.
He/she is financially, morally, and sexually unfaithful, and appears unconcerned about the importance of personal integrity in his/her life.
He/she opens your mail, snoops in your business, and thinks you should have no secrets between you.
He/she speaks for you and tells you how you “should” feel, think and speak.
He/she tells you that you are stupid and that he or she knows you better than you know yourself.
He/she believes most other people are idiots and often says so. -
My boyfriend threatens to “smack” me…
13 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
QUERY: My boyfriend and I are engaged and live together. He is faithful and always helpful. He wants marriage and children. When angry, he is insulting, verbally abusive and has threatened to “smack’ me. He then calms down and asks for forgiveness for the hurtful things he says. Although I am established, confident, and have good friends, the accumulative insults make me feel worthless, and sometimes I feel he does mean what he says. I cannot take his moods and verbal abuse any more, regardless of how great he is when he is “good”. He has previously promised the problem would not happen again.
RESPONSE: Unless this person gets “outside” help his episodes of anger will only escalate. When they occur, believe everything he says, and act accordingly. Leave the home, get protection, and never blame yourself for his outbursts. If he says, during the “apology phase”, “You know I don’t really mean it,” you must say, “Then do not ever say it.”
Verbally abusive people try to change the language to suit themselves, and the victim is supposed to adjust accordingly. You appear to have a lot to lose if you leave this man. You have whole lot more to lose if you stay.
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Four sure-fire ways to increase family emotional health and deal with overly-sensitive people
05 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
I have received several very welcome and lengthy letters from readers who find themselves in very complicated family relationships. Here are four broad principles for all members of a family:
1. Get yourself out of “the middle” of other people’s relationships! Don’t carry messages for others, or think for others or feel for (on the behalf of) others. Allow other adults the joy or communicating their own messages, thinking their own thoughts and feeling their own feelings.
2. Regard all other adults as complete adults and your complete equals. If you’re “on eggshells” around anyone (a parent, boss, child, spouse or former spouse) this person has inappropriate power over you that I’d suggest you address. The “eggshells” means you are not seeing yourself as an equal with this person or these people.
3. Never allow yourself to be intimidated, dominated or manipulated. Persons who use intimidation, domination or manipulation (in other words, emotional bullies) to get their way must be confronted if you want any degree of healthy dialogue.
4. Despite age, rank or status, don’t “tread lightly” around other adults. While it is unnecessary to knowingly inflict hurt on others, some people are so inappropriately sensitive that their oversensitivity can restrict others from normal behavior. If your actions are not in themselves hurtful, but are interpreted as such by some sensitive soul, I’d suggest you be yourself and challenge Mr., Mrs., or Ms. Oversensitive to grow up.
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Are You In a Difficult Relationship?
01 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
You walk on eggshells. You fear fallout, yet wish for it. You say something then wish you hadn’t. You know no matter how innocent or insignificant the conflict, whatever occurs will be blown out of proportion. Innocent statements will be misinterpreted and misquoted for ever.
You feel trapped by what is supposed to be love, but have second thoughts about how love is supposed to feel. You are usually wrong and are told you are stupid. When you admit fault, even stupidity, you are at fault for admitting it. When you are right, you are wrong for saying so, or you think you are perfect and trying to show others up. If you are silent, you are avoiding conflict. If you speak out, you are looking for trouble. In your intimate whirlpool white is black, black is white and the water is very murky.
Innocence is guilt. Pointing out error is entrapment. You are exhausted by the load of meeting the emotional needs of someone who cannot take responsibility for his or her own needs. You share life with an emotional piranha and yet, you stay, feeling unable to escape.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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