Subscription
Enter your e-mail address to receive this newspaper column each weekday.
My strict privacy policy will keep your email address 100% safe and secure.
-
Anger
-
She won’t let go…..
05 Nov 2009 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
My ex-girlfriend won’t let go. We have been broken up for three years and had many conversations covering the reasons the relationship did not work. She continued to buy me clothes, make me food, send me cards, and try to see me for one last thing she needed to understand. I think I have been very patient but everything I say has to be broken down into precise meanings and explained to death. Here is the simple truth: I don’t want to be her boyfriend any longer and she doesn’t seem to get it. When I tell her I am free
to be with anyone I choose and that I do not choose to be with her she wants me to explain how it could have been so good and then come to nothing. Please help. (Letter synthesized from several conversations)
She won't let go....
Do not enter into any conversations in the attempt to explain yourself. You will not end viral activity (she is not a virus, being “locked on” to you is evidence of an emotional virus) if you continue to feed or facilitate the virus in any manner. Change your phone numbers and your email address. Accept no more gifts of any sort – and return, unopened, gifts that arrive. -
My children manipulate their stepmother….
26 Oct 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My son (12) and my daughter (14) don’t like their stepmother but when they play their cards right for her she buys them stuff. I don’t like to see my children manipulating to get things from her. Should I step in and say something? We are not really on good terms with each other.”
I’ll be the first to admit that the challenges I will place before you are most difficult to achieve – but I repeat: parenting is for grown ups; successful co-parenting is for saints. So…
Let then be...
Do all you can to get on good terms with the other woman who is co-parenting your children. I am not suggesting you become bosom pals but “cordial adults” would be a helpful arrangement for all concerned.
Avoid stepping into the mix with your children and their stepmother. All three have a lot to teach each other. Approaches from you will hinder the process. While no parent wants to see his or her children develop manipulative habits, this is a matter for you to directly address with your children. Your children will manipulate if it works, and will not, if it doesn’t. Take care of how they treat you, and allow their stepmother to discover her own unique relationship with her stepchildren.
-
He checks everything as if I have a history of indiscretions…..
20 Sep 2009 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My husband checks my emails, my cell phone and computer history, and my credit card statements. He also grills me daily about my conversations. He’d really prefer me not to work so he knows where I am and what I am doing but we need the money. You’d think I have a history of indiscretions the way he goes on. He’ll even know I have written this email to you and he won’t be happy about it. What can I do?”
Somehow, and potentially at great cost, you are going to have to take back the legitimate power you have over your life. Jealousy and controlling behavior are NEVER signs of love. The man has a virus and cooperating with it (the virus) will only make things worse. While you have been conditioned to think you have few or no options, you have more than you realize.Stand up to him....
Understanding you will pay for your actions, stand up to him, change your passwords – do whatever it takes to secure your privacy. That you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean anyone (even your husband) ought to have the freedom to look. Men who have the need to control their wives usually have real control over little else. If, as a result of your stand, he gets a life of his own, he won’t have the need to monitor or be so consumed with yours.
-
I am leaving if she doesn’t stop drinking…..
07 Sep 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I am going to get a divorce if my wife’s drinking continues. She has been getting progressively worse and we have only been married for three years. I can’t stand the smell and I can’t stand not knowing how things will be every weekend. We have no children and I think it is time for me to get out as soon as possible. I am not willing to watch our life get flushed down the drain because she can’t help her drinking.”
While you wife’s drinking is your wife’s responsibility, you are faced with a shared issue: your threatened marriage. If you, without her drinking, are looking for an excuse to leave, don’t make her drinking the sole impetus for your leaving. I mention this because the tone of your letter suggests your bags are already packed and her drinking is a convenient way out.
Take up your life....
Therefore, I am going to assume a few things: you have, when she is sober, let her know how much her drinking impacts your life; given her adequate warning and opportunity to get the kind of help she needs; talked to both immediate families and alerted all regarding the gravity of what you are both facing.
-
After holding my hand and kissing and saying the most amazing things……
31 Aug 2009 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
“I have been divorced for several years and really would love to meet someone. I used an Internet dating sites and was being very careful. A guy responded claiming to be honest, decent, not into playing games and God-fearing. So we met. It was so good that by the end of that meeting we were both very comfortable and were going to give a relationship a try. We held hands and kissed and couldn’t wait to see each other again. Then I sensed something was amiss: he didn’t call when he said he would. He also said he would hide his profile but he did not. He did send me a mail saying he wasn’t ready for the complications that having someone in his life would bring. I have been devastated. After holding my hand and kissing me and saying some amazing things that any woman would want to hear, I don’t get it.”
Rod: He is probably married. I have heard SCORES of such stories. Sadly it makes very little difference he is “Christian” or not. I hate to stereotype these matters but many men are in it for the chase but do not want a relationship. Guard your heart by waiting for weeks and months before you even touch each other.
Jean: It is commendable that you were very careful with the Internet dating site and finding a man who said he was honest, decent and God-fearing would have indicated a potential partner for you in your search for someone new. However it would be good to consider that ‘getting to know someone’, becoming friends and discovering what they are like ‘in the real world’ is what sets a foundation for a more lasting relationship.
Gideon: I believe what you went through is considered the norm in internet dating, in the sense that it affords people the opportunity to scope out, check profiles, ask questions via emails, and essentially, minimize the fear of asking people out on dates. In your situation, it’s really no surprise to see one or the other person wanting to back out after the first date. I suggest that you make it a rule of thumb to leave some room for trial and error. After all, isn’t that what dating is about, looking to see if compatibility can exist between two people? Contrary to the Internet’s “instant gratification” method, building relationships always takes more time. Another recommendation might be to hold off on things of an intimate nature during the initial dating phase. Certainly you’ve taken the time to read and examine one’s profile online. So why not take even more time getting to know each other on a one-to-one basis, without having to get too intimate too soon? It would save both parties a lot of pain and heartache if things don’t turn out well. But ultimately don’t lose heart, as there are plenty of fish in the sea to be had… or in this case, the world-wide-web.
-
-
-
Get Rod on FaceBook and/or Twitter
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
-