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Attraction
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Divorced mothers: what these brave women don’t need
18 Oct 2010 by Rod Smith / 5 Comments
Divorced mothers are among the bravest people I have ever met.
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Dating a divorced woman with children…
17 Oct 2010 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
Postpone meeting the children for as long as possible. Give time to enjoy and know each other without the children. If each of you cannot do this (let’s say she perceives she is unable to be away from the children and you feel somewhat obligated or compelled to include the children in the dating process) then she is not ready to date, and you are not ready to accommodate a woman and children into your life.
Hold back and listen
When you do meet the children keep out of her relationships with her children. Withhold your opinions (insights, guidance, discipline) if she is not parenting as you think necessary. No matter how much she asks for your input, or how much the children appear to need or love you, if you get prematurely entangled you will ultimately come out second best.
You are at your most helpful when you support, empower, encourage the woman to tap into her internal resources to be fully the mother she is able to be. She has to do this without you if she is ever to be comfortable sharing this with you.
Withhold your opinions about her ex-husband, visitations, her finances, how he treats her or how he treats his children. This potential minefield predates you and you will be better off as a couple if you regard it as none of your business. A relationship built on trying to correct the injustices of her past will not bode well for your future.
Your distinctness (separatness) is more important than your necessary ability to bond with the woman and her children. When the time comes and bonding with both mother and children is necessary, your distinctness will be a life-saving necessity both in the immediate and in the long-term future.
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Is it an affair?
09 Oct 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“Is it an affair if you do everything but have sex? I had a relationship with a married man who told me that if his wife found out he would tell her I was a stalker. I thought he was joking. We had a place we would go see each other. He eventually showed up with his wife without telling me. I never talked to him again. He never called me and I was too afraid to call him. His wife started showing up where I use to see him and gave me dirty looks as if she knew what was going on. The ‘relationship’ between us was on and off for two years. I have guilt about and still have feelings for him. I do not contact him but I want to. I fear his wife and know deep down he is bad for me. I was wrong as well. I felt wild for him. We were physical sexually but never had sex as this to him was the only real proof of cheating. What do you think?”
It’s an affair (or an act of unfaithfulness) if it seduces either person from his or her primary intimate relationship, makes either person have to lie to anyone, and involves any intimate physical contact.
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“Something Beautiful” – worldwide competition with prize
28 Sep 2010 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
Send me your "Something Beautiful"
Write something beautiful – and send it to me.
Keep your contribution to 200 words. Pick a moment from today or from any time in your life and recount it.
I have a few motives:
1. I like to surround myself with beauty. Your writing will assist me toward that end.
2. I believe that each of our lives is a collection of its own set of miracles, its own quarry of joys and delights, even if it is, at the same time, filled with challenges.
3. I’d like to publish a few of your offerings (thus the word limit) and send a prize to the writer of the best piece.So, have at it. I will be the sole adjudicator of your “something beautiful” submission, and, until it goes to press (if it does) your only reader.
I will send the winner his or her choice of three books: one of the Joan Anderson books I mentioned earlier this week or a copy of a book I have read every June for about 8 years: Failure of Nerve by Ed. Friedman. Please place “Something Beautiful” in the subject line of your Email or your comment. I will close submissions by Friday, October 1, 2010. I look forward to reading something beautiful from you.
Email address: Rod@TakeUpYourLife.com
Rod Smith
9/29/2010 -
Intimacy and its ironies…..
06 Sep 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
1. A couple where each person works on his or her individual distinctness, is more likely to find deeper
Intimacy is an individual pursuit
intimacy with each other than the couple who gives up individuality for each other.2. Intimacy is found in the connection of differences, and not in the pursuit of sameness or uniformity.
3. A person who cannot be alone will also find difficulty being together.
4. There is no such thing as instant authentic intimacy (as in say a one-night encounter). It can take years to develop and, ironically, it is often, in romantic relationships, distracted in its development by sexual behavior.
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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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