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Betrayal
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Should I be upset?
27 Dec 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“We have been together for 6 years. We do not live together. We do not sleep together because of our faith. He says he wants to wait until his kids are finished with college. First it was high school. He feels his daughter would not be comfortable with me living there. This year she put an ornament on the Christmas tree of her dad and his ex. I got upset about it. It’s just so weird. It was a slap in the face to me. I let it go as I do everything. I asked if we could we at least get engaged so people would leave me alone. He talks about our future but does not want to set a date. He gets mad at me if I talk about it. We are both 53. The ornament really upset me. Should I be upset?”
This relationship is for his convenience. He’s duping you. While you are at the mercy of his children’s level of comfort you will never be his wife.
If, and when, you find your own unique voice and stop letting things go, what his daughter places on the tree will be irrelevant.
You are in charge of your future – stop believing and living as if it is in his hands.
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I responded to an electronic invitation I thought was from my lover and my response went to her cell phone
21 Nov 2011 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My 15-year affair was discovered accidently by his wife. I responded to an electronic invitation I thought was from my lover and my response went to her cell phone. I never would have wanted this. I disabled my Facebook account after he called distraught. I have worked very hard to never be discovered. I never wanted to take him from wife and children.
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Rage is making me ill……
27 Oct 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“Rage is making me ill. I cannot get past it. The need for justice is suffocating me. I consider myself to be a decent human being who has always made a point of trying to help people in need. Helping others is a gift to me. Some time ago I got a sob story from someone I now know is an unscrupulous conman. On a bright sunny day I asked a man him how he was. He replied that if he had accommodation he would feel very much better. I was in a temporary position to help. Instead of paying rental he takes and keeps taking. I am suffering great financial loss. He refuses to leave my property and squats without paying. He has caused great grief in my family. I can see your readers shaking their heads at my stupidity. These people have no shame. Consequently, I hate them with an all-consuming passion. I cannot turn the other cheek. I hope they end up back on the streets. My impotent rage at the injustice is like a fire that cannot be extinguished. I must be the most naive person who has unwittingly placed my family’s finances in jeopardy by taking the word of a parasite. I need justice before I can heal.” (Edited)
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When will the sad go away?
26 Oct 2011 by Rod Smith / 3 Comments
“I am devastated. My husband says our relationship has been dead for a long time. I am almost 60. I think all the things we do together are now gone. No more fishing or camping trips. I won’t do those things on my own. The best part of doing them was being with him. I won’t move on to another man. I know that I have no choice in this situation as he just doesn’t have that feeling for me anymore. He has been talking for months to a woman he’s known since he was in high school. I even saw a message from him that he should have married her. When will the sad go away?”
Your sadness is a necessary part of what has occurred within your marriage. Experience it to the full. Cry a lot. Vent freely. You will know when you are ready to take up your life (without him) and begin to plan for your fulfilling future.
While a man-less future seems impossible right now, legions of women have lived full and complete lives following failed marriages. You can probably do it, too.
It is more likely that you, rather than he, will find future fulfillment. Infidelity seldom leads to lasting peace of mind.
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Do you love yourself in a healthy way?
24 Oct 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Healthy self love underpins all authentic love.
The evidence of a lack of healthy self love within any person will permeate all his or her relationships.
A person who does not love himself or herself in a healthy manner will:
1. Believe he or she can love another into desired change. (“I will love him out of his ….”)
2. Lose herself or himself to a relationship. (“There’s no ‘me’ anymore, I love her so much.”)
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Get Rod on FaceBook and/or Twitter
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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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