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Blended families
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Do you live an emotional nightmare?
12 Apr 2010 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
You walk on eggshells. You fear fallout – yet you wish for it. You say something then – wish you hadn’t. You know that no matter how innocent or insignificant the conflict, whatever occurs will get magnified out of all proportion. Innocent statements will be misinterpreted, misquoted, and repeated incorrectly forever. You feel trapped by what is supposed to be love but have second thoughts (actually a million thoughts!) about how love is supposed to feel.
You are usually wrong and you 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 obvious error is entrapment. You are exhausted with the load of meeting the emotional needs of someone who cannot, or will not, take responsibility for his or her own needs. You “share” life with an emotional piranha and yet, for some unfathomable reason, you stay, feeling unable to escape.
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She wants to leave because of my daughters…..
27 Jan 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“I am divorced and now live with my girlfriend. My two teenage daughters live with us. The problem is the daughters are very lazy and don’t do much around the house and leave it in a mess. They don’t have much respect and have bad attitudes. My girlfriend is fed up and can’t handle it anymore. We have tried talking to them and asking them to shape up but it only works for a few weeks. My girlfriend says she cannot live in the house with the girls and she is thinking about moving out. I’m stuck between sending my girls to their mother (which they don’t want) or losing my girlfriend.”
Your daughters have more power than you, your girlfriend, or they, can handle. Increase your tolerance for their pain by standing up to them despite the fallout. This is sometimes expected of a loving parent.
Stand up to your daughters -- it is a part of love
Encourage your girlfriend and daughters to discuss their problematic areas face-to-face. Go out while they do it. This might help all three women grow up.
My hunch is that your domestic issues are not about your unhappy trio or an untidy home. I believe they center on your inability to define what you want from life and the willingness to do all it takes to get it.
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He’s the sweetest guy for me….
27 Dec 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“Not every married man’s situation is the same. I have a friend who is a married man who happens to be so unhappy it just makes my heart break. He has been nothing but the sweetest guy for me. Whether or not we end up together isn’t the end goal, it’s ALL about being happy and sharing that with each other. It is true an extremely happy marriage won’t leave a spouse ripe for an affair, but to tell someone they have to stay miserable while in one and have no way to share happiness with another human being is absurd.”
Any relief a married man finds outside of his marriage will be short-lived and heartbreaking to all concerned. The issue regarding “your” unhappy man is not whether he can be “sweet” to you but whether he can be honest with his wife. Of course I am aware that not all marriages must continue for some are beyond toxic, but the solution is not reached by searching outside of the marriage while a person is still in it.Deal with what you have, first.
Affairs are seductive, seducing you away from the real problem, and preventing an arrival at its solution. If it is ” ALL about being happy and sharing with each other” and you choose to do so with a man who is married, it will ALL be very powerful, and very temporary.
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“Un-spoiling” a child is not easy….
16 Nov 2009 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Size is all-important in a family. I’ve seen many families where the children are “bigger” than the parents. The children’s needs, wants, and desires appear to determine almost everything. The parents’ needs are continually ignored while every desire the children become the parents’ marching orders.Size matters...
Of course parents willingly sacrifice for their children, but in families with “super-sized” children, the imbalance becomes burdensome.
I have seen children pitch a fit, stamp and storm – when a parent makes a legitimate request of the child, or has to alter a minor plan, or must pursue a detour, which the child perceives as hindering his or her freedom, creativity, rights, or friendships.
Such toxic parent/child binds can drain all the enjoyment out of family life.
When a mother or a father sees the light (acknowledges his or her indulgence of the child, can see the child is unpleasant) and tries to bring the child down to an appropriate size, the child will understandably resist. Resistance can become ugly.
“Un-spoiling” a child is no easy task: it is better not to worship children in the first place.
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In-laws spoil my children…
10 Nov 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My in-laws spoil my children. The kids don’t close their mouths after talking about something they want and off go grandma and grandpa to buy it. I did not grow up this way and I don’t want it for my children. Please help.” (Email not gender specific)
First: Although you have not hinted at the possibility, do not ask your spouse to be the messenger to his or her parents. You are the one feeling and expressing the frustration, and so this is an issue that is yours to directly handle.Timing is everything...
Second: Speak up, and do so without alienating your in-laws. This requires great skill, an advanced sense of timing, and a great deal of poise on your part. Choose a time when anxiety is low – a time when you are all feeling good about life and each other.
Third: if you are successful, your in-laws will thank you for your insight and somewhat refrain from excessive shopping. You will need to remind them (playfully) of your chat several times over the course of a year.
Fourth: If you are unsuccessful, everyone will end up on bad terms, your in-laws won’t shop for the children again and your children and spouse will be as frustrated with you as you are with your in-laws.
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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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