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Divorce
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I am the other woman. Should I contact the wife and confess?
09 Jul 2009 by Rod Smith / 4 Comments
“I am the other woman in a relationship of five years. It just came out, and now the wife is leaving. I feel horrible. Should I contact her and confess? I have felt guilty for years but never ended it. I probably never would have ended if this wouldn’t have happened. The guy wants to still continue to see me but I just can’t.”
JEAN: One’s needs for love, comfort, feeling valuable and significant in a special someone’s life can override any of value/belief systems. Confessing to the wife will not alleviate your guilt. Perhaps this present circumstance is a good time to explore deeper why you put yourself through such inner turmoil in order to get your needs met.
From Canberra
Rod: Make contact with neither party. Don’t fall for the “closure” nonsense. You will be no help to the wife, and, it is already established that you and the husband are no good for each other. Five years is a long time to deceive. I have no doubt deception will have become a way of life for you, possessing somewhat of an addictive quality. Although you have contributed to significant damage for this couple, you cannot participate in their, or her, healing. Don’t try. Your complete disregard for the sanctity of marriage reflects on your apparent disregard for yourself. It is going to be a long road, but I hope you find the one that leads you to a realization of your own inestimable value.
Stay out....
KATHRYN: What is it about your view of yourself that you became the “other woman.” Feeling guilty for years is the direct result of living a lie. It’s interesting that you ended it after the wife found out and is leaving. A confession would serve to alleviate some of your guilt perhaps, but is irrelevant and may cause more hurt to the wife unless it is something she requests for her own healing. Remove yourself. Allow them to deal with the pain that is the consequence of an extramarital affair. Learn from your feelings of guilt, sit with them, and allow this to stop you from dating married men again. Spend energy working on yourself consider the possibility of becoming involved in a healthy relationship that is open and free.
Remove yourself....
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Why am I always the bridesmaid?
01 Jul 2009 by Rod Smith / 4 Comments
“I’m 30, 6′2″ and Christian. I am a former athlete and model with two masters degrees and still a virgin. Recently I had an affair with a married man and I broke it off but he text-ed me yesterday and I changed my mind. Me? The other woman! Never. He’s well known, charismatic, a leader/mentor/father and is almost 20 years my senior. I’m tired of being alone and somewhere close to the twentieth bridesmaid dress. Men come along, but they’re significantly shorter than I am. I always like feeling protected and taller guys are preferred. My friend asked me, ‘What is it about you and unavailable men?’ Please help.”
ROD: Your height, attractiveness, and education – are irrelevant. Desperation, no matter how educated or decently packaged, is unattractive to healthy men. Ironically, it makes you a sitting duck for predators as in the “leader/mentor/friend.” Seeing a married man will not land you in your own wedding dress.
Write to us...
Here’s my suggestion: Get your focus completely off finding a husband (or someone else’s husband) and make peace with your parents and the members of your family who are one generation immediately before you. Get legitimate protection – then you will not need to seek it at all costs.
KATHRYN: He’s not protecting you, you’re providing a way for him to abdicate from his role as husband. You are a quick fix, a way for him to escape into the illusion of love that only holds the attention for so long. Lasting relationships are founded on truth, if marriage is what you desire.
Welcome, Kathryn!
Consider spending time discovering who you are, what it is you need and desire out of a relationship and hopefully, when you begin to know yourself better, you may become the bride. Cut all communication and remove yourself from the situation.
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Former sister-in-law has everything…
28 Jun 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My ex-wife and I were divorced after a long, bitter fight. After the divorce, my ex claimed all the contents of the house: furniture, appliances, curtains, curtain-rails, everything accumulated over ten years. Recently, I picked up my children from my former sister-in-law’s. To my disgust I discovered that half my furniture now decorates her living room. For ten years I opened my house to her. She had keys to come and go as she pleased. I thought perhaps she should use better judgment when accepting gifts.”
Don’t enter the house if you don’t want to see your old curtains. The real material lies unclaimed between you and your former wife. For your sake, and for the sake of your children, get your understandable residue resentments taken care of. This action, on your part, will not necessitate even one conversation with your former wife. It is not about her. It is thoroughly and completely about your response to all that has occurred. Divorce is war. Killing a marriage is violent business, and you are its hostage. Your former sister-in-law may have poor taste and your old curtains, but it is peace you are missing. Regarding the living room, I get it. But I am not sure your former family will.
Take up your life
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Easing the impact of divorce for children (if it is possible)…
21 Jun 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Pain is an inevitable result of almost all divorce and hardly anyone in a family escapes it. The enduring stress, the separation period preceding the divorce, the event itself, and the process of adjustment, all impact family members. When divorce is regarded as a process, and not an event, the impact is likely to be somewhat eased. Out of the ruins of a broken marriage people do not easily embrace such principles. These are goals to work toward. Doing so is likely to ease the impact of divorce upon the children. It is worthwhile noting that remaining married is often easier than becoming divorced. There will be times when being divorced (from a person) is more difficult than being married (to that same person). Assuming no sexual abuse or violence has occurred, the following attitudes expressed by both adults will allow for the best outcome when two adults divorce:
Help your child take up his or her life... despite your divorce.
[The writer assumes the reader understands age and development appropriateness]1. We will discuss the divorce with you, together, on a regular basis. We will not hold it as something vague or secretive.
2. We are divorced (are no longer husband and wife) but we remain your parents.
3. It is our divorce, not yours. The implications affect everybody, but it remains our divorce.
4. We were once happy as husband and wife and you were born out of our love. We found parenting to be rich and rewarding. (Ignore if not true).
5. We will always help and protect you and willingly cooperate with each other concerning you.
6. You have done nothing to cause our divorce and nothing you do will restore our marriage.
7. We will say nothing negative about each other, ever, anywhere, and to anyone. We will “hold our peace” with each other once the legal aspects of the divorce are over.
8. We will not use you as a go-between (message bearer, mail-carrier, anxiety lightening rod) between us.
9. When you face inevitable choices, we will clearly communicate with you about your options. When this is impossible, we will tell you why it is impossible.
10. When choices cannot be made easier, we will do all we can to make them clearer. You will always have as much choice as your age can accommodate.
11. We will support each others values and rules and will try to establish a similar atmosphere in each home.
12. We want you to do well in life. Our failure at marriage does not mean you will failure at life (or marriage, or child-rearing, or school, or politics, or staying sober).
13. We cannot predict the future, but we will both talk about it with you as we see it developing. You will have as much information as possible about your family and about you.
14. You will have as much power over your life as is age appropriate.
15. You will be able to visit both extended families. Your extended family will be as helpful to you about our divorce as we are. They are also committed to speaking only well of each of your parents. (Ignore if untrue. Let this be a goal if it is untrue).
16. You have permission to embrace any person each parent might include in his or her life. Accepting and loving a stepparent some day, will not be regarded as disloyalty. You might even choose to call that person “mother” or “father” without resistance from either of your parents.
17. All the adults (step and biological parents) will regularly meet, all at one table, to discuss matters relating to you.
18. We will try to lessen the amount of travel between homes so that you might be as settled as possible.
19. Failure at any venture on your part is not because of the divorce. Many people have had divorced parents and have made successes of their lives. You can do the same. -
Take up your life….? (Becoming more personally responsible for your own life)
16 Jun 2009 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
You frequently write: “steel yourself” and “hold onto yourself” and “take up your life.” What do you mean?
Your problems cannot be “solved” or “fixed” by reading this or any column. In fact, they will not be “fixed” even if you read this column, watch Dr. Phil daily and visit a therapist on a weekly basis. These would be, at best, helpful catalysts. At worst, you’d be wasting a lot of time and using yet another means to avoid facing your issues.
Take up your life
The “answer” to your life’s issues (if there is one – you might have to go with an approximation), no matter how large they may appear to you, or how trivial they may appear to others, always rests first with you. Healing begins when you gather up your metal, brace yourself for change, and decide to “take a hold of yourself” and address head-on the problems and complexities you face. “Steeling yourself” is gathering your strength (even if it is minimal) to do what you must do to begin your own process of recovery, healing, or untangling from unhelpful entanglements.*
Even if you have been a victim, grew up in severely adverse circumstances, and both your parents were alcoholics while you were destitute and hungry, your healing and maturity pivots, not on more sympathy, more empathy, or more understanding. it is not “out there” in some book you are yet to read, or on some website you are yet to discover, some guru you are yet to run into, or on some lover you are looking to meet. It is ALWAYS dependent on your acknowledgment of your role in how your life has unfolded (your response to whatever has happened, is currently happening, and will happen to you) and will continue to unfold. It is dependent on you shedding yourself of ALL “victim thinking” and of ALL blame. It is ALWAYS dependent on you taking personal responsibility for your decisions as much as you are able at THIS time (now, today!). This is what I mean by “take up your life.”
I am very aware of this being an unpopular message in an age and a time when “quick-fixes” are offered at every click of the mouse, pointing of the remote, and book shelves abound with every Tom, Dick, and Sally’s offer to deliver you into a perfectly fulfilling life. Sorry, it just doesn’t work like that. Until you become your own “Knight in shining armor” you might always remain a “damsel in distress,” albeit an insightful one!
* For me, a helpful metaphor is to imagine a diver on the edge of a high diving board. He or she STEELS him or herself before taking the leap.
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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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