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Divorce
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Things dads can do to get closer to their children (requested re divorced dads but applies to all)
29 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 3 Comments
Embark on ruthless personal inventory. If you want to know your children better, the first building block is to know yourself better. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking this is a task you have already accomplished. Many men who think they know themselves well are really quite familiar with the person whom they wished they were. Your children are unlikely, beyond about the age of four, to be impressed with who you think you are, while also possessing really good takes on who you actually are.
Every negative habit, memory, unresolved grievance, prejudice, “hot button” that you keep hidden within you will act like a filter and distort what and who your children are in your eyes (and impact your other intimate relationships).
This does not mean you have to spill your guts and divulge every dark secret in some small group (although this would not be a bad idea if you can find the right kind of group) but it does mean that you have to stop fooling yourself about who and what you are. Come to terms with the fact that our children are seldom as impressed with us as we ourselves are.
Appreciate that just because you want to get closer to your children it does not mean they, at the same time, will have similar inclinations toward you. If you are insistent (pushy, demanding) with a reluctant child, your attempts are likely to be counter-productive. Being close to dad in the heart-to-heart, arm-over-shoulder kind of way is the fodder of sitcoms and movies than it is a part of real life.
Real-life-close-to-dad is more about the capitalizing on conflict and turning it into a means of greater understanding and love. It’s about being committed to learning from each other, and long periods of silence. It is about sometimes feeling used, sometimes feeling taken for granted. It is about learning to appropriately speak up. It is about knowing what to address and when and how to address it. It is about knowing what to ignore. It is about knowing when to be loud and when to be soft. It is about knowing when to be visible and when to be in the background.
Television sitcoms can go from conflict to resolution in thirty minutes (including six to eight minutes of commercials). In real life, successfully loving children can take forty years.
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Son (13) comes home from dad’s house with bruises…..
14 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
Reader’s Letter: “I am divorced but live with a wonderful man and have a very stable and loving home environment for my son (13). My ex-husband and his new wife have boys aged 17 and 13. All three boys get on very well. My son arrived home from the weekend with his dad and showed me a black bruise on his arm. When I asked him how he got the bruise I was told that his dad had made a new rule: if the boys don’t brush their teeth by 9.30am, don’t pick up clothes, or use bad language, the boys are allowed to punch each other as punishment. So my son was punched in the arm by the seventeen-year-old for not brushing his teeth. I contacted my ex-husband about this and he told me to keep my nose out of his affairs how he runs his home. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.”
Everything pertaining to your son is always your business – keep your nose in it. Meet with your son’s stepmother, who will surely share your concern, and request this barbaric approach to cleaner teeth, rooms and mouths, stops! Such behavior among three boys can do none any possible good. But be wise; the children do get along. Be unrelenting in seeking your son’s absolute safety. “Running his home” is about who vacuums the house, who takes out the trash – abusing your son does not quite fit into that category!
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Seven “essentials” before marrying someone with children?
21 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 14 Comments
1. Plan several sessions of “hard” talking with your potential spouse. It is essential that you temporarily forget the romantic elements of your relationship to talk business. Blending families is one of life’s most difficult challenges, which is further compounded when both parties have children.
Enjoy it? Pass it on...
2. Don’t try to be the stepparent before you legally occupy the role. Prematurely playing a role will create problems once you legitimately occupy it. It is essential you do not assume roles you don’t occupy. If a child (or future spouse) treats you as a parent, it doesn’t mean you are one. Troubles brew when people push themselves, or are pushed by others, into roles they do not occupy. (This is true even beyond families!)
3. Bridges are best built before they are needed. It is essential that you insist on multiple meetings with both parents of ALL the children before you consider marriage. These meetings will focus on methods of co-parenting in order to secure everyone’s best advantage. If implementing such meetings seems overwhelming to you, you are probably heading for a minefield of countless unexpected, unwelcome complications – that will seem (believe it or not) even too large for love to overcome! What is avoided (denied, glossed over, minimized) pre-wedding will rise like a rabid monster quite soon after the wedding.
4. Financial integrity is as important as sexual fidelity! It is essential that you look into every detail of all financial records of your spouse-to-be and offer your own finances for similar scrutiny — before you plan a wedding. Persons who cannot responsibly handle money are unlikely to be able to handle the pressures of thriving within a blended family. If a would-be spouse suggests information* about his or her finances are off-limits to you, wipe the dust off your feet and depart, no matter how much love you may feel. Authentic love, apart from having many other facets, is also measured in the degree of financial partnering* (not necessarily blending) is established between lovers. Resilient love seeks the wise, open use of combined resources. Because blending families also often involves complex financial arrangements (child support and so forth, divorce costs, education bills for children of a former marriage) hiding the details from a would-be spouse is exceedingly unfair to all involved.*
5. Flee “blamers.” An adult who blames their former spouse (or parents, or childhood, the new political order) for everything will also, before long, blame you for everything.
6. Avoid people who cannot engage in civil conversations with an ex, with their parents, or their children.
7. Getting Johnny (or Mary) a stepparent will not ease his dissatisfaction with the divorce, school, or his craving for a “real family.” It is essential to understand that getting married will not solve any but the most superficial current family issues. Blending families is likely to unveil and exacerbate more problems than it solves.
This said, and so much of it sounds negative, blended families hold the potential to enrich and empower all the people involved. Some of the healthiest, happiest families I have met in many years of meeting with families (in all manner of circumstances) have been blended families!
* A reader kindly pointed out that my column suggests finances ought to be blended. I do not believe this is always wise or necessary. I do believe the couple MUST be OPEN about the details or all financial matters. See comment here: http://rodesmith.com/2008/01/20/reader-comments-on-blending-finances/
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Three poisons for love: Manipulation, Intimidation, and Domination
15 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 40 Comments
When people have to use intimidation, manipulation or domination, the relationship is already spoiled or poisoned. It has become a power play of control. Redeeming such a relationship is possible with the implementation of a wise plan, strongly re-defined boundaries, enduring commitment, and the possibility of a time of separation in order that perspective might be gained.
Stay OUT of control...
Willingness and desire to be together, equality between people and complete mutuality are the hallmarks of healthy relationships. Where any form of strong-arm tactics are used, the relationship has already taken a turn to become something harmful to both the parties.
Each of these relationship-poisons (manipulation, domination and intimidation) can be very subtle, coming in different shapes, sizes, and intensities.
Here are some of the evidences of manipulation, intimidation, and domination in a relationship:
1. The relationship has been kept on an unequal footing in order that one person might keep power over another. In a severely controlling relationship, both persons might have forgotten there are choices at all.
2. One person tries to get what he or she wants without declaring what is wanted. In attempting to get what the one person wants, both persons are in some way diminished.
3. One person does not see the other as totally free.
4. One person tries to get what he or she wants through threats or withdrawal.5. It is expected that every move, thought, and feeling will be reported at least from the less-dominant person to the other. If one person is unwilling to tell all, it is assumed there is something to hide.
6. One person is not free to make plans without consulting or getting permission from the other.
7. One person in the relationship continually evaluates and examines the commitment and love of the other.
8. The dominant person tells the other how they should feel and usually re-scripts any division or disagreement into the appearance of unity.
9. One person feels at liberty to speak for both people and then, is offended when the partner wants to express his or her own views.
10. Desire for self-expression or a distinct voice (by one) is considered betrayal or a lack of trust (by the other).
11. One person expects unilateral support for his or her opinions, choices and desires, declaring somewhat of an attitude which says: If you say you love me then you have to love everything about me, under all conditions, and all of the time.
12. Difference in opinion or having different interests is considered a lack of love, or a lack of respect and commitment.
Simple definitions and a metaphor which might be helpful in considering the three “cancers” of relationships:
Manipulation: playing chess with another person or with people. Maneuvering as if life were an attempt to checkmate others into loving us or doing what we want.
Domination: playing chess with another person or with people as in manipulation. The difference is the dominator has removed the opponent’s pieces without declaring so in the first place.
Intimidation: playing chess with another person or with people where winning and losing comes with either the threat of punishment or actual punishment.
Healthy Relationships: There is no element of either winning or losing; they are not a game of chess at all and are free of tactics and agenda.
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Jack was unfaithful and Jill can’t get over it…….
13 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“Jack” and “Jill” have been married for twelve years. “Coincidences” lead Jill to stumble on Jack’s affair. She is “mortified.” He confesses. He wants to “get on with my life and marriage.” Jack is angry because Jill can’t “get over” the affair. She wants to talk about it “all the time.” He cannot understand why she doesn’t trust him or want intimacy. He says she can’t forgive. (Theme from several letters)
Dear Jack: Thank God your wife talks with you at all. Be surprised if she is ever willingly intimate again. Your betrayal challenges the foundation of your lives. Forgiving you, and desiring you, have very little in common. Marriage without fidelity is not a marriage. You are lucky to still have one.
Dear Jill: Trusting Jack is up to you, it is not up to him! I’d suggest “guarded trust” for about two years. Request, if you are up to it, that Jack arrange for you to meet the “other woman” so that, in your presence, he can tell her he really wants his marriage and that he was at fault for deceiving and hurting you. Decide how long you need to refrain from physical intimacy. Challenge yourself not to let it linger indefinitely. Marriage without sexual intimacy is not a marriage – and he is lucky he still has one.
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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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