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Divorce
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Single mother writes: thank you for acknowledging our bravery and struggles…..
21 Oct 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“Thank you on behalf all my many single mother friends for the article published yesterday. Thank you for acknowledging our bravery and struggles. Thank you understanding the many roles we play and the many difficulties we overcome because of our love for our children. Thank you for noting it is near impossible to have a romantic social life as solo parents. Thank you for listing and understanding what women do not need in a potential partner or in friendly advice. I am 50 and the mother of two sons whose fathers disappeared when the going got tough.
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
“I have been a single mom for 32 years, and despite the challenges, long hours, and little thanks associated with the job of single mom, I have been blessed to have my sons and love them dearly. I am also proud of having still managed to forge a career, own my home, a car, and travel the world. I have recently studied to become a Life Coach. I just sit with the thought that my children did not chose to be born and hence, are entitled to the best Mom and woman I can be. One thing I know is that my son’s will make wonderful Fathers.”
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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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He’s (She’s) divorced! How can I know he’s (she’s) ready to date…..
20 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
How to know it’s “a go” when dating someone who is divorced…
1. His/her divorce has been finalized (that means completed) for more than a year.
2. He/she takes appropriate responsibility for his or her part in the breakdown of the former marriage.
3. He/she wants a healthy spiritual, emotional, and intellectual relationship with a diverse range of people before becoming intimately involved with any one person.
4. He/she is involved in his/her children’s lives and willingly, generously, and punctually pays child support.
It will be a rough ride if red flags are ignored.....
5. He/she places a high priority on rearing his/her own children, while being respectful toward your children and your relationship with them.
6. He/she can conduct meaningful conversations with the former spouse about matters pertaining to the children. That the divorce is REAL is clear – so there are no intimate, or “throw-back” conversations.
7. He/she is very respectful of marriage, sex, the opposite sex, despite the previous breakdown.
8. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with his/her former spouse or persons associated with the former marriage.
9. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with your former spouse or persons associated with your former marriage.
10. He/she has deep regard for the time and patience required to establish new relationships and is willing allow necessary time for intimacy to properly develop. -
Can abuse stop?
13 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“Can abusive behavior like controlling behavior, badgering, jealousy about other relationships, monitoring things like a partner’s phone, and physical pushing, shoving behavior and even more violent outbursts stop?”
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Yes – but often not within the same entanglement. With close counsel and strong third party monitoring (at least for a period of time) the perpetrator can gain insight, grow, and self-monitor his or her use of unhelpful and destructive interpersonal behaviors. While it is NEVER the victim’s responsibility (no one is sufficiently powerful to make another abusive) a lot can hinge on the degree of “fed-up-ness” within the victim.
Abuse (all categories) continues and intensifies when the victim covers for the perpetrator, “rewrites” the behavior, excuses it, or when the victim feels he or she deserves to be poorly treated.
Most perpetrators will back off (at least temporarily) when met with a sound and early refusal to allow an abusive repertoire within the relationship’s behavior cycle.
It is never the victim who causes the abusive behavior, but the victim must immediately remove him or herself from the abuse (which is seldom easy because people are attracted to persons who are similarly relationally mature or immature) or the behavior will intensify.
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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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