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Manipulation
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Triggers – hit hardest in intimate relationships
17 Apr 2006 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Have you had feelings come over, even overwhelm you, that you recognize from childhood? Has background music, the whiff of a particular perfume, seemed to emotionally cripple you? Unresolved childhood traumas will almost certainly visit victims as they get older.
Sadly, it is in intimacy that negative associations of childhood most strongly stir. It is in the beauty of loving relationships that the memory of an inappropriate or abusive moment tugs eerily from a distance. A forced closeness years ago now hinders you when you long for adult intimacy. It is in love that the traumas of childhood raise ugly heads. So intricate is our human makeup that intimate connections stir positive and also negative memories. It’s negative triggers that are indiscriminate, often unyielding, forming debilitating links to the hidden pain of our lives.
Tensions with a spouse might have nothing to do with the spouse but with what’s unresolved from our adolescents. We fight yesterday’s battles today, with the “wrong” person. The conflict is an attempt to settle childhood scores. There’s benefit to discovering relationship struggles often have their origins a generation from where we might seek resolution. Examination, prayerful consideration of our bundle of triggers can defuse them and peace might be found.
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Husband denied then admitted affair….
19 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 6 Comments
I read your “Jack and Jill” column last week and was pleased to see that I am not alone. I found out that my husband of 14 years had been having an affair for months. He denied the affair and through pure digging he admitted it. When I bring the affair up he gets angry and tells me to get over it otherwise our marriage is never going to work. He says I have to control my emotions and I must believe him when he says it is over. He says I have to stop going through his personal slips, his cell phone bill and that he feels like he has no privacy. He has turned that situation around after begging me to please forgive him and promising to do anything to make our marriage work and believe in him again. (Letter edited)
It is not your lack of control but his that landed you both in this unfortunate place. It is his lies, not your discovery of them that eroded your capacity to trust. A regretful man would invite you to talk about it as much as you want and to “dig” anywhere you please. Don’t permit further abuse – it was not you who broke the marriage bond.
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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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My boyfriend tells me what clothes to wear and it annoys me. What must I do?
14 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 26 Comments
Buy him a mannequin and flee! He can dress the dummy in whatever clothes he deems suitable as often as he pleases. The mannequin will give him the total control he wants over you, and, since dummies are brainless, he will be able to win all arguments and keep “her” in total submission.
Don't feed jelousy....
That you ask the question suggests you are putting up a fight and resisting his advances on your brain. Small-minded men (any who dictate what “their” women wear, to whom they talk, how they spend and arrange their time) usually flee any sign of independent thinking on a woman’s part if, at first, they cannot kill it. Strong women frighten them since they confuse control and “love.”
Don’t fall for it. Love and control are not even in the same family. A man who wants to dictate how you dress will also want to tell you how to think, feel, and see before long. Men who want to control “their” women do so because they are rarely capable of feeling in control of anything else. A healthy man will leave your clothing choices up to you unless you specifically elicit his opinion.
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The myth of love at first sight
22 Jan 2006 by Rod Smith / 4 Comments
Loving someone is about seeking his or her highest interests while, at the same time, not ignoring your own. Love and control cannot co-exist in the same relationship.
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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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