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Manipulation
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Reactive? Responsive? One usually hurts, one usually helps heal…
17 May 2009 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Reactivity in relationships (short-fuse living, attacking, failing to listening, assuming you know what others are saying anyway, harboring damages, gossiping, transmitting unhelpful or damaging information, being sarcastic) usually hurts others and our relationships.
Get out of the middle!
Responsiveness, on the other hand (embracing and listening to what others are saying before responding or acting, allowing the full story to be told without making judgments, holding onto ourselves in the face of trouble or anxiety and the anxieties of others, not falling when all the other dominoes are falling) usually helps heal others and our relationships.
Yet it is important to realize that responsive people or those persons whose behavior is usually characterized by being responsive, did not get there by sheer willfulness or determination. Becoming a “non-anxious presence” is the result of the long, and often very slow work of making peace with every possible relationship and human connection (past and present) a person has. Reactivity (anxiety) and Responsiveness (non-anxiety) are not willful choices but rather the product of individual journeys.
Finally, reactive behavior and responsive behavior are not “bad” and “good” respectively. A person can be display both. A parent can be viciously reactive if a child is threatened (appropriate) and yet warm, nurturing, and protective toward the same child all in an instant.
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He preyed on me…..
06 Nov 2008 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“I read the 26 points and most of them relate to my situation. I was widowed 3 years ago after 30+ years of marriage. I was so very lost and it was suggested by a neighbor that a friend of his could help me with my plight. Two years on I am totally and utterly miserable, but feel unable to leave the situation. I don’t know why – perhaps its because I have never been alone to ‘find the real me’. He bombarded me with flowers, gifts, my son thought he’d walked into a florest shop! Very slowly he started to close in by saying that he didn’t see that much of me and I felt guilty – so eventually he was there every single day from 2pm onwards 7 days a week. If I went out to see a girlfriend during my day off from work he would ring me several times and if I didn’t hear or didn’t answer he would sulk (pout) and get ‘stroppy’ (ill-tempered). He accused me of having affairs with my colleagues, he read my emails, checked my phone. Before this all happened he wanted me to buy a house with him 1/3rd him 2/3rds me. (He got divorced last year 2007).
“Every holiday we have been on he has more or less ruined. If I fall asleep in the car he suddenly brakes to wake me up – says he is worried that I may injure myself if we have an accident! – my children hate him – he is coarse and abusive at times but comes across as a very nice man to others. His language is foul at times, he ripped his shirt off and grabbed a knife saying ‘use it on me’. His friends think he is Mr. Wonderful – this is just a short list of things he has done – he has hurt me physically but the worst thing of all is that he has played with my mind. I don’t know if its me half of the time because he says, ‘you don’t mean that, this is what you mean.’
“I believe he ‘preyed’ on me during the early stages of my loss and I was so alone I was grateful. He really did seem a nice person, but he has turned out to be something quite the opposite. I am still with him but don’t think it will be for much longer as he is getting fed up with me not making a commitment to him. I will not sell my house and buy one with him.
“I feel dreadful most days – so whoever reads this – please – if you know or know of someone who has recently been bereaved – tell them to beware – there are men out there that prey on the vulnerable.”
Four pointers to assist reader:1. While this is not helpful now, a good rule of thumb is to NOT enter any new relationship until at least a year has passed after a divorce or the loss of a spouse. I believe one should wait for at least three years after a thirty-year marriage.
2. When things are “too good to be true” they almost always are. Wanting you home ALL the time, waking you up when you’re asleep in the car, checking your phone – all these are warning signs that you have met an abusive and controlling man. Control and love cannot co-exist. Run the other way no matter how many flowers he sends you.
3. Your future is not in this man’s hands, and nor is your future in the hands of any man or any relationship. You suggest he is “getting fed up” because you will not commit to him. It is time for your “fed-up-ness” to drive you to some important changes you want. Your emotional well-being is more important to you and you do not have to wait around until he decides he’s ready to make a change. Ask your adult children to help you get out of this situation as soon as possible. I am sure they will more than run to your help.
4. Expose ALL violent behavior, all abusive behavior – no matter how “nice” the man is to others. No person ever deserves to go through what you are enduring.
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You advise women to stand up to jealous husbands, but The Bible says submit….
06 Dec 2007 by Rod Smith / 15 Comments
You advise women to stand up to their jealous or controlling husbands. Don’t you know the Bible says wives must submit to husbands?
I do. Paul says, “wives submit to your husbands,” and one can safely assume Paul is addressing all of his writings to both men and women. A husband who loves according to Paul’s descriptions of love is both safe and worthy of submission! Such a man will indeed not be going out of his way to secure the obedience of others. Beware of any man whose knowledge of Scripture begins, and ends, with “wives submit to your husbands.” Loving men (leaders, bosses, teachers) have no desire (or craving) for the submission (obedience) of others. “Love seeks no power, and therefore has it,” says Alan Paton.
Please write, I'm reading...
Submitting (“giving in”) to jealousy or controlling or abusive behavior is certainly not very helpful to the marriage, the husband or wife. The Bible doesn’t require anyone to submit (accept, obey) anyone’s pathological behavior, whether it is from a spouse, pastor, or any leader. To resist (stand up to) pathological behavior, however (wherever, whenever) it rears its ugly head, is to do the perpetrator (spouse, pastor, leader) a loving service.Submitting to damaging behavior can hardly result in helpful long-term outcomes.
Sadly, I have seen many a woman hang onto the hope that the husband will eventually change (stop drinking, beating, swearing, and go to church!) if she could just learn to really “submit.” I know women who believe their husband’s abuse is deserved – a “reward” for the failure to really submit. If abusive men (yes jealousy and control are forms of abuse) were as interested in Paul’s injunction to men: “love your wife as Christ loved the Church,” we’d be pleasantly engaged in a completely different discussion.
No. The monster (jealousy) will not go away if continually fed. It only gets more controlling, more demanding, and more viscous when it is not appeased.
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Questions re: What to ask a counselor or sex therapist…. and a digression about sex and Christians…
29 Nov 2007 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Reader asks: There’s a counselor who works out of my wife’s church counseling center who is a Christian sex therapist. If I decide to consult with him, what sort of questions should I ask him in an initial contact? What might I expect from a competent counselor in an initial visit?
Rod responds: I’d be more concerned about what the counselor asks you than I am about what you are planning to ask him.
Is he (the counselor) focused on CHALLENGE and GROWTH primarily of the individual and then of the couple – or is trapped in the idea of trying to be so empathic that it will take weeks or even months before you and your wife can really get to talk?
Has he studied David Schnarch? Avoid him if he has not.
Is he himself FREE, or is he anxious, and highly-strung?
What does his theology tell him about who women are? Are women COMPLETELY equal with men and if not, I’d avoid him. Fully mature sex is impossible with (perceived) un-equals. If a man perceives himself as above a woman or “in charge” of his wife his very mindset it robbing him of the very joy and sexual fulfillment he is seeking.
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Portrait of a successful or enriched woman…
17 Nov 2007 by Rod Smith / 13 Comments
The successful, or enriched woman …..
1. Knows she never has to participate in sexual activity that she does not want; and knows that her body is her own and private temple which she shares, even in marriage, only when it is by her own sacred, deliberate choice.
2. Does not lose herself in her marriage, or to motherhood, or in taking care of her family, but who is able to develop a strong, vibrant sense of self even while being a loving wife, mother, friend and professional in her career of choice.
3. Does not allow herself to be taken for granted, to be sworn at, to be victimized by anyone, not husband, children, in-laws, siblings, parents or co-workers.
4. Lives above manipulation, domination and intimidation, and has relationships that are therefore pure and open, mutual and respectful.
5. Is able to articulate her deepest dreams, desires, and fears to those whom she loves, without fearing a response of indifference or rejection.
6. Is a woman, who, in the midst of the pressures of work, motherhood and marriage, maintains her unique and powerful voice.
7. Is able to delay gratification for the greater good of her family and community.
8. Has a playful, open, adult relationship with her mother and/or woman in her mother’s age group, and is therefore free of feelings of jealousy and envy with her peers.
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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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