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Voice
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Unsafe relationships: how to tell you are in danger
21 Jul 2006 by Rod Smith / 9 Comments
Are you married to a man who could harm or kill you, or harm or kill someone you love? Are you dating a man who could murder you one day (or at least harm you physically)?
Dangerous relationships are apparently easier to endure than to address, so it is not surprising that the murder of a wife, an ex-wife or lover usually takes everyone by surprise. Secrecy, cover-up and denial are the hallmarks of toxic binds.
Some women could use a set of criteria to evaluate whether they are involved with a man capable of committing a violent crime against them. Accurate or not, the list could help a woman escape a potentially abusive relationship, or at least eradicate the virus before it destroys her.
Men capable of killing a “loved” one often leave a trail of early indicators, like rose petals around an open grave, before they commit a horrible crime. Ignoring them is understandable. It can also be very costly.
Perhaps someone’s life will be saved because this list, incomplete as it is, will assist someone toward getting appropriate help:
1. He tells you how to dress and insists you obey his wishes in this regard. If you resist he becomes irrationally hurt or angry. You are beyond choosing what you wear because your way of dressing has become his domain.
2. He checks up on you for “your own good.” He wants to know where you are, what you are doing and whom you are with. Time unaccounted becomes an accusation. You find yourself explaining or hiding everything, to avoid the laborious conflicts that inevitably ensue.
3. Any move toward independence (“normal” separateness on your part is rewritten as betrayal).
4. He tells you when you are happy, and rewrites what you feel if you are unhappy. He tries to keep you from your family, suggesting they are not good for you. “They are not good for. You think they are but I can see the way they upset you,” might be something he might say.
5. He tells you when you are hungry and what you like to eat. He says he knows you better than you know yourself.
6. He is jealous of your friendships, even those that predate him and those that are already over. He especially gets riled when you are close to your family and if you talk with enjoyment about things that occurred before you knew him.
7. Keeping peace is second nature to you. Ironically, the peace seldom lasts because he jumps on the smallest issues, magnifying them into major breaches of trust.
8. His highs are very high and his lows very low. It seems as if your response to him is inordinately powerful in changing or determining his mood. There are times when you cannot tell who is controlling who.
9. He pouts easily. He manipulates truth so you are taken by surprise. He plays “hurt puppy” if you’re not happy, thereby making your emotions his business. He expects you to always be glad to see him and to drop whatever you are doing to focus on him.
10. He demands his own way and has an inordinate perception of his own importance. He shows off his “power” by threatening to “talk to the manager,” when he is not given the service he thinks he deserves. He becomes irrationally angry at the smallest of inconveniences. He accuses you of “taking sides” if you suggest he is being unreasonable.
11. He lives on the edge of “white hot” anger, becoming very angry with children, animals and anyone or anything that doesn’t obey him. He hides this anger from people outside the “inner circle” and his mood quickly changes if an “outsider” appears so that his anger is kept secret.
12. He removes your car keys or your purse to restrict your movements and then denies doing so. If you catch him in the act he will say he is kidding or he will become angry enough to throw you off the subject.
13. In the early days of the relationship you felt like you were on a fast ride on an unpredictable roller coaster. Everything was too much, too soon, but you did not know how to say it. Any comment about wanting to “slow down” on your part was ignored. You felt invisible, as if you were just along for his ride.
For such men, winning is everything — losing control is not an option, even for those whom they proclaim to love the most. Please note: the presence of some of these indications and not necessarily all of them, are still indications of an unhealthy and potentially dangerous relationship.
(When this article first appeared in print I got the most amazing volume of response. Some of the tales were VERY sad and almost all revealed great bravery of women who, at the end of their respective ropes, decided to do something about their situations. Included in the responses was, on the one hand, a man who threatened me with violence, and, on the other hand, a woman anonymousely sent me roses. Whoever she is — thanks, they were beautiful. To the angry man all I can say is if you can threaten a newspaper therapist you do not even know, I wonder what you are doing to the people you do know).
Copyright, 2004 ROD SMITH, MSMFT
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He wants sex to see if we are “sexually compatible” before we can go on…
12 Jul 2006 by Rod Smith / 4 Comments
Reader’s Question: My boyfriend says we have to have sex to see if we are sexually compatible before he will continue seeing me. What do you think?
Rod’s Answer: What an old and ridiculous line. Move on! Your boyfriend is what I call a “pp” or “penis propelled.” If you really want to assess sexual compatibility it can be done without removing a single item of clothing!
First, compare credit reports and financial statements to see how each of you handles money. How you respect, use and save money, will exert more power over your long-term sexual compatibility than any immediate sexual encounter will indicate. It’s very hard to be passionate, faithful lovers when you are fighting over maxed-out credit cards.
Second: Compare your attitudes toward and your relationships with your immediate family. You can tell everything worth knowing about a person by how they respect and appreciate their parents and siblings. People who show little respect for their immediate family, or little desire to care for them, are unlikely to be a successful long-term husbands or wives, no matter how good or passionate they might be in a bedroom.
Third: Assess attitudes toward hard work. A shared, healthy attitude and high regard for hard, honest work, will give both of you useful insight into your long-term compatibility much more effectively than will the immediate experimentation with each other’s bodies.
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Finding your unique voice in ALL your relationships
29 Jun 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Every person has a voice that is designed, urging, even aching, for complete use and full expression. Some people have allowed their voices to be stolen, silenced or modified and such people might find it necessary to take time to find or re-establish the voice they have chosen to deny or ignore. There is nothing “spiritual” or humble about giving up your voice — not even God demands your silence!
Thankfully, suppressing a voice seldom kills it. It can usually be found even after years of denial and even cruelty. This is as true for individuals as it is of entire populations.
Having a voice means exerting your right to see, evaluate, and express who you are, and what you stand for, without apology. It means speaking up. It means telling the world who you are, and what you want. It involves telling the world who you are not and what you will and will not accept or tolerate. It is allowing your life to speak appropriately and boldly, without explanation or excuse.
When you find your voice, you will not allow people to speak for you, decide for you, and prescribe how you feel, think or see the world. Of course, you in turn will not take the voice of another away from them.
It is not loving to give up your voice, or to allow someone else to take your voice from you. People can hardly handle the power of their own voice, let alone handle the voice of two or three others.
Any person who will not hear what you have to say, or who tries to silence you, does not love you even if they say they do. It is never a loving act, except in very unusual circumstances (like severe illness), to stop someone from expressing who they are. Likewise, it is never a loving act to withhold your contribution to the world through maintaining your silence.
You were not created to be silent, and nor were you created to silence others. The world will benefit for hearing who you are, and what you have to say when the authentic voice within you is allowed growth and expression.
Part of owning a voice, and using it well involves the process of discovering how best to package and express your voice in a manner that facilitates others to hear who and what you are and what you have to say.
Please, compromise yourself, your talents and skills for no one. Be silenced or made “smaller,” rendered without a voice for no one. It is never worth it. There is no cause, no relationship, marriage or job, worthy of your silence.
There is no person of any rank, no spouse, boss or spiritual leader deserving of your downplaying who and what you are. It is those with dark motives, who seek for you to be less, minimized, diminished or silenced. Walk away from such small-mindedness, even when and if it is costly to do so.
Loving, good people will celebrate your strength, encourage your freedom and admire your talents. Stick with such people. Stay with those who enlarge your world, not restrict or contain it. Live fully, love fully, and speak fully – while embracing all the freedom life offers.
I am weary of men and women, irrespective of who or what they are, who hold others captive, especially in the name of love; of spiritual “leaders” who are afraid of gifted people; of bosses who silence talented people lest their own inadequacies be revealed.
If you live above, and beyond, the damaging jealousies that surround you, you will stimulate the dreams of everyone in your circle of influence, and make your own dreams come true before your very eyes – and the world will hear your voice.
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Entitled, spoilt son (17) — please help: my response / see May 24th, 2006
13 Jun 2006 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
To the father of the entitled teenager (17) who lives rather ungratefully under his parent’s generous roof?
You son is popular with others and therefore he has it within him to have a fulfilling child/parent relationship. At 17 he can enter a meaningful discussion about what’s bothering you. When addressing him, reflect on your experiences as the parent rather than on how unwise or ungrateful you perceive him to be.
It is not too late to refuse to do for him the things he appears to take for granted. Make such a stand understanding he is resourceful enough to get what he needs without you.
Be sure to establish what it is that you want before you try to correct his errant ways. If you really want a meaningful father/son relationship, first establish what that means to you.
“I’d like some time on a weekly basis to talk with you face-to-face,” is reasonable. “You are never home so you can go out once a month,” is probably unreasonable.
Do not fall for the lie that your son’s difficulties are somehow directly related to your failings. Your son is talented and young enough to make his own mistakes. The last thing he needs is a dad who feels responsible for his every error.
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Am I losing my mind? My life is out of control…
06 Jun 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Q: I had a miserable childhood and an even more a miserable life. I never get along with my family I am what you call a black sheep. I am now married and have one child. My marriage is on the rocks. My child and career are draining every bit of energy from me. I am in debt up to my eyeballs. My husband has a gambling problem! My credit cards are maxed out and I am trying to pay all the bills. I have no time for myself and even if I tried it still is not enough. I am losing my mind?
A: You have a very good mind and are apparently a high-functioning person: you work, can write a good letter, care for a child while under duress, and so there is always hope.
Redirecting these very skills, I believe you can find the help you need to gain some semblance of control over your destiny. Find a credit counselor at a church or place of worship; join a small group of healthy people who are working on their own lives. Make some legal plans so you are not victim of your husband’s bad habits. Things might start to change when you begin to move beyond victim thinking.
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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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