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A reader writes, and your comments are encouraged…..
05 Aug 2008 by Rod Smith in Difficult Relationships / 3 Comments
“I am the ‘other woman’ in a relationship. The sad thing is I have been single for the better part of nine years. I have had three serious relationships with eligible single men. These relationships lasted anywhere from a year to two years. I ended all of them because the relationships were headed nowhere. There were no talks of marriage and these men were going about their lives making decisions that let me know I was not even being considered in the future as a part of their lives.
“I have been seeing a married man for the last three months. This man has treated me better than the three relationships (single men) put together. It may be true that the relationship has no future, but because he is married I don’t expect anything. It may be true he is so attentive and good to me because he is married, but at least he recognizes he should do something to compensate.
“I guess my point is I have tried dating single men and I don’t get the same response. It is painful on weekends when he goes home. It is painful when holidays roll around and I’m alone. It is painful but the pain is temporary also.”
About the Author: Rod Smith
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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.
Idiots – always adults, children were surprisingly patient, – would make me repeat sentences as if a repeat performance of the humiliating uncoordinated gesticulations, my arms and legs flying in all directions, would make for an easier delivery the second time. That I’d just spent every ounce of energy trying to cough it up was lost on them. That I was already thoroughly humiliated was something to which they were blind.“Practice, practice,” they’d say as if stutterers simply didn’t speak enough. “Think before you speak. Now – try that again,” they would declare slowly and loudly as if I was stupid and deaf. These thoughtless people were ignorant of just how much stutterers do think. Too much – which is central to the issue!
If I’d known at twelve or thirteen that the day would come when I’d make a career of public speaking I might have strolled off a high-rise building.
Now it is quite easy to hide. I am very comfortable with crowds.
It’s asking driving directions or ordering food at a drive through where it gets tricky. Sitting in a cozy circle waiting for my turn to introduce myself sends my blood-pressure through the roof. The ticket attendant on the London underground can render me dumb after I’ve just spent days addressing a room full of graduate level adults about Family Systems Theory. I know. It sounds ridiculous.
I was almost immobilized the first time I saw Thulani put himself “on duty” in the event he needed to be my mouthpiece. He did it. No one asked him or appointed him. He just did it.
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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.
Our house is the same, but instead of painting from end to end and back again, I am the guy constantly cleaning, – and, it’s hard to tell.
Where I cleaned and swept and dusted and vacuumed and sponged and sterilized yesterday there are scooters and bicycles (boys), mail in piles (me), books (boys and me), newspapers (me), magazines (me), and socks (boys and Max, the Chihuahua).
Turn my back and the boys and Max are at it again – enjoying life as boys (and a dog) while I find being a cleaning lady quite an exhausting challenge.
There is a point of no return, I’ve noticed, or at least a point of the chaos where I feel compelled to let it all go for a while and I throw up my hands and join in the fun of trashing the place.
But when I clean I like to think I’m just like the guy painting the Bridge, which I can only imagine must be a slow and methodical task.
I do it room by room, starting at one end, the front, in the event that I soon lose interest – then, at least, the front room is somewhat in order. I push it (trash, magazines, books, socks, clothes) all back from the living room, through the piano room, then into the TV room until everything lands up in the kitchen.
Once it hits the kitchen I separate out what’s Max’s – he’s has his own set of toys with which he ruins the house – what’s Nate’s, what’s Thulani’s, and what can be recycled, dumped, restacked on bookshelves, placed in drawers, hung on a hanger, or filed in the “important documents” file I keep losing.
We moved into “122” (creatively named for its street number and which has had very few updates since it was built in 1886) when Thulani was about two – and I have been getting it in order ever since. Nate joined us in 2002. Max, in 2009. The house- attachment, at least for the boys and Max, is strong. When I talk of selling Thulani reminds me that Rhino, the husky that was on the run for nine months and returned to die within a few weeks after we reconnected, is buried in an Air France first class cabin blanket just outside of the kitchen door. Nate reminds me of where the fat goldfish is buried and Thulani ends the litany with his inability to think of living in a house without the large tree in the front yard where he has his brother (and Max) have “peed like boys” (and a dog) for the past several years.
So. I’ll go on painting and, before you send me letters about giving the boys chores and responsibilities and assigning daily tasks and getting on top of it before it gets on top of me let me advise that you are barking up the wrong tree (sorry, Max for the dog metaphor) because we do have all that in place and it does work here and there and off and on.
I know, I know. Consistency is the name of the game for parenting and let me tell you, the ONLY thing that is consistent here is the need to keep going room by room with or without the boys (and Max) to get this little bridge painted one stretch at a time so the world can see just how organized and decent our lives are here at our beloved “122.”
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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.
I am regularly aware that:- I was discouraged from playing soccer in the “front” yard (in view of the neighbors) with the servant’s children. While this may seem insignificant in the light of other much more severe problems rising from racism, it was huge for me as a child on several fronts. I loved the children and I loved soccer even more. They were excellent soccer players.
- I did attend a segregated school as did almost all white South Africans while there did exist some church schools that were integrated even under Apartheid. I vividly recall my school principal scolding the entire student body (over a thousand white boys) because a domestic worker (a black adult man) was seen walking in the neighborhood wearing a school blazer.
- Although, by no means wealthy, I was waited on hand and foot by a full-time servant.
- In the late 80s I was warned not to pray publicly for Prisoner “Nelson” Mandela from my church pulpit.
- A member of my family did balk at my request that I bring black children to his home-swimming pool to swim.
- Even as late as 1987 I was embarrassed that a young black boy whom I’d “helped” in his squatter camp had shown up at my door unannounced. I recall wondering what the neighbors would think seeing a child arriving at the home for a social visit and not to work in the yard.While I am aware that these are piddly problems in the light of what millions faced under the Apartheid regime, I am also aware that these factors in my immediate environment “shaped” me into believing perverse things (like in my own superiority and in “their” inferiority) about persons of other race groups. More significantly, I am frequently reminded that my children and I could not have shared life as we now do if we were still living in the era of Apartheid.
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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.
That’s the upside.
We are a 10-hour-drive to the nearest coast – and, most of the east coast beaches are not worth the drive. The west coast, which has many wonderful beaches comparable to where I was reared, takes three full days of driving to reach.
Being landlocked is one thing but another is the weather. Indiana weather is erratic, neurotic, and downright psychotic.
Days ago I could’ve (but I didn’t) ice-skated across the street. Now, as I write, there’s a small lake in the street next to the sidewalk from last night’s rain. The weather is so brutal and extreme (it is as hot as blazes in the summers) that when we do drive anywhere (there are no grocery stores in walking distance) the streets are often full of potholes making some of America’s finest suburban streets resemble stretches of road you’d find in a rural stretch of South Africa’s Wild Coast. So, I am exaggerating but really not too much. Washington Boulevard is a challenge to drive right now, you have got to dodge potholes and loose pavement or, unless you drive a tank, you stand to severely damage your suspension.
But I do love living here. My neighbors are some of my best friends. My children are free and safe in the neighborhood and everyone knows everyone’s children. Even as I write Joseph (born a week or so before Thulani) from down the street has wondered into the house and it is quite likely he will eat with us, stay the night, and then wander down back down the street to his home sometime in the morning. His mom and I will talk sometime between now and nightfall unless he of course chooses to wonder off home and be gone just as quickly as he showed up.
Potholes and crazy weather won’t send us running, although we will drive to church in the morning – even though it is really close. I’m not sure I want to brave the elements which could be a snow-storm, an ice storm, the threat of a tornado – or a little or a lot of each. What else could you expect during March in Indiana?
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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. Of course you can go baby-stuff-shopping, get a room painted, stencil yellow ducks on the wall – if you know long enough in advance your child is coming. But painting a bedroom with ducks and rainbows and a pot of gold, and getting a truck load of stuff from your local one-stop baby emporium will only fill your home with a lot of weird and wonderful, and mostly unnecessary, equipment.
Children interrupt everything. It is the child who is really ready to teach you, whether you are or not. Once he arrives he will become the hub of all your scheduling. You will be fine with this because the child is not an interruption to your life but rather, from this point on, central to it.
The baby will make you ready and you can’t really prepare for the baby until he is breathing in the crib right next to your bed.
Life inside the Smith household
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3 Comments
Nancy
Disappointment has a way of lowering expectations causing its bearer to settle for less. I will pray for you that you experience mutual love in your next serious relationship.
05 Aug 2008 01:08 pm
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
“I feel compelled to respond to your letter from the ‘other woman’ in a relationship with a married man.
My husband conducted a two-year extra-marital affair after many years of marriage. We survived the shocking discovery of my husband’s infidelity, but trust and respect, once broken, are difficult things to re-build. Understanding why a husband strays from a happy and long-standing marriage is totally impossible.
Why did your reader end the three previous relationships that ‘were headed nowhere’? She says that there was no talk of marriage yet reveals total disrespect for marriage by her actions. Why is she now conducting an illicit affair expecting nothing? Perhaps she needs to carefully consider her apparent fear of long-term commitment and the motives of both parties.
She needs to consider the damage that she and the married man are doing, not only to themselves but to his wife and family. She selfishly asserts that he is attentive and good to her, yet tacitly accepts that he is a cheat who, by his liaison with her, desecrates what should be the most important relationship in his life. My advice to your reader is to get out of this affair now, before hearts are broken by discovery and disclosure, and seek the counselling that she obviously needs.”
Received by Email and posted by Rod on behalf of the writer….
06 Aug 2008 12:08 pm
Kathryn
I am a quiet sort of person normally. Today when I was doing my bills and checking accounts as usual. I realised I didn’t have money I thought I had to fix the car this month. Can do it in two weeks, but other bills have to be paid first and I simply forgot about them because I made the mistake of thinking I had made the final payments. They are next month not this month. Horror! I won’t be able to tell my partner because he will be so angry and will yell at me followed by weeks of the silent treatment. This makes me afraid to tell him.
I am unsure about how others see me. Sometimes I feel awkward in public situations. And I say stupid sometimes silly things that make me seem odd, or different to them. I have no friends to speak of not really, so I am alone most of the time with no girlfriends to chat with about happy or sad times. I am so nervous when trying to be good that I lose the ability to seem normal to most people.
I currently live with someone who has these problems and has recently quit. I am not sure he quit because of him or because of me. He still smokes, now he diets all the time and enjoys bragging about his losing weight. I have lost over a stone (14 lbs) and he just ignores me when I say anything to him about my achievements. How this is phrased is he says “I am losing weight look at this, I can wear this or that etc.” “I say that is good, you are looking very handsome I have lost too about 3 lbs every week” He says nothing just walks away.
Emotionally he makes me feel stupid and small. He talks over me, will not let me say what I am thinking, or just leaves the room when I am taking to him. I can be watching a moving and then says as he is turning the channel, you aren’t watching this are you. He never looks me in the face. He is a bit younger than me (8 years), and physically smaller than me. He isn’t as educated as I am but I don’t care about these things all that matters is that we have a good relationship. This is the one thing I don’t have. While he makes plans about how we will live together somewhere else, he is buying all new gadgets and seems to have an endless pot of funds. While I struggle an extra 100 can break the bank. Like it did today he resents helping and sharing or giving are not in his vocabulary. We don’t talk about important matters until I simply can’t take anymore. Then he doesn’t respond, it’s like pulling teeth to get him to talk.
When he are on holiday he says what a good time he had when the whole time I have been silent, in tears alone, and lonely with no one to talk to. As many of the things he does are with his friends leaving me behind. If I try to come along it’s like I am butting in to his plans. Everything we do is up to him; he will ask me if I want to do something. I will say what I would like but to keep the peace I do what he wants.
Others opinions of me matter certainly respect matters. But I don’t know if he respects me he says he loves me then why don’t his actions show it? Am I expecting too much? I have a low opinion of myself but I do try so very hard to do the best I can. It takes very little to make me content, I need very little in this life, but I wonder if I am asking something from this man that he simply cannot or will not give to me.
I like that he has friends, but since I moved from Seattle to Scotland I have no friends of my own to go to. I have tried to make some but they don’t seem to click with me, it’s like they are so mistrusting where I live. It is very hard; it’s a much insulated community. Maybe it’s because the jokes his friends find funny I can’t laugh at as they are usually ugly jokes about people’s race, sexuality, and such. I mentally can’t communicate with them on their level as I am not like them at all.
I also doubt my ability to have a loving and lasting relationship or even to choose the correct person for me. So many have lied, cheated, and hurt me that I know nothing else but this even my parents were abusive. I am almost fifty and cannot imagine going on like this for another 30 years or more. If I had one wish it would to be honestly and truly loved before I die. And that this person who loves me is my best friend.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t place blame on others as the sole source of suffering as I am responsible for my own behaviour and actions but honestly right now I am so alone and stressed that the doctor decided to put me on antidepressants, and I am still not coping. For example I just go out of a job where I had been bullied endlessly, I should be overjoyed. I feel no happiness around this at all. Just numb.
It’s like if I make a mistake I just want to hide in a corner and die. I have to be perfect all the time, I have to sit, walk, speak, look in a certain way otherwise I will be judged badly and people will think badly of me. Yet logically I know there is no such thing as perfection. This does not change how it feels.
Compliments seem like lies to me; I used to be so trusting now it seems I can find no one to trust. I love nothing better than to give, it is the way I am and it makes me feel happy. I used to love Christmas and could not wait until my children opened what I got for them. Seeing happiness in their eyes was brilliant for me.
The person I live with does not want this from me at all. I wanted to buy him a ring he lied to me said it was okay. I knew he was lying but said nothing. He gave me the silent treatment for two weeks; I asked him if he was okay he would say yes. Then more silence. Finally he said he wanted to speak to me when we got home. He said he would rather I didn’t give one to him he would not be comfortable wearing my ring. This was after I told him what it meant to me saying it was an outward reminder that he had someone who loved him and wanted to be with him. So in rejecting this he rejects it all. Yet he says he loves me. To be blunt there is no more passion in his touch than cold mashed potatoes. What am I supposed to do? Cheat on him, leave him. Where can I go? I would love to go and hide somewhere so no one can hurt me anymore, somewhere where there is nothing, nothing at all.
I could ask him to leave but then things would be horrible for months on end, as there is a housing shortage where I live. So he stays. For how long I don’t know. Some would say I am a coward, and have no right to feel the way I do. Maybe I am destined to be this way always. I have been married twice before and left those relationships, so why now is it so very difficult? There are many other times when his insensitivity has left my heart broken and in shreds. I don’t understand why now I am staying so long. We have now been together for three years and I feel utterly lifeless, and joyless. I can’t remember the last time I laughed. Sorry this is so long. Perhaps you will have some sensible suggestions?
09 Aug 2008 11:08 am
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