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Here’s how I work….
Call me
Weekly, or bi-weekly, face-to-face appointments are available. Long-standing clients come once a month after the initial period of more intense therapy is over.
Persons traveling a distance to see me may book half- and full-day sessions.
To get my immediate attention, Email me: Rod@DifficultRelationships.com. You may also find me in www.Twitter.com/RodESmith, www.FaceBook.com/RodESmith or get me at Rod@TakeUpYourLife.com. I think it is obvious: I am available and have a lot of ways in which you may contact me.
Homework, assignments, and suggested reading are included to stimulate growth and challenge participants between sessions.
I will “warn” you that you (we) will work hard. One of the first things I am going to require of you is that you read as much as you can of this website. This website will let you see how I think, what my view of the therapeutic process is, and what I think does or does not work. One angry adolescent client (angry by his own admission) blurted out to me (I don’t allow foul language on this page – or anywhere for that matter – so I’ll use #@^!) “You think you SH#$%!<* Gold! don’t you!” There, that’ll give you some insight about how I work.
My office - go through the gate and I will greet you at the door...
Telephone and Skype sessions are available. Email me for details.
I will put you to work. But that is what you want? — is it not?
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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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17 Comments
Joanna
Hi there,
I stumbled across your website and have found many pearls of wisdom that have encouraged me today.
I am unsure as to whether you give advice via the email , if you dont thats of course fine but I thought I would give it a go anyway.
I am in a relationship with a man and it is a bad relationship. He is kind and trustworthy (as far as I know) but I have no ability to trust or believe in him. I jump down his throat alot and feel disapointed when I dont get the attention I require.I am jealous and suspicious and am openly accusatory. He will leave me soon I imagine if I carry on like this. The thing is I know I am like this and am in therapy and trying to change and grow. I am doing it but its not a process that happens overnight. I cry lots and face fears as much as I can but I cant go any faster than my heart will allow. I get angry with myself for being the way I am but my upbringing was bad and abusive and I know the damage comes from there. I am scared of loosing my man, because I think he is fantastic. He would be a fabulous dad, loyal husband, he is funny and bright too….I have to attach myself to people like this cos thats how I learn you see. If I hang around with people who dont challenge me I will stay stuck in my habits. Being around him makes me face my fears but to be honest….every day is a struggle and a headache. He comes from a stable, loving background and cannot understand my past. He tries , bless him but of course if you havnt been through it you cannot begin to imagine the scars and pain it leaves you with . I wouldnt want him too anyway.
So this is the situation and I dont know whether to stay or go. He says he loves me, imagines me having his babies….We live together but I just feel like such a mess and a horrible, possesive, insecure girlfriend….
Thank you.
Joanna
23 Sep 2006 10:09 am
Michelle
Hello Rod,
It has been a long time. I am glad to see that all is still going so well for you.
I was hoping that I could get an appointment with you to talk. I do need some more tools for my parent “tool belt.”
I also did find a book that is yours (signed by a children’s author) that I would like to return to you.
Thank you and kindest regards,
Michelle
03 Nov 2006 12:11 pm
Aubrey A
I would like to make an appointment with you.
18 Jan 2007 10:01 pm
Carly C
Hi Rod.
I’m a little shy about doing this but I hope maybe you could give me some advice…
I’m a second year art student at SVA. In my first year I was very single and very self motivated, focusing all my energy in my school and art. My classmates were amazed at me at the half point of the year seeing me in the studio everyday for 8-12 hours each unless in class doing my animation final even though I do an average of 4 hour commute everyday. I was a powerhouse. And then on June 15, I met a boy at an art convention and we fell in love. He use to work at a job where he didn’t get home till 12 or 1 that I started staying up really late just to talk to him.. Yet I was working 7 days a week during the summer still cranking out.
I thought I had this incredible amount of energy to be doing all this lol.. Oh and this boy lives in Maryland while I’m up in New York. I thought, “Hey this is great! No boyfriend around to sap my attention all the time!” So I continued on with staying up late to talk to him and working with school. Then November rolled around, I started getting tired more often. My bf quit his job around then cause he got fed up with the workers. Then my human body history teacher gave me 7 essays to do in the span of 3 weeks at the same time that I’m getting ready for all my other finals. I had a complete snowball effect.
Suddenly I couldn’t handle anything anymore, I started procrastinating, my drawing skills dropped, My parents are yellign at me that my phone bill is through the roof but I couldn’t understand it cause December I was with my bf for 4 weeks (two in NY, one in NC, one in MD) and hadn’t been using my phone. The second semester comes and my Human body history teacher was nice to give me an incomplete instead of a fat F thus the essays still loom over my head. I missed the first class of my Graphic imaging art history course and ended up havign to drop it a couple weeks ago cause I didn’t understand the material 1. #2, the homework the kids were handing in were very abstract fine art so I’m like…..? And my other classes are just packing it on. I CAN’T HANDLE IT. I want to drop out but I know I can’t face my family if I do and I need that degree even though I know I can teach the rest myself. It doesn’t help knowing my parents are having trouble just keeping me in this school. I can’t get back onto the horse, I just can’t… I don’t know where my drive to do this went…
13 Mar 2007 04:03 pm
Joe
I have been married for the last 7 years with a woman that seems to become more controlling, unhappy, demanding, disrespectful, depressive, etc. She fights over anything, she has even gotten into shoplifting problems, “depression based shoplifting”. We have gone to Psychologists, therapists but nothing works. What am I doing or not doing right? We can be happy one day and out of the blue all hell breaks loose. Our 5 year old tends to dislike her over me and that gets her even more aggressive. What can I do ?
Thanks!
06 May 2007 09:05 am
Josiah Ralte
Dear Rod, Thulani and Nathanael,
Greetings from Bangalore! How are you guys doing? though we face a bit of opposition from the enemy, we are doing well. We really would like you to extend and enlarge your tent and come to India to visit us and also to teach in the FMS (23 sept – 15dec) Please, please. Looking forward to hear from you. The other day I was looking at google earth and hover around your house (not anymore, well the one i used to stay) brings back some good memories.
Blessings,
Josiah & family
25 May 2007 05:05 am
Mary
Hi Rod,
I’ve been in a “relationship” for the past 3 years. I love him very much and he knows this. He has caused me a lot of pain due to the fact that I think I love him much more than he loves me. He seems to not be ready for the type of relationship I want, but at the same time he keeps me hanging on. I know that if I tell him I want to forget him and to not talk to me, he will respect that, but I fear that very much. I can’t help thinking that I will never find someone who will fit my life more perfectly than he does. I don’t know what to do, I have another year left with him before we graduate school and there is no way to not see each other. Should I just wait for him to be ready?
11 Jun 2007 07:06 am
Jennifer
Hi Rod -
I want to get your opinion about some of the challenges are am currently facing…. My husband has always been verbally abuse to me. The last couple of years, he has been drinking on and off, and when he drinks he is often annoying, and can be verbally abusive to me and my children. A couple of months ago he quit his job, and joined AA. He has quit drinking, but still he is difficult for me to be around. I have been going to church now faithfully for the last 4 years, and feel that I have been developing a relationship with God. He is now being introduced to God through AA, and is now very condenscending to me. He has accused me of being a bad Christian (he is now a btter Christian then me), and told me today that I have anger issue. Whenever he talks down to me, you bet, it does anger me. He talks like he knows it all, and since he is changing his life, we all need to follow suit. Also, I am mad as hell about him quitting his job. I am working full time, and still have the majority of the household responsibility. He is lazy, and does the minimal around the house. The yard, for which he was responsible for has completely died, and is embarassing. If I call him on it, it either calls me a martyer, or tells me the only value I add is cleaning the house which he could hire someone for $10 hour to replace. He also tells me he has huge resentments against me. I have been a door mat for almost 20 years, and anything I have tried to do for him, he doesn’t aknowledge it, or minimizes it. It seems to me this man has some huge issues that AA will not address. I am lost, and need some insight into his behavior.
04 Oct 2007 01:10 pm
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Dear Jennifer:
Sounds like what is termed a “dry drunk” – the drinking stops but the anger and the resentments continue……
Find YOUR voice Jennifer — you are too obedient and even the Bible doesn’t call you (or anyone) to obey or submit to someone’s pathology.
Call me sometime and we can talk.
Rod
04 Oct 2007 10:10 pm
Dave
Rod,
I am confused. I met a woman a year ago and we are engaged. Her last Husband and her are very good friends because neither have family left. Although he is very good to his daughter and because my fiance’ and him are still close, it is hard for me somehow to feel appreciated or important. They are used to having each other to lean on and help each other out.
My question is, why does that make me jealous? We love each other but the ex husband is used tohelping her and making the desitions. Now that I am there, I feel he should butt out unless it is something concerning his daughter. I feel like I have no say in desision making for my new family as everything needs to be run through the ex husband so that he will not feel left out. Is this jealousy or am I thinking wrongly. When they were married they fought daily almost to the point the police needed to be called. Theycannot live as man and wife so they divorsed. She says thy are just friends. I do not fear any cheating, it is a matter of being treated as if I account for something without the constant desition making meing made by the ex husband even if my fiance’ does not want him to be doing it, he still does this and will not stop and she will not tell him to do so because they have been friends and she does not want him to feel left ouit because he has no family. I am very confused.
17 Nov 2007 11:11 am
Sophia Hawkins
Hi,
I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this but I hope to get some feedback….
I am involved with a married man, we have been together 1yr & 8mths. We have known eachother about 4yrs. We started out as friends and kinda “ended up” in something more… Now we have a 5mth old daughter together. He told his wife everything a few weeks before I had our daughter, she called and had a whole lot of obviously nasty things to say. Her mother called me also… Anyway I live with my family still and the phone calls has affected them all, his in-laws threaten to go to church etc to tell them of what is going on. The man … I’ll call him R, left the apt he and his wife were living in, however he just moved upstairs by his parents. His wife wants to work things out but he says that he does not want to be with her anymore. He says things got too bad and does not think they can salvage anything. He says that they had lots of problems before I came into the picture and that they would have ended in divorce any which way. I am not the first person he has had an affair with but when everything blew up he said that I was the first…. I am the first he has been “serious” with however, the first he has had strong feelings for (these are his words)
They do not have any kids together. What should I do here??? I know I cannot change the wrong I have already done, but I want to do right. Do I leave him?? I want the phone calls to stop harassing my family!! He is looking for somewhere else to live but has not found anywhere yet. We have a baby together this really complicates the situation I know, I do not want my daugher to be put in the middle of all of this because she is innocent. I do love him inspite of all this.
I am really confused!!
My dad was murdered 2 yrs & 2mths ago, I am still trying to deal with that, which I know I have not. Could all this have started because I was looking for a distraction from dealing with my dad’s untimely death… R does remind me of my father, he is hardworking and has a lot of similarities ……
Please give me some advise, I feel as though I am losing it :’(
26 Jun 2008 02:06 pm
Chloe
I lost my dad a few years ago… I cannot seem to move on. I feel somewhat guilty to move on, as though moving on would be forgetting his memory. We had a good enough relationship.. I wish we had had more time to build a better father – daughter relationship. He was never a man of many words but I knew that he loved me. I can only hope that he knew how much I loved him
I miss him so
15 Jul 2008 02:07 pm
Tj
Help my husband goes out dancing without me and in the past I have been ok with this and supportive of his need to get out of the house and do something active. The problem is we have been have been having marriage difficulties. For some reason I decided to check his phone and text messages and have found out that he has been having contact with a girl that I told him that I did not like. This has been going on for several months without my knowledge. He says that there is nothing wrong with is actions and he would never cheat on me. I do believe that he would never entionally cheat on me. I guess this is really the problem. If I do not say something and this continues on there is a great chance that something could happen. HELP!
01 Oct 2008 11:10 am
Shelley
I got remarried last year (Sept) after being divorced for 13 years. I have two children ages 17 and 15 and a foster boy who is 4. The man I married has never been married and has no children. At first when we got married I was going through a lot of stress ( wedding, husband diagnosed wit melanoma, adjustment of the marriage) I felt as if I was about to have a break down. I tried to tell my husband this but he couldn’t understand. He wasn’t finding a job, not helping around the house and was finding fault in everything my kids were doing wrong…and letting me know about it every day. I work, go to school and do most of the house work. I started becoming resentful towards my husband and when we wouldget into arguments I said a lot of mean things. I have never been one to just say mean things, I always thought before I would say anything but it seemed like I couldn’t control that anymore. My hormones felt like they were all over the place and I wansn’t getting any understanding from my husband. When I was hurting and I would cry all I needed was for my husband to come up and put his arms around me. I never got that and it seemed like it made me even more angry towards him. We are now at a point where he has with drawn and with holds effection from me. He has done this in the past when he didn’t think I was making the kids do what the should be doing. He hardly talks to me, gets mad if I try to talk to him. He sleeps in his clothes, and will even sleep with his cell phone on his side. I don’t really think he would be cheating on me but these things are not normal. Sometimes I think he does things to push my buttons and make me paranoid so he can tell me something is wrong with me.
About 3 weeks ago I had a miscarriage and this is the time when it seemed like he changed and pulled away. It makes me feel unwanted and rejected. I tried to get him to help me out around the house because of being in so much pain and he wouldn’t do anything. He just would get mad when he couldn’t go hunting. I know it wasn’t right for me to say mean things to him but i have said I am sorry but get no forgiveness. He just keeps hanging onto the past and won’t let it go. Help!
31 Oct 2008 12:10 am
Dave E
Hi Rod:
I was in your classes back in July in Kona. My wife & I just returned from an outreach to SE Asia. We experienced many unexpected, hurtful issues during this time. I would like to start a dialog with you about our marriage of 39 years…. could we do this by email for a fee?
DE
23 Dec 2008 04:12 pm
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Of course you may --- please send me a private email (not on the website to Rod@DifficultRelationships.com and I will tell you how we can get going.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Rod
23 Dec 2008 10:12 pm
Anne
Not sure if I have the rigth to leave when all is calm right now.
I have been married for 28 years. The early 18 years was emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive. The physical abuse is few and far between now but that element is always there. A little piece of me and my love for this man died each time something happened and there is nothing left now.
I have been unhappy for a very long time and for some reason accepted this behaviour toward me. Things are better now, but I am still unhappy, dicontented. I don’t love my husband anymore as I often think about life with out him. I am afraid to tell him I want a separation and I also struggle with whether I have the right to heap this emotional pain on him when things are quiet.
I am so confused about what to do. For a long time I have been made to feel that many things are not my choice. Any advice????
14 Jan 2009 01:01 pm
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