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Affairs
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It all comes back even though I have forgiven
31 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I have long since made a decision to forgive my boyfriend, fiancé, and then husband and the women for his very numerous affairs. I even know some of the women personally. I did this to move on. However, of late, if something triggers a memory of any affair, I get angry and the pain and humiliation and betrayal all return with the same reality I first suffered. I sometimes think I should just leave my husband. I have promised I will leave if he does this just one more time. But will I?”
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How do I move on?
04 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My wife and I separated for a year over her doubts and insecurities. There was no evidence of what she accused me of! So in the year she picked up one or two friends I never knew of until we got back together. She would have never told me if I had never asked. She put me threw ‘hell’ for one year of mere accusations, and yet she is the guilty one. How do I move on?”
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She constantly tried to get my husband’s attention…..
29 Dec 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My daughter (17) and I noticed that my best friend was constantly trying to get my husband’s attention. She has also been phoning him about her car. Whenever she contacts him he tells me. On Christmas night she sent him a message with a heart. He thought nothing of the message, which I saw the next day. I asked her why she sent it to him and not to me. She didn’t know what to say. She said she knew where I was going with the question. She said we couldn’t be friends anymore and the message was intended for our family. I never accused her of anything. She said I was the last person she expected to make her feel low. I did not do anything to her. Was it so wrong for me to ask her?”
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Should I be upset?
27 Dec 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“We have been together for 6 years. We do not live together. We do not sleep together because of our faith. He says he wants to wait until his kids are finished with college. First it was high school. He feels his daughter would not be comfortable with me living there. This year she put an ornament on the Christmas tree of her dad and his ex. I got upset about it. It’s just so weird. It was a slap in the face to me. I let it go as I do everything. I asked if we could we at least get engaged so people would leave me alone. He talks about our future but does not want to set a date. He gets mad at me if I talk about it. We are both 53. The ornament really upset me. Should I be upset?”
This relationship is for his convenience. He’s duping you. While you are at the mercy of his children’s level of comfort you will never be his wife.
If, and when, you find your own unique voice and stop letting things go, what his daughter places on the tree will be irrelevant.
You are in charge of your future – stop believing and living as if it is in his hands.
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The charm is the glue to keep you stuck to him
29 Nov 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I have discovered I am one of at least three woman involved with the same man. And we ALL love him and thought we were the only one. And he is married. Please help.” (Edited from a LONG letter)
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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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