Power 1: Self Definition (day one)

Every one of us has the ability to let the world know exactly we are and exactly who we are not.

This is the power of Self Definition.

It is the capacity to be involved in the development of your own environment, relationships, and ambitions. It is to assume the rightful role of being our own boss or captain. It is taking full responsibility for yourself no matter where or for whom you work, whether you are married or single, or whether you are young or elderly.

It is the power to refuse to cooperate in abusive cycles  – whether you are the perpetrator or the victim – like bullying, manipulating, gossiping, backbiting, retaliating, or worse.

It is the power to design a life that reflects your talents, skills, loves, and passions.

It’s the power to do more of what you love, and less of what you do not love. It’s to resist taking on roles you do not want, or that come to you by default, because other people refuse to take responsibility for themselves.

It’s the power to negotiate and to compromise.

It is not selfish.

Allowing others to define you is.

1. You will make it the “right” marriage by making hundreds of daily choices to be faithful, kind, patient, and honorable to your spouse and to all the people within your circle of influence. This is (minding) your (own) business. It has nothing to do with your spouse.

2.  You will be convinced it is the “wrong” marriage if you unfavorably compare your spouse to others and think you are supposed to “feel” love everyday. It is unusual for couples to “feel” love every day. Healthy couples participate in life and mine (uncover, extract) all the love they can out of life’s the daily grind, joys, and challenges.

3.  You will make it the “right” marriage if you focus on your own behavior, attitudes, maturity, growth, and become an expert in your own unselfish behavior.

4.  You will ensure it is the “wrong” marriage if you become an expert in your spouse’s actions, failures, attitudes, and try to fix him or fix her.

5.  You will make it the “right” marriage if you remove any desire to control your spouse and, at the same time, take full responsibility for who you are. No one can control and love the same person at the same time – it is one or the other. Exercise whatever control you do have (and event that is quite limited) over your own behavior.

It’s not YOUR wedding (bride and groom). It’s the merging of several tribes, communities, and cultures. The more you are able to include all of the immediate and extended families, the more healthy muscle you are building into your primary relationship. If you cannot negotiate with your families about your wedding, you do not yet have what it takes to be married. Wait until you grow up a little before you want to do something as adult as get married.

Spend as little money as possible even if you are extraordinarily wealthy. Your wedding and your wallet are barometers of how you will treat money for the next 60 years. Be frugal. If you want a flashy day where you spend more than you can afford, you are not yet ready. Wait a while. Life will grow you up.

Obliterate the phrase “it’s just a piece of paper” from your vocabulary if you have used it regarding your marriage contract. If you are even vaguely contemptuous of the legal and religious aspect of marriage you are not yet ready for it.

It appears his step-siblings accept your son since he reports liking the visits. Consider this a huge benefit.

Unless something immoral is occurring, I’d suggest you allow the boy to trust his father and establish his own set of relationships with his extended family.

Living between two biological parents (in the instance of a divorce) can be more difficult than living in two homes. Having two bedrooms in two different places can be unseating, while trying to accommodate competing loyalties can rip a child’s insides apart. Having a stranger move in (even if the step-parent is well known to the child) with mother or father can be very confusing for a child. Sometimes the only options seemingly available to the child are to shut down, reject, or rebel.

Re-marriage with children (made even more complex when there are children merging from both parties) requires great skill and forethought – and this is just when it comes to the children. When there are aggrieved former spouses, all with love for their respective children, all holding opinions on how children ought to be reared, the complexities for all are only further multiplied.

Both people have equal freedom to remain in contact with their respective groups of friends, extended family, and current and former colleagues.

Both people’s jobs are important and therefore both make (close to) equal compromises in the event a child is ill and must stay home from school. It is not always mother who must re-arrange her schedule. The responsibilities and the joys of caring for children is shared and regarded as both parents’ calling.

Both people want and both people initiate emotional, psychological, and physical intimacy.

Both people regard each other as their first point of reference in all and every important decision. No significant discussions are held about major decisions at work or with the extended family about anything (transfers, accommodation, schooling, promotions, holidays) without including the partner in the process as soon as possible.

His wife, other women, and you, are props to keep him feeling good about himself. His charm and neediness is the glue that keeps you stuck to him.

I know you feel deeply mislead. These men are VERY good at this. Sometimes they are unaware of their means of operation. They think this is just the way it is, “I am here to be served because I am a man and I deserve it.”

There’s no way around the pain. Endure it.

Then, begin slowly to take up your life. You are probably fully capable of a happy future with no man or with a healthy one.

1. Discuss individual and shared beliefs about money. Study each other’s personal finances. The wallet is a window into the soul.

2. Discuss individual and shared beliefs about work. Lazy louts can be charming dates.

3. Discuss who is “driving” the relationship understanding that it is the passive party who is really in charge.

4. Find a mental health professional able and qualified to do a Genogram for each of you. This exercise alone will give you mounds of personal insight. If you act on gained insight, you will save yourself a lot of pain. Family patterns are more powerful than love.

5. Meet as many people as possible from both immediate and extended families. Who is cut off from whom (no matter what the reasons), who is “in” and who is “out,” will tell you volumes about how your “own” family will turn out if you proceed and marry.

Yet, the man who is with an alcoholic, ranting wife, or the woman who lives with a chronic womanizer, seems to be oblivious to the fact that things do not have to stay as they are.

He or she seems unaware that, at least in some manner, it is also the issue of the person who allows destruction to continue.

I do not blame the victim. But when the victim continues to stand in the pathway of the victimizer, or benefits from the destructive behavior, then he or she must take some responsibility for allowing its perpetuation.

These matters are complex. Why women stay with violent men, why men remain unreasonably committed to nasty, demeaning women, is a mystery. I know how impossible an escape can feel especially when there are children and houses and careers and pets to consider.

Yet I will continue to tell men and women everywhere that it is possible to have a better future if they, who are in destructive relationships, become willing to take a stand and get out of the pathway of those bent on destroying the people they profess to love.

There are no knights in shining armor. You won’t find a good man while you subsidize and rescue leeches. Stop funding your ex immediately. You feel no guilt because you are still somewhat sane. His idiotic actions are his idiotic actions. He did not set himself alight because of anything you did. He set himself alight because he is either highly unstable and he needs professional help (in which case you are of no help to him) or he is highly manipulative (and while you pay for his life you continue to be his victim). He did not set himself alight because he loves you – that is absolute garbage.

Get a life without a man (it is possible) and you might then find one who has a backbone, a reasonable brain, and some healthy pride.

No man will ever see your true worth while your actions continue to deny that you have any.