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.

If any person refuses to come to terms with the enduring power of the umbilical cord, by refusing to make peace with his or her mother, he or she will be tied up with it, will trip over it, in one way or another, for the rest of his or her life.

“Coming to terms,” means honoring the power of mothering, honoring the role of women. It means respecting women as full partners in every area of human endeavor.

Some women are terrible mothers, some women live shameful lives – but the institution of mothering and women are to be held in highest regard.

People who look down on women, who hold grudges against all women because of a particular experience, do themselves and all around an injustice.

Are you tripping on the infinitely elastic, eternal, and enduring umbilical cord:

1. Do you regard women and their opinions with contempt (subtle or gross)?
2. Do you speak over women as if you always know better?
3. Do you fail to hear women and dismiss or make light of their contributions?
4. Do you use women as a means to an end?

Clean up your language. It might (emphasis on the “might”) make you more attractive all round. If you swear (cuss) while you are writing about your most intimate relationship, one can only imagine what you must be like face-to-face.

How a person treats outsiders (those whom you do not know and who will read your writing) is a powerful indicator of how a person treats insiders (those close to you).

If you shifted your focus from what you want to what you can contribute you might see some change.

Diminish your desire to control. (“I can’t win” — healthy relationships were never about winning and losing).

Become less demanding, needy, and a lot more loving, and you may grow up a lot and be ready for the kind of sex a partner wants.

You are totally off in your understanding of men in their 50’s and 60’s. You, it is clear to me, don’t have enough behind your eyes (life experience) to have good sex – and if you keep on with your current manner of operating, which I call being “penis propelled”, you might never have it.

I hope your partner reads your post and identifies you (which you sent anonymously –another indication of your immaturity) and regards it as an impetus to bail. If she stays, and you continue to be as demanding as you clearly are, she is in for one sad, sad ride.

Take responsibility for your actions

Unfaithfulness can hardly leave you with good feelings about yourself and I’d suggest you get professional help to delve into its origins in your life.

While his actions are painful for you, I’d suggest he has not had a painless journey.

If your husband were consulting me I’d attempt to solicit from him the level of his desire to remain married. Given any suggestion that he’d prefer to stay married, I’d encourage him to embark on an extended separation to allow you to get your troubled house in order.

Unfaithfulness is an individual pursuit. There’s nothing anyone can do to make you unfaithful. It’s not your spouse or any of your multiple cohorts. It is you who needs the help – get it. Allow him, in the mean time, to do whatever it is he needs to do.

Shift your focus

You’ve already demonstrated the ability to resist cultural pressures. It is time to do so again. Try to shift your focus onto finding the strong, woman, and mother within you – rather than another man. I’d suggest your daughter needs you infinitely more than you need a man. A strong, defined, woman of integrity will be attractive to a strong, defined man of integrity.

Fully live (women, too!)

Keeping women “down” must be consistently challenged. Thus my suggestion the woman in yesterday’s column (12-28-2010) define herself to her husband. Of course it flies in the face of many cultures – but if she is to give of her best to herself, her husband, to anyone, speaking up to all in her context is the place to start.

What can be so threatening for some men that some are terrified if women (whom they love) makes their full contribution?

Yes. It will more than ruffle the marriage. Rather a ruffled marriage than a life-time of control, submission, manipulation, leading to intimidation, then domination – not that all men in said cultures are this way at all.

If he really “treats her like a queen” he will also grow. If not, he will reject her; even leave her. At least she’d have expressed herself as a woman and be able to achieve, albeit at great cost, her selfhood as a woman and will have discovered she requires permission from no one to BE.

PS: I have delivered lectures in several Asian countries where it seems women are strongly discouraged from expressing their voices. While trying to be as culturally sensitive as possible, I did not water down my message at all and called on all men and all women to encourage all men and all women to find, express, and use their voices. While I have had some strong kick-backs (some rejection and exclusion) I have always been invited back. I’ve even asked leaders and organizers the reasons I am invited back despite my contrary message. I am told, “Yes. Your message is dangerous for us but we still need to hear it.”

Want wisely.....

Rage is never helpful

Regretfully, I’ve felt it in me. Forces collide, my world feels out of control, I resort to blaming others for whatever I perceive as having gone wrong. Something primal snaps. I’m momentarily blind, deaf to reason. Then, I breathe deeply. I hold onto myself. Reason returns. Logic prevails. I get my focus off others. I look at myself. I take responsibility for myself. Do I always catch it? Handle it well? Of course not.

How is a person to handle a moment of rage in a loved one? Keep a level head. Walk away. Try not to react. Don’t personalize it. It’s not about you. You may participate in the precipitating event, but you don’t cause the outburst. In the moment of his or her fury don’t try to reason, negotiate, or restrain.

This too shall pass.

[Yes – but often not within the same entanglement. With close counsel and strong third party monitoring (at least for a period of time) the perpetrator can gain insight, grow, and self-monitor his or her use of unhelpful and destructive interpersonal behaviors.

While it is NEVER the victim’s responsibility (no one is sufficiently powerful to make another abusive) a lot can hinge on the degree of “fed-up-ness” within the victim.

Abuse (all categories) continues and intensifies when the victim covers for the perpetrator, “rewrites” the behavior, excuses it, or when the victim feels he or she deserves to be poorly treated.

Most perpetrators will back off (at least temporarily) when met with a sound and early refusal to allow an abusive repertoire within the relationship’s behavior cycle.

It is never the victim who causes the abusive behavior, but the victim must immediately remove him or herself from the abuse (which is seldom easy because people are attracted to persons who are similarly relationally mature or immature) or the behavior will intensify.

I like the metaphor – but there are three ships: yours, his, and the marriage. Bail out your own ship (work on yourself), let him worry about his (don’t try and rescue him) and the marriage ship will take care of itself (which does not men it will survive). Until you love yourself more than you love him you will all go down.