Difficult Relationships / Rod E. Smith

“My boyfriend and I are about to get married. I have a problem. He’s insecure that my daughter’s father is in her life. What do I do to assure him that nothing is going on between my ex and me other than taking care of our child? What do I do?” (Edited)
It is not [...]

Filed under: Boundaries, Children, Coaching, Communication, Dating, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Growing up | No Comments »

1. Blind you from the real issues you and your family are facing.
2. Distort your thinking either by amplifying or by minimizing the real issues.
3. Make you inordinately suspicious of others and so you create “necessary” enemies.
4. Make you inordinately trusting of a few in whom you place all your trust.
5. Suck all the energy [...]

Filed under: Boundaries, Coaching, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Victims, Voice | Tagged: ache, Anxiety, concern, troubles, worry | 3 Comments »

Did you hear about the mother who complained her children were always in her hair? Now that her son and daughter are adults she can’t get them to return her phone calls. They are out of much more than her hair.
What about the dad who buried himself in his work just to find some [...]

Filed under: Authentic love, Blended families, Boundaries, Coaching, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Insight, Interpersonal intimacy, Parenting/Children | Tagged: career, father, loneliness, mother, parenting | 2 Comments »

1. Be aware of the unique, honored position I have in your life, and regard it with the respect it deserves.
2. Hear you, even if you are telling me things I’d rather you not say.
3. Be willing to disagree with you, when, in my estimation, you are wrong, off target, or unfair in your actions [...]

Filed under: Authentic love, Boundaries, Coaching, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Friendship, Growing up, Happiness, High maintenance relationships, Interpersonal intimacy, Listening, Personal growth, Reactivity, Recovery, Relationships, Responsive people, Teenagers, Victims, Voice, Womanhood, Young Love | Tagged: Family, Friendship, Love, men and women, power of friendships | 2 Comments »

The advocates for understanding and listening to young people are many. This is usually a good thing - but alas - it appears to have become somewhat of a preoccupation of areas of mental health. Far less is promoted regarding the reverse: the importance of young people listening to, and understanding adults, parents in particular.
In [...]

Filed under: Children, Coaching, Listening, Teenagers | Tagged: Listening, Relationships, School, teen, Teenagers, understanding | No Comments »

Sometimes liking (enjoying, being pleased to see) someone is even more powerful than loving someone. I’ve met a few men and women who, in trying to sound magnanimous or even holy who have declared: “I really love my son (or my husband, daughter, in-laws, pastor) but I just don’t like him (her, them) right now.”
Great! [...]

Filed under: Boundaries, Coaching, Communication, Education, Family | Tagged: healthy people, like and love, relationship | 2 Comments »

Dear Corrine:
You write about the crowded room of blogging and so I wanted to tell you how I got started. I never set out to blog. In fact I’d never read one until it was my own.
Here’s the brief story: I was writing a weekly editorial column for The Indianapolis Star but REALLY wanted to [...]

Filed under: Coaching, Communication, Community, Personal growth, Voice | Tagged: advice, help columns, how to, newspapers, Rod Smith | 4 Comments »

I took on two stepchildren twelve years ago who have become wonderful adults who love all their parents. Here are some things I did to make life easier:

I didn’t take the place of anyone. I took my place.
I didn’t get in the way of their affections for their parents, but expected them to be well [...]

Filed under: Adoption, Attraction, Authentic love, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Coaching, Communication, Community, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, High maintenance relationships, Home, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Toxic Relationships, Trust, Voice | Tagged: affair, anguish, blended family, emotional, help, husband, mother, relationship hell, step, wife | No Comments »

Are you emotionally out of shape? Psychologically exhausted? Tramped on? Feel trapped? Just as a person can be physically run down, so also can one become emotionally depleted. Here are simple, not easy, steps to getting your internal life into shape. Each will do your internal life as much good as frequent exercise does for [...]

Filed under: Alcoholism, Anger, Authentic love, Betrayal, Boundaries, Cheating, Children, Coaching, Communication, Community, Control issues, Dads, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Disrespect, Divorce, Domination, Double standards, Family, First date, Flirting, Forgiveness, Friendship, Growing up, Happiness, High maintenance relationships, Intimidation, Jealousy, Listening, Living together, Long distance relationships, Marriage, Marriage and in-laws, Meditation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Personal growth, Pornography, Re-marriage, Reactivity, Recovery, Relationships, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Toxic Relationships, Victims, Violence, Voice | Tagged: , drink, drunk, emotional, exhausted, help, Marriage, remarriage, tired | 7 Comments »

“My elderly parents sold their house and are moving. We offer help but my mom says, ‘we have everything under control.’ The next day she says, ‘we could do with some help.’ Until the new owners take occupation my parents go to the house to switch lights on and off and close curtains. Running two [...]

Filed under: Betrayal, Coaching, Communication, Community, Family, Marriage, Relationships | Tagged: elderly, father, furniture, garden, house, lawn equipment, Love, mother, move, parents, sell | No Comments »