I couldn't have said this better myself
http://www.prageruniversity.com/Life-Studies/Forgiveness.html
BETTER MAN = BETTER MARRIAGE
A blog for men about how to be the best man, husband and father possible with a focus on personal responsibility and self-growth. It's about letting go of blame and embracing life.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
It's not about the nail....
This is a well made video that reflects one of the key aspects of Imago Relationship Theory... don't try and fix your partner even when the problem is so incredibly obvious to you... the only person who can fix you is you, and the one person your partner does not want to be fixed by is... you. Read my earlier post on being your wife's therapist...
anyway... the guy does the guy thing initially, even getting a bit steamed and even offended when his good advice is ignored, but finally gets around to simply listening and validating... and thus he begins to get a handle on the skills that are going to lead him to a better relationship.....
enjoy.
http://vimeo.com/66753575
anyway... the guy does the guy thing initially, even getting a bit steamed and even offended when his good advice is ignored, but finally gets around to simply listening and validating... and thus he begins to get a handle on the skills that are going to lead him to a better relationship.....
enjoy.
http://vimeo.com/66753575
Friday, April 26, 2013
How come nobody marries an asshole but always divorces one?
How com e nobody
every dates an asshole, never goes steady with a (son of a) bitch, but when it
com es tim e
to break up, guess what? Our soon to be ex is a professional full tim e asshole, (son of a) bitch and probably eats his
or her buggers, is addicted to pornography, and lies all the tim e.
How is it that we choose wonderful, fun, exciting, charm ing, witty and warm
people to invite into our heart and then they either a) change into or b) were
always evil troglodytes, albeit carefully disguised evil troglodytes because
they did seem pretty dam n cuddly when we first fell in love.
Let’s consider the first prem ise:
they changed. They were cuddly love m uffins
and they evolved into evil troglodytes. I guess it’s possible that the person
has a degenerative neurological disease that has rendered them incapable of controlling their behavior, or it’s
possible that they were seduced by a cult of narcissists who brainwashed them , yet if either of these were the case I don’t
think you’d be sitting there wondering how this happened, you’d have them get a brain scan, or you would have noticed them going out to the cult m eetings.
Now it can be that you m arried
a sociopath, som eone who lies with
the ease of Martin Burney… we’ve all seen “Sleeping With The Enem y” and there’s no doubt that these people exist and
they suck people into their poisoned lives and the only thing you can do is get
the fuck out of the house and while you’re recuperating in a sm all Midwest town start m aking
notes about what things, in retrospect, should have warned you off that freak
so you’ll never go there again. In all honesty, the Martin Burney’s (of both
sexes) are the exception and not the rule but if you contend that you are
living with a crazy person then you best go take a look in the m irror and rem em ber this: water seeks it’s own level. Healthy
people get the fuck out of unhealthy relationships. Crazy people live with
crazy people. Decide which you want to be and act accordingly.
But generally, if your partner truly has changed it’s
because som eone helped them change. Nothing happens in a vacuum . A five year old will act like a five year old
until som eone expects the five year
old to act differently. By the sam e
token, a norm ally healthy child will
start acting out in all sorts of alarm ing
ways if that child has been abused by an adult. So if there was a change, m y point is sim ply
this: you, as their most significant other, their attachment figure, probably
helped.
Maybe you helped by being distant, m aybe
you helped by being passive-aggressive, m aybe
you helped by ignoring the problem s,
m aybe you helped by creating problem s, but in som e
way, som e how, you helped.
But finally, here’s the thought that’s going to blow your m ind: your partner has not changed, the way you see
your partner, the way you experience your partner and the way you treat your
partner has changed. And as sure as god m ade
little green apples, your partner thinks you’re the one who has changed and
doesn’t realize that you are still the sam e
wonderful, cuddly little love m uffin
you were when you m arried, and that
what’s changed is the way s/he sees you, experiences you, and treats you.
This is how it happens… im agine
your relationship is a nice new pair of rose colored glasses. You m eet som eone
and as you look through those glasses everything about your new honey seem s wonderful. A great sm ile,
a fantastic sense of hum or. A good
work ethic, inteligent… and anything that you don’t like about your new
favorite person, you tend to overlook. Sm oking…
well, they’ll probably quit. Politics, well everyone is entitled to an opinion…
and that laugh? Well, it is a little loud but it’s sincere and kind of cute.
Give a few years and those rose colored glasses that you’ve
been wearing have lost a little of their tint, worse they’ve becom e scratched. Each one of those scratches is a hurt
that you experienced at the hands of your beloved. Hurts that you held in and
did not resolve, hurts that you allowed to accum ulate
and fester. Whether it was a bona fide m ean
spirited hurt, or an unvoiced and unm et
expectation, or an accidental slight, or a joke you didn’t think was funny, it
doesn’t really m atter because now
the way you view your beloved is a lot less rose colored (i.e. less accepting)
and it’s as obscured as granny’s cataract clouded eyes.
And now as you look at your beloved you don’t notice the great
sm ile you notice s/he hasn’t brushed
their teeth, the hum or seem s bitter or juvenile. What used to be a good work
ethic is now seen as never being hom e,
and that intelligence seem s m ore like intellectual bullying … and those things
you don’t like about your beloved now seem
insurm ountable obstacles. S/he is com m itted
to suicide by tobacco and is stinking up the house and poisoning the kids with
second hand sm oke. Politics have m orphed from
a considered disagreem ent to
fanaticism … and that laugh? God, it’s
obnoxious and em barrassing.
And thus we stay in a bad relationship and blam e our partners for changing, because we know… I m ean it’s as plain as day… that it’s not our fault:
s/he changed.
And as long as you keep thinking it’s not your fault, as
long as you don’t accept 100% responsibility for your relationship, as long as
you keep dem anding that your partner
get better you are going to either stay in a bad relationship or m ove on to a bad divorce which will becom e a prelude to another bad relationship because
perfect people are doom ed to being
surrounded by losers.
Now, if you’ll accept for the m om ent that you are not perfect, and if you’ll accept
just for a second that your partner probably has as m any
hurts, doubts, and fears as you do, and if you will accept that in order for
your relationship to im prove you
will both have to change… for the better, then the question becom es sim ply
this… why are you waiting for your partner to change?
And that is not a rhetorical question.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
The Imputed Please
Tell m e about the
last tim e you had Sunday supper with
the whole fam ily and your grandm other said, “Pass the m ustard
greens.” and you yelled at her “Can’t you fucking say ‘Please’ you old bitch?
Would it kill you? You are always (see below) telling m e
what to do and I’m not taking your
controlling shit any longer, you want the m ustard
greens you got a walker by your chair and the rest of the fucking day to waddle
your sad ass to the other end of the table and get them .”
I’m guessing you wouldn’t
expect a Benjam in in your Christm as card that year, and you can pretty m uch expect her first call on Monday m orning would be to the lawyer that wrote her Will.
Without going into your relationship with your grandm other (she m ay
be worse than JR Ewing for all I know) we do not, as a rule, require that every
request be preceded by a “please” or followed by a “thank you.” We give the
person m aking the request the
benefit of the doubt, we allow them
an im puted please. If som eone at work says “You got the stapler?” we don’t
respond “What? Are you saying I stole the stapler?”
Nope, we usually say, “Sure.” We hand it over and don’t
think about it again. Sam e with the m ustard greens.
But in a personal relationship, in our relationships with
our wives, m aybe our parents and our
siblings, for som e reason, we m ay not be so kind.
In personal relationships (and here I’m
talking about troubled relationships) every request, every com m unication
is fed through a check list of resentm ents,
past bad acts, suspicion and fear. Every word is parsed for m eaning, every tone is analyzed, every body position
is noted and we rank them all from one to ten, with one being the worst possible
interpretation and ten being the a lesser offensive interpretation and m aybe num ber
ninety-eight is the one we attribute to the guy asking for the stapler and then
we prom ptly disregard two through
ten and go with num ber one which is
“this is m ore of the sam e shit that shows she doesn’t love, respect or care
for m e.”
“Get som e peanut
butter” becom es not just a sim ple request for tasty legum e
paste but an interpolated attack “don’t even com e
back without the PB. You always forget it you insensitive bastard, and your
kids suffer every day because you never do what you’re supposed to do.” Skippy’s
becom es a proxy for every hurt your
wife has inflicted upon you and the legion of those slights you im agine she intended. It’s not just the peanut
butter, it’s the rest of your fucking life and nothing is going to change.
It can be a bit overwhelm ing.
Maybe you don’t explode. Maybe you don’t give tit for tat with som e sort of passive aggressive behavior, m aybe you just note it and add it to your list of
resentm ents, but even that is adding
a bale of hay to your already overburdened relationship cam el’s back.
What if you sim ply
im puted a “Please”. What if, the
next tim e you see a note or hear a
request that could be interpreted as controlling or dictatorial you sim ply added a m ental
“please” to it. “Please get som e
peanut butter” is an entirely different experience.
“Why should I? She’s telling m e
what to do and I have every right to resent it.”
Can’t argue with you there, but you have a right to a
divorce too, and that defensiveness is leading right towards one. You’re
reading this because you want to im prove
your relationship with your wife, you want to be a better m an, and the bottom
line is that a better m an is going
to im pute a “Please” because
anything you would do for your granny or the guy needing the stapler you should
be willing to do for your wife.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
OOPS
I don't get many questions on this blog, but I get a few over the occasional glass of wine and I thought this answer merited sharing... my friend was facing a hard decision and afraid that he would make the wrong choice. Enough preamble, this is the email I sent him the next day (parenthetical added.)
Last night I parted with the observation that
you cannot make mistakes… and upon reflection that seems a bit ambiguous.
What I mean is I don’t much like the concept of
mistake…. Assigning blame and recrimination for past actions.
If you listen to your heart, are honest with
yourself and make the best decision you can at the time you have done your
work. The decision you make may or may not bring the results you desire, but
even if it causes WWIII it is not a “mistake”, and especially less so if you
take the opportunity to review your decision making process, challenge the
assumptions that underlay it and look to find your blindsides that lead to your
decision…. In other words, you make it a learning experience.. or an afgo. (Another Fucking Growth Opportunity.... read the book)
So let go of the concept that you can make a
mistake here. It places too much stress and front ends too much culpability for
a circumstance which is not entirely in your control. In short, the fear of
making a mistake will cloud your judgment. You have to make a decision, and the
better man understands that he will live with the consequences of that
decision, good or bad, because the decision was his to make and he made it
freely.
Use the tools you have, make the decision, let
go of your expectations and see what happens.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
ALLWAYS and NEVER
The issue I wanted to put on the table for your
consideration are the words “never” and “always.” This cam e
up at one of m y weekly m eetings with m en
and I want to give a hat tip to John C. who is always perceptive.
So let’s bring this down out of the theoretical and into the
nitty gritty of relationships.
When your beloved com es
hom e and says, in an angry voice
“You always leave the door open.” Your first response, if you are novitiate in
the ways of being a better m an, is
to see that blatant falsehood as an attack, as blam ing
you for som ething you don’t do,
wouldn’t do, or at least if you did do there was a damn good reason for it.
Adm ittedly, the door m ight
have been open when your beloved cam e
hom e, but clearly it is not “always”
open and m ore to the point since
your last argum ent about heating the
neighborhood you have been conscientious about closing the door for which
you’ve gotten absolutely no credit and a quick survey of the house would show
to a certitude that all the doors and windows are closed, were closed, and have
only been opened as necessary for egress and ingress, so you m ight say “don’t start with that” or “That’s the
first tim e the door’s been open in
six weeks, stop bitching.” And we know
how these theoretical conversations are going to end: badly
Your honey telegraphed where she was com ing from
when she said “always.” When we say “always” or “never” we (yes, WE. This bit
of irrationality isn’t limited to women) are announcing that we are in an
irrational state and if there is one other fundam ental
truth to this universe it is that you cannot reason with an irrational person.
Stack up all the facts, call in the witnesses, catch the burglar down the street and have hi
“But it’s not fair!” you say and perhaps you’re right but
life isn’t fair. I prom ise you
everyone sailing through the air after being hit by a beer truck is thinking
“this isn’t fair” but it doesn’t change a dam n
thing. Life isn’t fair.
“So what do I do? Suck it up, roll over and play dead, be
pussy whipped?” Nope. Wouldn’t suggest
that for a m inute. We all hate it
when we roll over and play dead, we all hate the way it m akes
us feel im potent and useless when we
seem ingly cave to our partner’s (and I hate to use the word) unfair behavior.
We resent rolling over and after a while that resentment builds up into a
general dislike and distrust for our spouses and bingo, the marriage has taken
the exit ramp to the Twilight Zone.
“BUT she’s being irrational… you said so yourself… why
should I have to put up with someone who’s being irrational?” Jeezopete, come
on down off the cross. We all act irrational from time to time, and your
typical response, to feel attacked and to become defensive is not only
irrational, but it is ineffective. It is time to try something new, something
that works.
You stand up for yourself by em bracing
the anger. If you haven’t the foggiest what I m ean
by that you haven’t read enough of the blog or the book, but it com es down to this: you don’t walk away, but you do
realize that this isn’t about the door being left open.
Always and Never are invitations to dialogue. Always and
Never are by them selves statem ents of a fear that life is not going to change.
This is what I am going to live with
the rest of m y life. He is never
going to change. I am always going
to be m iserable.
The key is to engage your beloved through dialogue and m irroring to understand what is going on in her
life.
So your response m ight
better be: “You’re right. I did leave the door open. Did I get that right?” and
then let her explain if there is m ore.
If there is, go there, but if there’s not you sim ply
say “I can understand how finding the door would m ake
you ….
And before you know it your relationship will grow deeper
and more meaningful and there is a damn fine chance that you wife will stop
saying “you always….”
Now if this makes no sense to you what so ever it’s because
this is your first time here and you have neither read the book nor are you up
to speed, but trust me on this and read on.
In the interim, it wouldn’t do yourself or your relationships with your spouse and kids if you took “never”
and “always” out of your lexicon as well.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Try Not or Do
My friend Cassidy sent m e
a link to an article in The Atlantic that bem oans
the lack of advice colum ns for m en and writes in her own subtle way… “Stupid
pukes.” She tells m e
I should write an advice colum n and
I responded “I do, it’s just that no one reads it.” Whereupon she retorts “Pussy. You should read
your own book.” (Cassidy is a Marine... enough said.) And I would have been well within my rights to tell her to STFU because she can't possibly understand anything about me and...
But she’s right. One of m y
growth edges is clearly self-prom otion.
The skill set that allows m e to sit
for hours, lost in m y head and
typing away is not functionally useful when it com es
to m arketing, in finding an agent,
in arranging speaking dates, in reaching out. This stuff m akes
m e uncom fortable
and as I’ve had the tem erity to
write and advise others, if it m akes you
uncom fortable it’s probably som ething you should be doing.
So I am . I just
spoke at a function at m y high
school alm a m ater
and I am prom oting
m y new book, based in part upon
HTSYMbBABM and m y work with Im ago and divorce m ediation,
A Road Less Traveled, a reader’s companionto a good divorce. It's a good book. It's getting good reviews, and in all honesty you should buy it from me via e-mail and not Amazon because that way I make a decent profit and Amazon already has enough money.
So, rather than tem porizing
by saying “I’m going to try to m arket m y
work.” I am focusing on saying sim ply “I am
self-prom oting.”
Which is just as hard as shifting from
saying “I’m trying not to be angry
and violent around m y fam ily” to “I am
not going to be that m an anym ore.” The form er
allows for and perhaps even invites failure, the latter is a powerful statem ent of intent. So rem em ber that when you are speaking to your beloved.
Prom ising to try
is not a prom ise at all.
Or to put it on a level we can al identify with... there is no try
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