Category: Love

I’m Sorry, So Sorry……..

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Tanya, 37 writes:

I married a man with a daughter who is 8 years old. We don’t have any children, although we are trying to conceive. We live in the home I owned before we got married. His daughter has a room that I decorated just for her. Her only chore, when she comes over, is to clean her room up before she goes back to her mom’s house. She is a pretty spoiled child who hardly ever gets told no to anything and very rarely cleans her room. This weekend she was throwing a ball against the wall in her room. I asked her to please stop as my husband wasn’t saying anything. She became angry and hit me in the back with the ball. My husband again did nothing. Am I wrong for wanting an apology? 

Tanya, 

Wow! I’d be mad too. You aren’t wrong but good luck getting it. It sounds like your husband suffers from guilt and consequently he isn’t going to be the dad his daughter needs him to be. Your best bet is to not discipline her at all. I know this is difficult because when things like this happen your first reaction to anyone’s child would be to correct them, after all it’s your home. I’m sure if it were your child, you would have told them the same thing and you would have been mortified and make the child apologize. However, if he isn’t going to do this, for whatever reason, there isn’t a lot you are going to do to change things. Honestly, it’s pretty typical. 

You didn’t say how often she comes over. I’ll assume it’s every other weekend as that’s usually the visitation plan. Hard as it is to do, I would let it go. If her room doesn’t get cleaned up by her, then don’t do it for her. I know this may drive you nuts but you need to remember that your issue is not the child, it’s with your husband. I would also plan activities with friends on those weekends. Until your husband can get a handle on things this really isn’t your problem.

Please reconsider having a child. You have enough on your plate as it is and as she gets older she will become more out of control if things are not handled properly. You don’t state whether you’re a Christian but if you are, I would pray, pray, pray. Take all of your concerns to your heavenly father. You have chosen a tough road to walk. I’ll be praying for you.

In the meantime, there are other stepmoms on this site that may offer a different perspective. Let’s see if they have a good plan. Also go to http://www.successfulstepfamilies.com. Ron Deal is an excellent help with these things and you may consider going to one of his seminars.

Accountability

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My husband walks in the other night after a counseling session and says, “I pulled a Susan Young tonight.” Okay, that got my attention so I said, “What does that mean?” He goes with a big sarcastic grin, “You know, one of those ‘quit whining and feeling sorry for yourself take responsibility for your part in this and get up and get moving’ speeches you give.” Really I had to admit he was right.

Do you have someone in your life that tells you the truth? Have you surrounded yourself with people who agree with every thought or action you have? You can really get messed up with the scenario of everyone around you thinking how wonderful you are. I believe we have to have people in our life who speak the truth CONstructively not DEstructively. There is no point in having someone in your life who only wants to put you down to build themselves up falsely. You want someone who will tell you the truth because they love you and want to see you grow and not get stuck in the muck you’ve helped create or are about to create. My grandma used to say, “If I don’t tell you the truth no one else will.” I am praying that you have more than just your grandma telling you the truth!

I have people in my life who tell me the truth and even though sometimes it stings and I don’t always agree at that moment, it makes me think. Once I examine what they say though, I find that usually they are right. In the end, I believe that they have my best interest at heart. These people keep me accountable to my true self. They help me stay focused on who I am trying to become and keep me from making dumb mistakes that will hurt me.

The bible says there is wisdom in a multitude of counsel (Proverbs 15:22) and that is true IF you have surrounded yourself with smart people. My husband says all the time that you should not be the smartest person you know. One thing I know for sure, I am not the smartest person I know.

I would caution you to know your friends and their motives. Don’t be paranoid just wise. In relationships with other women we tend to be jealous and catty sometimes so we throw the digs around. Most women tend to have that friend who wants to be your friend even at the cost of their own personal opinion and that hurts both of you in the end. They are the friends who only tell you what you want to hear. Build your friendship to the level where your friends are able to talk to you. I am not talking aquaintances here, I am talking real friends.

Proverbs 27:9 Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel. 

Instead look for and find friends who have a life of their own and don’t want yours. Find firends who aren’t trying to hurt you and be careful that you aren’t so self-focused that you think everyone wants your life. Believe me when I tell you that when you have contented people in your life, they don’t want to be you and they certainly don’t pity you. They desire a true friendship with you, without conditions. Yes, they are hard to find but when you do find them, keep them! Just as you want those friends in your life, be that friend! What good does it do to agree with a friend going off of a cliff? So get some people in your life that will occasionally pull a Susan Young on you!

Coming In Second……..Or Third

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Lisa, 28, asks:

Is it ever okay to get divorced? 

Hi Lisa, 

First off, God hates divorce. I like the way the Message version of the bible describes it as, the violent dismembering of one flesh, because no one gets out of a divorce whole. 

Malachi 2:16“I hate divorce,” says the God of Israel. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.  

Yet even God acknowledges that infidelity throws forever out the window and allows for divorce. God even allows for remarriage in this case as the couple’s vows have been severed just as in death. 
For me, the question is a bit more complicated. I don’t believe that people have to stay miserably together. I believe that they may choose to live apart. I don’t believe that they can remarry in these cases because my faith and belief in the bible makes this pretty clear. However,  I like Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s rule of  thumb for reasons for divorce. She calls them the 3 A’s. Abuse, Addiction and Adultery. 
For a woman, her number one need is security. We can overlook a lot of flaws if we feel secure in our marriage. Abuse, Adultery and Addictions bring that security to a halt. When a godly woman comes second to God she loves this, she understands this and for her, it’s the completely acceptable. When that same woman comes second or even third to another vice or person she becomes jealous and outraged. At this point, there is no need to waste precious years of her life competing with something that she can’t win. It will only serve to frustrate her. She can’t compete with anger, another woman or an addiction necessarily. 
For a man, his number one need is respect. If he can’t get respect at home from his woman then it leaves doors open for him to find that respect in other areas. Even then, when the 3 A’s enter his relationship, they don’t leave any room for respect. 
Okay, that being said, go the distance at trying to make your marriage work. Get counseling, read, look for help first. Don’t just a quit. A marathon runner didn’t get up one morning and decide to run a race. He trained, he trained, and then he trained some more. He built endurance he ran up hills and down hills, he prepared his body and his mind for the task set before him. So it is with marriage. You can’t just quit because you have to remember that the violent dismembering of one flesh means you will never be the same again. You have exhaust every effort and when you can honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say truthfully that you have done all that you can do, then I believe you can separate. 
Anything other than the 3 A’s is no reason for divorce. You can find a common ground and with help you can restore a marriage. Hope that helps! 

The Cost Of Infidelity

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I’ve read with interest a blog recently about women and infidelity. This blog coming on the heels of an article in Latina Magazine which said that 68% of college aged women cheat on their mate versus 75% of college aged men who cheat, it made for some interesting observations.

The article in Latina quoted Gary Lewandowski Jr. Ph.D who has done extensive research on infidelity. He says women tend to cheat due to dissatisfaction in their relationship. They also tend to cheat early in their marriage, the longer they’ve been married the less likely they are to cheat. When Latina did their own study on 500 readers 69% of them have cheated. Infidelity is not just a male issue anymore, if it ever was, and it seems that the numbers are staggeringly increasing.

My own personal thought on this is to look at the age we are discussing. Women in the college age group who are still finding their own identity. It makes sense to me that they would be the ones most likely to cheat as they would have more personal dissatisfaction in their relationship because they have more dissatisfaction with their life in general. These are not the women of 30 years ago who were prepared for marriage at 18. These women have been brought up with a vastly different perspective to their life. They were not brought up to go to college to find their husband as in generations past. Instead, they were brought up to find themselves. This is not a bad thing, don’t misunderstand, I like this, but mix this prematurely in a marriage and we can see where there can be issues.

What is interesting about infidelity is that once it happens the first time, it becomes easier to do it again. Lines get crossed and whether we like to admit it or not, we become desensitized to the idea. Statistically we find women who cheat live to cheat again. It becomes a vicious cycle of looking for that thrill that you can’t find in a long-term relationship. Mix this with the fact that one in five people have genital herpes and the fastest growing number of HIV/AIDS patients are Hispanics and African American women and we have a lot more issues than a broken heart. The idea that it won’t happen to me, keeps these diseases spreading.

So what is the remedy? We can’t say it’s church because even those in church cheat. We can’t say it’s God because those in church should know God and still it happens. Pastor Doug has told me over and over that those who cheat or find themselves on the brink of cheating are open to the possibility of it. I believe the real answers lie in the questions that are never asked.

What exactly are you looking for in a relationship?

How do you react when the going gets rough?

Are you run by your emotions?

Can you set clear boundaries for yourself?

Are you ready for a committed relationship?

I do the pre-marital counseling in our church. When I ask these questions, often I get the blank stares and the ‘I don’t know’ answers and only because they have never really thought of why they want to get married or if they are ready for marriage. They tend to look at the questions through the rose colored glasses of love rather than the honesty of reality that will smack them in the face quite quickly.

Then, there needs to be a clear understanding of the vows taken. What is a covenant and who did I make that covenant with? You see, that covenant although primarily with your spouse and God affects many others. Children, parents and other family members are affected by these decisions as well. When a covenant is broken those people are also indirectly affected by your decision. Sin may be personal but it is never private it affects many, even the people on the sidelines watching this all go down.

The cost of infidelity is not just the demise of a relationship, it’s the cost of a piece of a soul, the cost of those who look at the damage, the cost to your health and the opening of doors that don’t easily get closed once they are opened. Even when the relationship is saved, there is something that has been chipped away from it. We must learn to consider the cost of our actions.

Luke 14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it– 29 lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 



Behind Every Great Man

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DSCF2677

is a great woman or so the saying goes. This is a picture of me and my husband Doug goofing off one day. Relationships tend to transform people. We all have that girlfriend who changes her entire world to be the girl her latest boyfriend wants her to be. We also have that girlfriend who sees “potential” in a guy and begins to try to change him into what she wants him to be. Neither produces a long-term transformation. It’s a fake, for the moment, change and eventually who you really are comes out. So why do we do it? What makes some women utter doormats for a man and others bossy and crowding? In a word, it’s fear. Fear that we will never find another person who will love us, fear that someone already put together will see the flaws in us and not want us. Fear that if we speak up we’ll be rejected. We need to learn to be comfortable with ourselves and to recognize that we are enough. Let that thought sink in for a minute. You are enough.

This is where faith helps. My faith has taught me that God designed me for a purpose and a destiny. With 6 billion people on the planet there is not another single person with my exact design. I am worth being treated with love and respect and so is everyone else. So, single women, be careful about who you get behind. You will be transformed to the level of the man you chose. Your life will rise or fall on that level. Choose wisely. Is the man who you have decided to get behind destined for greatness, or will you always be pushing? So many of us think we can change a person but you can’t. So that fantasy has to die. Look at who he is now and where he is going in his life right now. That place is where you will end up with long-term. Don’t miss the destiny you were given. Don’t miss the warning signs either.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with women in counseling and they’ve said things like:                              

I knew he’d cheated on his last three girlfriends but he said I was different (you’re not)

He’d get angry for no reason but then he’d bring flowers and apologize (run!)

He’d had a run of bad luck with jobs (uh, huh)

His last girlfriend broke his heart and he said he was over it (then she called him)

He has two kids from his last two relationships (get ready for baby mama drama)

He called his mom three or four times a day and I thought it was sweet (mama’s boy)

He had to cancel lots of our dates because of work (he’ll be absent a lot)

The sad part about these comments is that the women knew these facts going in but they went in anyway. Now they are unhappily ever after. Don’t be a divorce statistic. Choose wisely. Be careful who you get behind. Ask lots of questions and LISTEN to the answers and above all, take your time!