Expert advice to get your relationships back on track
Emma Asked:“My son is a well respected physician, whose work consumes him. I have noticed and today his eldest son expressed to me that his dad, “puts him down”; doesn’t care about him; calls him names; I believe this is true, but perhaps not as regular as his son is telling me. (I hope) I would like advice about whether I should talk to my son. Am I likely to do more harm than good?”
- Emma (60, Andrews Farm, Australia)
Bryan Asked:“My father and mother divorced 30 years ago. My Mom has struggled to survive while my Dad has accumulated 12 million in assets. My Mom just had a bypass surgery and is unemployed. I am her only extra source of extra income. Don’t you think my Dad is somewhat responsible for leaving my Mom and should have a link to her as long as I am around? The divorce was because my Dad cheated on my Mom.”
- Bryan (36)
Guys, this one’s for you – and ladies, you should feel free to pass it on to any guy you know in your life who’s on a path toward thinking holistically about love, relationships and family.
In my work over the past two-plus decades, I’ve focused on relationships of many different types – dating, casual, serious, engagement, marriage, divorce, post-divorce … and in my most recent book, “Hindsight: What you need to know before you drop your drawers” I present the relationship toolbelt. Although applicable for just about anyone, the book – and my subsequent teaching on it – is primarily geared toward women.
Here is an excerpt from the book “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage”
A life-altering conversation
Only about a month later I would have a conversation with my friend Kent that would change my life forever. I call this day the most important day of my life. I had an epiphany.
When you are married and you are looking into either separate or to actually divorce, that’s a big step, not only for you, but for the rest of the family as well. When you have kids together, it’s even a bigger decision then if you are just married without children. You have to take look at how it will effect the kids and if they are close with both parents and such. Then you still have to talk about custody and visitation. In some cases, the other parent might not matter as much as some. Sometimes one of the parents will give in and just let the one have the kids and see them whenever they can or not at all. Other times there are going to be ugly custody hearings. Sometimes parents should agree to disagree on things and each should give a little. Either way with a divorce or a separation it’s going to be hardest on the kids. So make sure that you talk to your kids and somewhat let them know what is going on and that things will be changing and let them know that the both of you still love them unconditionally but that you two just need a break.
Traditional psychology thinks of functional families as lacking conflict. A traditional psychologist might label familial strife as dysfunctional but evolution actually predicts- if not demands- a certain level of conflict within families. Every individual in a family has her or his own reproductive interests that have to interact with the reproductive interests of everyone else. A child that helps raise a younger sibling may be passing on part of her or his genes at the expense of being able to mate and pass on the whole package.
This has been on my mind, and it’s time to start asking why. From the time we’re pre-teens, all the way till today, sex is like a dirty little secret that we’re not supposed to talk about. Yet, like most other things, the less we talk about it, the less we learn about it. It’s no wonder why so many couples are sexually unsatisfied, why children are having sex younger and younger, pregnancy and sexual disease are on the rise, and why more and more marriages are ending in divorce.
The telephone ring pierced through the quiet afternoon air. It was Friday, just moments after clearing up the lunch dishes and laying our youngest child down for his nap. The other two children scattered off to play. I settled into my computer chair, S. brought his work clothes up from the dryer. Honestly, I expected them to say there was no work – take the day off, and though we need the money, I was starting to plan how we would spend the sunny afternoon together… go to the park, pick up some groceries and fire up the grill… I was not expecting them to say there was no work – period. Like so many others in recent months, S. was laid off.
There was a time when I used to be amazed at the number of seemingly grown men who were unwilling to be responsible for their own lives and for those of the families they made. Like everyone else, I’ve seen the increasing dismal statistics of fatherlessness in the American community. I would even go so far as to say there is pandemic manlessness as well. Men in our extended families are also becoming increasingly rare. What seems to be commonplace now are families with lots of women, young children, and old men. Young men are few and far between – and getting fewer all the time.
“My children have a bad relationship with their mother. My wife and I fight all the time about them. I am a bit easy going in my way. My wife is always criticizing every thing the kids do. I feel she is right most of the time. It’s not what she says it’s that she never stops. even when something gets sorted out she still has to go on and on, until it all starts up again. I blame myself for not being hard enough on the kids. I don’t know what to do anymore.“
- Brian
