How He Loves

Liz's boyfriend doesn't do anything for Valentine's Day except buy her a lame card from the grocery store and suggest they order pizza instead of her cooking. She cries every February. He's not that good at birthdays, either, always wanting her to tell him exactly what to get her. Whenever she dresses up, all he says is that she looks 'nice.' Maybe he just doesn't love her.

Or maybe he loves her a lot, but his love comes packaged differently. People tend to have their own personal styles for showing love. They can also want demonstrations of love that differ from the norm, but not everyone understands this. Not knowing how loved ones experience or expresse love is the often the root of misunderstandings in couples. Valentine's Day is one of the biggest times of the year for these couple conflicts. Some men trot down to the florist every year for the dozen red roses to be delivered at her work place. There are women who crowd Victoria's Secret for peek-a-boo lingerie their men couldn't care less about. Forget the package. Some men really just care about what's inside; men who toss aside the lingerie, hardly noticing these wisps in the heat of the moment. Believe it or not, there are women are disappointed as they lug home the same red roses every year from work. What makes a person feel loved isn't a one-size-fits-all deal.

If you're a traditionalist, you may not understand how anyone could not care about red roses and lingerie. You may, however, find the standard expressions of love all that moving. When it comes to showing or feeling loved, you may march to a different drummer. Not everyone shows love the same way. And what makes a person feel loved is very unique to the individual. You need to know what works for your loved one. You need to ask.

Just for grins, the next time the two of you are having a lovely dinner or taking a walk or are basking in post-coital afterglow, ask this question, "Tell me a time when you felt most loved by me." Now, your partner might cast you a wary look and ask what you mean, suspecting one of those relationship traps. You need to stress that you're really wanting to know. Ask him or her to tell you actual moments.

"Tell me a time when you felt most loved by me" can yield some really interesting responses. Your partner may have to ponder on this, so don't push for an immediate answer. But if he says he feels loved when you're nice to his mother(I've heard this one) or when you surprise him at work for lunch, listen. Different people really do have different triggers that say I Love You. Getting this kind of info helps you better target your expressions of love.

One day, Liz looked up at the visor in her car and realized Sam loved her.

The home they'd recently purchased had only one garage door opener. For some reason, she'd never noticed that her car was always the one parked in the garage. On that day, however, she got it. Sam had taken the garage door opener for access to the garage that day, so it hadn't been in her car. She was headed home late from work that same night, as usual, and there was the garage door opener...in her car. The only way it could have gotten there was for Sam to have gone to her work and placed the opener back in her car so she could drive safely into the garage that night.

Sam loved her--in a very active, caring, concerned way. He'd gone out of his way to return the garage door opener to her car. His love came in the form of actions more than flowery words.

You probably have your own style of showing love. We tend to do what makes us feel loved rather than speaking to our loved one in our loved one's particular language. No one's saying that you can't cook for her, if cooking feels special to you. She's got to eat. But it's important to convey to your loved one that you care what she wants. If you want her in the relationship with you, you have to factor her way of seeing things into your life. Get her roses every now and then, but also take her kayaking if that rings her bell.

And, yes, it's good if your style of feeling love gets considered in by your loved one, too. This goes both ways. After all, we want you both to feel loved.

Sometimes Motherhood Sucks (Fatherhood, too)

A time comes in a parent's life when what you think or want doesn't matter to your kid. She's going her own road and, sometimes, she can reject the things you hold dear. Whether it be lifestyle or religion, your child will make her own choices.

I'm offering no excuses here. The job of parent is hugely important. Children's development, their self-esteem, their ability to cope in this world are all greatly effected by the quality of parenting they receive. But there will be a point at which you--the parent--don't matter. There's no denying that how you behave and the actions you take have a significant impact on your children. You have to remember, though, that the children you love and nurture--and sometimes yell at when life is giving you a hard time--must develop autonomy. They have to learn to be independent people. Without you.

This means that, at some point, your child will blow you off. He'll go to the college you don't think fits him (because his friends are going there). He'll buy the car you're pretty sure will die in a year. He'll marry the girl who cheated on him or take the job you think he'll hate.

Your kid will hear the words of wisdom you offer…and spit in your face.

You want this. Really. Not the spitting part, but you want the kid to grow up and grow strong and be able to handle whatever she needs to handle. After all, kids aren't pets. They get jobs, go to college, form relationships of their own--and you're not going to be there for them all their lives. One day, they have to fly solo.

Whether they choose a career that you think is silly and not financially rewarding or a mate who you don't particularly like, they're going to make choices that seem like a rejection of you. Sometimes, they just won't listen and that can really hurt. You've kept clothes on their backs and cell phones in their pockets and now they act like you don't know anything.

As a parent, one of the hardest things to do is to know when to enforce the rules that protect your child from harsh realities and when to back off and let the kid experience the consequences of his choices. This is a complicated, ever-changing situation, but the truth is that sometimes you won't be able to protect--or even reach--your child. You, the parent, just won't matter.

Oh, they'll (usually) say they love you. You'll get the same sappy cards on Mother's or Father's Day and they'll still want your approval. But the kid won't necessarily listen to your advice or heed your cautions.

You'll cease to matter in a parenting sense. This can be a bitter moment. It also--when seen from an objective stance--can be the beginning of the kid's true autonomy. Your child may make some ugly mistakes--things you saw coming way off--but she still needs to get out there without the training wheels. She needs to sort through her life choices on her own.

Parents need to let their kids experience the consequences of their choices. Even if those consequences are hard, your child will not learn if you continue to intervene to soften the blow. It is a sad reality of life that there are occasional blows. Actions not only impact relationships, they can extinguish them.

The parent-child relationship is complicated. While you may always want to applaud your child's actions, that probably isn't going to be something you experience all the time. There will be moments when you're going to want to knock the kid on his behind. Hopefully, you won't succumb to this urge, but it's only honest to admit to having the desire.

There will be actions your child take that will alarm and distress you. You'll probably try to caution her. Try to reach out and ward off the blow that life's gonna deal her. You may not always be able to do this…and protecting her may not be what she needs.

Children need to grow up and growing up means that they will make their own choices (you want this). Some of those choices will be bad and some will seem like a total rejection of you.

They still need to make them.

Power and Responsibility

Denise feels horrible her marriage fell apart. It's all her fault, she'll state sadly. She didn't love him enough. She harped at him too much and she was too hard to live with. It was all her, not him.

Marco knows his 20 year-old son is struggling in college because he can't seem to motivate the boy. Isn't a father supposed to look after his kid?

Teresa and her boyfriend of two years just broke up. He says she's too controlling. She tearfully admits she asked him not to go out to bars with his friends every weekend, coming home wasted.

Are they right? Is everything their fault?

People tell me all the time that their messed up relationships are all their doing. I tell them they're giving themselves too much power. Relationships between adults are a fifty-fifty situation. Everyone contributes. Otherwise, only one person in the relationship has power and that would be just wrong.

Everyone in the relationship has power and power is unavoidably linked to responsibility. If you don't have the power to make another person behave differently, you're not responsible for his actions. It's hard enough in this life to be responsible for our own behavior. Don't assume you have the power to change others.

It all gets murky because love involves being emotionally impacted by one another--caring what the other person does or feels. You must remember, though, that no matter how affected you are by what other people do, you don't have control of their actions or their feelings. No matter how much you love them or how much they say they love you. In turn, your feelings and your actions aren't their fault, either.

This is a very difficult concept for many, but while love confers the ability to impact the other, it doesn't give power or responsibility.

Responsibility is always linked to power. If you don't have control over another, you can't be responsible for what she does…or what she feels. You are responsible, however, for what you do. If you behave or speak in demeaning ways--that's your responsibility and you should seriously look at what's going on with you. The other person's feelings, though, can't be your fault because she has an involvement in her own emotional reactions.

She gets to choose how she thinks about a situation and that assessment will feed her emotional reaction--the key here is that she gets to choose.

Don't use this to say that your behavior--your actions--shouldn't have any impact on those with whom you have relationships. You're still responsible for how you behave. You don't have, however, responsibility for someone else's feelings.

This is tricky, but hugely important ground in relationships. Make sure you don't give yourself too much power over others. You just get to be in charge of your own behavior and your own emotional reactions. That's a massively complicated responsibility itself.

Someone, Whoever, Anyone

When you and your current squeeze break-up, what's the first thing you do? Head to the gym? Get a new haircut and wardrobe? Start going out more?

Are you immediately shopping for someone new?

This is how we deal with grief. Dog die? Buy a new puppy. Get a divorce? Register on Match.com or some other computer dating service. In our culture today, we deal with loss through replacement. If at all possible, we turn away from feelings of grief and pain as if we can just turn them off.

No where is this more evident than in the dating/mating climate. For many, being alone is terrifying, even if that means settling for bad relationships. At least, someone wants me, you may tell yourself.

It's not so much that we have substandard requirements as we've lowered our standards.

Do you know yourself? Know the kind of person who can help you grow and be stronger? Help you deal with your issues? Are you a better person because you're in your relationship? Don't settle for a relationship that doesn't help you just because you feel you must have someone. You can survive the loss of relationship. Finding a replacement to avoid your grief doesn't make things better. Believe in yourself enough to feel the feelings of loss.

Let's be honest. Grief, loss, pain, missing someone…all of these emotions hurt like hell. Why would anyone want this? But you're forgetting that some experiences are linked together. Like sweating at the gym gives you a more toned body, dealing with uncomfortable emotions can help you develop yourself. When you can handle the really difficult moments of life, you have more belief in yourself, feel safer, less afraid and more capable.

I'm not saying that you should want to hurt or want to suffer the loss of relationships. I'm saying that many of us are running so hard from these feelings that we become convinced of our own fragility. Relationships end. This is a sad reality and we need to look seriously at what we contributed to the end. But going through an endless revolving door of relationships without ever feeling loss or examining ourselves, this leads you to nothing, but more grief.

Self-esteem isn't built by others telling you how wonderful you are. If you don't believe these words, you aren't any better off. We build self-esteem through coping successfully with life.

Learn to face the life-situations in front of you, even if that means loss. You'll grow in the long run.

Necesssary Lessons in Failure

Screwing up on a project…or blowing a proposal…or earning a D on a paper can make us feel like worthless losers, but each one of these failures brings us valuable information. We actually need to learn to process failure and rejection.

This sounds so wrong! Failure should be avoided at all costs, shouldn't it? Rejection means we're worthless, doesn't it? Actually, no. Failure needs to be embraced, not because we like it, but because we need it. The trouble for most people is in thinking that failure can be avoided in life, rather than seeing it as an aspect of our learning to succeed. Failure teaches us things we need to know.

It may sound like a platitude people use to console themselves, but failure is an important life lesson. Say, you're trying something risky, like applying to a ivy league college or trying out for your high school play. You blow it--don't turn in everything for your application or show up without a song for your audition, whatever. You cringe, feel horrible(stupid, actually) and you vow never to run this risk again. Failure hurts too bad.

Think about all the information you'll miss. Figuring out why we failed at something can give us tremendously valuable information. Information we need to correct our behavior, and aim better in our next attempt. Nothing significant is achieved in a single shot. The really good things take multiple attempts. Think of contestants who've entered the Miss America contests year after year, only to make the big win eventually. You may not be attempting to be crowned Miss Universe, but odds are that whatever you want to achieve will require perseverance on your part. If you can't tolerate failure, you're going to give up early in the process.

Learn the necessary lessons in failure. First, it takes too much energy to beat your self up. Calling yourself names(like stupid) is non-productive and only uses emotional energy you could be putting into your next shot at a what you want.

Think of the high-achieving high school student who commits suicide when rejected by his first choice college. This is a shocking, incredibly sad choice. Always achieving what you go after leaves you vulnerable to being unable to tolerate failure when it does happen. Rejection and failure feel horrible, but the emotions that come with these experiences don't last and don't do major harm if we keep them in perspective. They're feelings we really don't enjoy. Feelings fade over time and in the face of eventual achievement of the newly-tweaked goal or the newly-corrected application of our energy. Sometimes, we have things we need to learn. The process of getting to success involves certain actions. How do you learn what these actions are, if you don't persevere?

There are some individuals who are so intolerant of failure, that they simply refuse to attempt anything that they don't know absolutely they can achieve. No matter how small. They don't play games they can't win. Don't enter contests when they aren't sure they'll blow away the competition. Don't ask people they like out on dates, when they aren't sure of getting a "Yes!"

The oft-quoted reality is that Mickey Mantle struck out more times than he hit home runs…but he hit an amazing 536 home runs in his career. Failure is a part of success. It helps your correct your aim, correct your attempts. Get better at what you do. Whether you're asking a hot guy out on a date or applying to a new job, you need to be able to deal with rejection. Failure.

Some people stay in jobs they hate because they're afraid of the failure along the way to finding a new job. Others live solitary lives because they fear the embarrassment and discomfort inherent in dating.

Failure is a necessary aspect of any success. Learn to tolerate it. Learn to fail. It's the only way to win.

Everyone Says I Should Leave You

What if all your friends and relatives really hate your girlfriend? Maybe the two of you get into big fights and she throws you out every other month, leaving you to spend the night on your brother's couch. Possibly your boyfriend gets drunk at your family get-togethers. Or maybe the two of you fight. A lot. Maybe you miss work or you're so upset that when you do show up at the office you're worthless.

No wonder everyone thinks you should move on.

Relationships are not that simple, though. There's a reason you stay. Many people will say they stay in unhealthy relationships because of the children, but truth be told, unless there's significant financial hardship involved in getting out, living in the atmosphere of an unhealthy relationship is worse for kids. (And make sure you don't equate financial hardship with not having everything the kid wants.)

Most people stay in relationships not for the kids, but because the relationship still gives them something they want.

Even if you complain and are bitterly unhappy, if you're still there, you're getting something from the relationship. This can be very difficult to see, but it is an inescapable reality. If everyone is telling you to get out, you first need to recognize that this is your life. You get to make the decisions. Then, think long and hard about what really keeps you here.

Maybe there are still good times, maybe you think you deserve all the bad things he says about you when you fight. Either way, who you date--or stay married to--is really your own business. You're the one making the choices and you're the only one who can sort this out. Even if you really care about your friends and you always listen to your mother's advice(yeah, right), your relationship is your decision.

Still, it bothers you that all these people think you should move on. If you're getting a lot of input from others, you're probably inviting it. Maybe you're unsure about the relationship yourself or maybe you are subtly invested in being seen as the "good guy."

Some people grow up as the "good" child and get a little addicted to the positive strokes, hiding their own bad stuff from view. Even if you didn't get crowned as a kid, you can secretly enjoy hearing your friends and family talk badly about your mate.

After all, don't most of us want friends who take our side? If you have conflict about the relationship and you vent to your friends and family about everything he's done, forgetting to mention what you've done, then you can expect them not to like your boyfriend.

Then again, maybe it's not all about disliking your girlfriend. Maybe your family doesn't like you much when you're with her. They might not like who you've become. If you gave up school or started partying hard after you started dating, others might tend to blame the relationship when she had nothing to do with your choice. Heck, maybe one of the things you liked about her was that she didn't care if you went to school. Secretly, you might have chosen the relationship because you really wanted to drop out of school. This way, no one gets all that mad at you. They blame her.

Whether to stay in a relationship and continue working on it or choose to get out, you're in charge. Others' opinions are important, but they're taking their cues from you. Figure your own motives out and you'll be better equipped to know which direction you need to take.

Parenting: Hold and Release

You love your kids and want to protect them from all the bad things in this world. You know you can't, but you want to. When you're really objective, you know your kids have to deal with the stuff that isn't always fun in life, sometimes its downright crappy. So, what's a parent to do?

Tiffany loves her twenty-five year old son and would do anything for him. She's sent him to the best private schools(thank heaven, she can afford them) and an exclusive college. When he finally graduated a year ago, she thought he was set to have a good life--good education, good job, nice home. And he did get a job earning a fairly good income, but now he still seems to need her to bail him out when he gets in over his head financially. He goes out partying with his friends a lot and dates a new woman every few months. When is he going to settle down? Last month, he was out late, drinking with his friends, and got a DUI. She's got him a good lawyer, but Tiffany wonders when her son is going to grow up.

Parenting needs to be a combination of two modes: Hold and Release. Knowing when to do which is the tricky part.

Kids need your love. They need encouragement and, mostly, they need you to believe they can handle life. They also need you to let them deal with decisions and consequences themselves. One of the hardest parts of parenting is the Release part--letting your kids deal with the consequences of their own choices. Holding them tight all their lives means you mop up after every mistake they make.

It is a hard fact of life that we don't learn without having to deal with the consequences of our choices.

Your children need you to let them mop up after themselves. Knowing when to do this is key to parenting. A basic motto needs to be--don't do for them what they can do for themselves. And make sure you don't rely on the argument that your kid obviously can't handle his finances because he won't balance a checkbook. If you keep giving him money to cover his over-drafts, why should he learn to avoid getting over-drafts? Knowing what a kid is ready to handle can be hard, but paying close attention will show his capabilities.

Look at what others her age are doing. Are all her friends getting jobs and remembering to do their own homework without someone breathing down their necks? Maybe she's ready to handle life responsibilities.

When a toddler goes in for a nap and comes out of his room an hour later in a totally different outfit, it's time to stop dressing him. Even if he doesn't always match at first, he needs to pick out his own clothes(check to make sure he's weather-appropriate) and put them on himself.

Make sure what you do for your kid isn't out of your own needs. If you're always perfectly-dressed and you want others to think well of you because your child is also perfectly-dressed, who are we really concerned about? The kid or your image? Parenting needs to be about providing the child what the child needs. He needs you to love him and believe in him. If this is true, you sometimes let the kid pick out clothes that don't match. When, if ever, matching is important to the kid, he'll figure out how to do it.

Hold your kids and remember to demonstrate your love by giving them your attention and your time, not just your money. Release your kids and let them make age-appropriate decisions. Make sure you don't get in the way of their consequences. You'll be stealing their learning.

Watching them struggle can break your heart, but there's no other way for them to become responsible adults.