LOVE OR DESPERATION?

Being beautiful, skinny or rich doesn't guarantee relationship happiness. Hollywood hook-ups and break-ups show us this over and over. What we think will make us happily mated, doesn't always do so.

I saw a foster child in play therapy yesterday. On Fridays, my husband and I enjoy going together to do in-home therapy with foster kids. We both do this individually on other days, but on Fridays we make it a point to go together. (Foster kids are both lucky and unlucky. They are cared for in loving homes that are not their own--but they aren't with their own parents...lucky and unlucky.)

This Friday, I happened to be exiting a child's bedroom after her session when Roger was passing into another child's room. As we were going down the stairs, my client innocently asked me why Roger has no hair on back part of his head.

Roger has male pattern balding and he hates it.

When we met in high school, my husband had a thick, luxuriant head of hair. It was the seventies. Guys wore long hair as a rebellion and a fashion statement. Roger had a mustache and chest hair, even in high school. Hair wasn't a problem for him then and it's something of a sorrow for him that he's losing it now.

But I don't care--I mean I care that he cares, but his bald spot doesn't diminish his attractiveness to me one bit. Not even a little. This is not because I'm tremendously wonderful or saintly. I just happen to feel loved by my husband. I experience being valued by him everyday. This matters a whole lot more than hair.

Relationship happiness is a sometimes elusive goal for most of us. Feeling loved is a great reason to be in a relationship..... Feeling desperate isn't.

Too often when individuals sit in my office, talking about their unhappiness in their marriage or with the person they're dating, they say they would leave--but they don't want to be alone. Although an individual recently posted a message on this blog, accusing me of not believing in marriage, I think relationships are tremendously important. Whether you're married or cohabitating, having a significant other is really significant. I've been married for thirty-two years. Not all of these were blissful, but we learned a heck of a lot.

In a healthy, working relationship, you learn a lot about yourself. This is a big part of the gift of love. Research tells us that being in a relationship adds to your physical health and contributes to you living longer. Together can be really good for you when you're happy, but there is a strong tendency to stay in relationships for another reason....people are afraid to be alone.

Some things about not having a partner do suck. You go to parties alone, you don't have anyone to warm your feet in bed on cold nights. You don't have a sexual default.

But staying in an unresolved, contentious relationship where you no longer enjoy or have respect for your partner isn't good for you. (It isn't good for your kids either, but that's another topic.) It makes a lot of sense to take a good, hard look at how you can resolve the issues in your relationship. You need to learn what you're contributing to the mess. You need to work on changing your behaviors that aren't healthy.

And you may need to leave.

It's just a sad reality that unresolved conflict leads to the death of whatever love was originally in the relationship. It may be over. You may be done.

If this is the case, you need to move on. Staying because you don't want to be alone isn't good enough. Lots of people hate being alone. They don't like not having someone at their side in the mall. They want a bookend. While being alone may not be the ideal state for an adult, it's better than getting into or staying in a relationship just to avoid being alone.

When you're trying to make a in-or-out relationship decision and you find yourself wavering, ask whether this is love or desperation. Being so afraid of living on your own indicates a lack of belief in yourself. And I'm going to say that this is largely inaccurate.... You are way more capable than you give yourself credit for.

When a relationship is a bad fit from the start--different values or too similar a personal outlook--you're better off being alone.

Being in love is good. Being in desperation is bad. Don't let this lead you in the wrong direction.

THE LOVING KISS-OFF

I took a daughter of mine to a distant city yesterday and left her there. She's entering a doc grad program at a university and is now immersed in adjusting to a new city and teaching her first class.

Your kids may be your kids all your life, but good parenting means setting them up on their own to make it without you. You won't be here forever. The kids need to make it on their own.

Her dad and I did maintenance on her car, bought her a new work wardrobe, paid for her to have a decent haircut--all things she needed. Then we loaded her stuff into a U-Haul truck and moved her to her new life. We're thinking she's going to have to sink or swim there.

It's really up to her.

This is the hard part of parenting--amongst many hard parts--the letting go. It's both a relief and an anxiety. She needs us to believe in her and if we do that, we need to act like she can handle life. Really, that's what most kids need, to know they are capable and strong and that we believe in them.

We get to go on with our own lives now and, it may sound callous and cold, but that's a relief.

Still, it's hard.

* * *

J. writes of depression and anxiety and not knowing where to turn:

"I need someone to talk to....I am a single mom of a precious twelve year-old daughter that I love so much, but she is the only reason I keep going...I have been struggling with anxiety and high blood pressure...and worry...I feel worthless and pathetic...I can't seem to make friends....

Dear J.

Get thee to a therapist and do it quickly. You shouldn't have to suffer like this and you need guidance how to make your life better. If you don't have insurance that will pay for mental health treatment, look for a community agency that offers counseling on a sliding scale or a university program that arranges for counseling with a graduate student who's got professorial back-up. You need someone to listen to you, to hear your distress and to remind you that you're not a terrible person.

* * *

G. writes of struggling to let her baby son establish relationships beyond her:

"My mother-in-law watches my year-old son and she's doing a great job...but when she goes out, she doesn't call me. It's starting to tear my marriage apart...Its making me feel unimportant. I want to know everything that goes on with my son...whether it's going to the store or going to the park..."

Dear G.

Get a grip. You say yourself that your mother-in-law is doing a great job in caring for your son. Let her do it. Having a baby can trigger stuff you haven't dealt with and this maybe what's going on with you. Parenting is the constant process of learning to let go(see my remarks above). You want your son to grow into a healthy young man. He needs to establish relationships with lots of people. He needs different resources...he needs more than you. This may be hard to hear, but it's true.

If this freaks you out so powerfully that you're having major conflict within yourself and with your husband. You might resent having had to return to work, fearing a loss of connection with your son. Or you may fear that your mother-in-law is becoming more significant to your son than you. Even unfounded or unlikely anxieties can cause emotional distress. You might need to look at (with help if necessary) what the "mothering" role means to you. It sounds like you started defining yourself by your parenting role alone. This is a dangerous, scary thing to do (although it's tempting). You may never have felt this important to anyone. In the beginning, your child needs you for everything. He needs the haven of your body and even the blood that circulated between you. Everything. When you gave birth, though, it started a process of him growing up and moving into the world.

If you're having a hard time with letting him do this, maybe you need to look at how else you can get what you need.

* * *

M. writes of her relationship challenges with her live-in boyfriend and his/her kids:

"For around the past four months, we have been getting into fights; fights that are little and fights that are big...My fear is that...we could lose each other and I don't want that to happen. My goal is for he and I to be able to trust each other; work together, minimize arguments and find helpful activities to have fun that don't involved negative environments. I don't want to lose him...Can you help us?"

Dear M.

You guys need to learn to argue and I mean that in the best way. Conflicts in relationships are unavoidable. Anyway you go at it, the two of you are going to disagree about stuff, particularly with step-parenting and trying to blend two families. I'm also thinking you need to look at your value systems and see if these are in conflict. Your ominous reference to "negative environments" leads me to think you two don't see eye-to-eye on some basic issues.

Yelling and arguing with a loved one feels really bad and most people go to great lengths to avoid this, if they can. But you still need to learn to communicate and that's sometimes a difficult process. We don't always sit down and talk in a calm voice, although no one should be looking around for missiles to throw, either. You need to hear what he's saying and to have him hear your concerns. I cannot stress this enough. If you can't learn to do this, you won't make it.

* * *

Relationships are complicated and difficult...and we need them to make our lives worth living.

DON'T OVER-TALK YOUR KIDS

In parenting, it's sometimes the things you don't say that make the most impact.

You love your kids just as I love mine, and you want to shelter them from the foreseeable storms, the things you know will cause them grief. This can be anything from steering them clear of transgressions of the law to hiding their paternity. But be careful that you don't step into trying to smooth their paths in ways that ends up creating problems.

Every life has some troubles. It's a fact that I hate, but this is reality. It's also sucky that we seem to need to stumble and feel the consequences of our choices before we really learn. That being so, why are you trying so hard to keep your kids from experiencing consequences?

It's true that some consequences are life-altering or life-ending. When kids are small, you try hard to keep them from playing in the middle of the street. You know what can happen if a car comes along, but knowing the outcome isn't an excuse for preventing your child from dating or marrying the wrong guy. Some things she has to learn herself. Of course, if she's fourteen, you still have a responsibility to step in if you think she's getting beaten up by the guy she's dating or if you think she's sexually active--the really scary stuff.

But you don't get to nag her all the time about the guy based on your conviction that he's a loser or your fear that he'll lead her into bad company. Really bad things have to be blocked, of course, and you can do this if the kid is under-age. Not if she's an adult, though. She gets to pick loser boyfriends and flunk out of college classes she'll later need to get a degree and a good job.

All this sucks, but talking at your kids, telling them what they've heard you say a hundred times and nagging--none of this benefits your child.... The urge to do all of this is completely natural. You're desperate to keep the kid from pit falls! Heck, you've been down this road. You know the rough spots and you don't want the same for her.

Sorry. She's going to find out some things for herself and you--because you love her--get to be supportive and silent. She doesn't need to you point out that you told her this or to underline the lessons life is already teaching her.

She needs you to love her--to believe in her even when she doesn't believe in herself. While you may have the urge to rush in a rescue her in the way that your parents tried to rescue you (or in the way you wished you could have been rescued), don't do it. Rescuing needs to be very sparingly administered--just the minimum. Doing more will make her dependent on you and while that may make you feel warm and fuzzy in the short term, you're not going to be around always. She needs to learn she can stand on her own two feet.

I know this is hard. Particularly when the kid you love is crying or desperate. Don't rush in. Think very, very carefully about rescuing or saving her. The last thing you want is to weaken her.

If you want to help, support her school/career endeavors in any way you can, but only if she asks. This will give her the capacity to make a life for herself.

You want her to be strong. Remember that over-talking and telling her what to do doesn't help her discover the sometimes harsh truths of life. It just makes her stop listening to you.

And you don't want that.

PERSONALIZE YOUR SEX, PEOPLE

"He just wants sex. He doesn't necessarily want me."

I hear this alot and it's always said with resentment. Don't go here.

Problems with sex are typically an indication of poor communication or no communication. As emotional estrangement builds, sex fades away. When you have a sex disconnect, a relationship disconnect is almost always present.

Lots of things contribute to this--resentment over an unequal balance of responsibilities in the home(one half feels she's doing all the housework, childcare, bringing-home-the-money, etc), really lousy communication, resentment over a previous wrong....to mention a few.

Sexual problems are rarely just sexual.

One component of this kind of imbalance is that the half of the relationship who doesn't beg for sex usually doesn't feel really wanted by the other partner. It's nothing personal. Although this isn't usually recognized, feeling desired by another person is a great aphrodesiac. Few things get you humming like someone being turned on by you.

Relationship problems lead to cheating, but a big component of cheating is that the extra-marital partner is really turned on by the cheater. (Of course, they're not thinking of themselves as cheaters--it's not all that attractive.)

Thinking your partner just wants to get his rocks off and that it doesn't have that much to do with you is a turn-off. Even if you guys are having sex regularly, the sex is hotter when one person is very excited to be with the other. "Oh my god, you're the sexiest!"

Not giving a flip about who you're having sex with, as long as you get sex, might not be your feeling. But when you're experiencing a sexual drought, you tend to get angry and sometimes you say ugly things you don't really mean...like talking about a person having needs and maybe even threatening to go get sex somewhere else. When they say this, sex-starved people aren't usually intending to go have random sex with strangers, they're trying to communicate how much they want the physical intimacy back in the relationship, but let me tell you, this is a stupid thing to say.

I just need an orgasm with another person--not just my own hand--isn't a flattering or arousing communication.

If one partner (not always the guy) seeks to experience connection through sexual activity, this can be seen by the other partner as dismissive and using. Partners who feel used (not always women) by sex-seeking mates don't think their feelings are important to the mate. They feel like anybody would do, the partner isn't really hungering for them. Just sex.This is why they feel used. They don't see their partners' desire for sex as being about them....it's just about having an orgasm(or two).

Some people connect through talking and sharing--vital to relationships--and some connect easier through having sex. The talking and sharing part is always important to building emotional intimacy, some people just have a different route to the feelings. Some want to talk before sex; others are opened up to communication by sex. This may seem weird to the talkers, but different folks work in different ways.

Sadly, we have a tendency to think the way we see the world is an absolute reality, but there are a bunch of folk who see things differently. Open your mind to a different viewpoint. Your sexual problems may be about something else altogether.

BE A GOOD "APPRECIATOR"

I have a lot of wonderful aspects of my life--a happy marriage, a nice place to live, work I love and a really hot sports car (that didn't cost a huge amount of money. I feel good about that), but I also have crappy days when nothing seems to go right. I mess up and double book clients. I get caught in traffic snarl-ups and I run late everywhere.

Sometimes life sucks....but not usually.

It's hard to remember the times you found a parking spot close to the front or when you didn't get the flu that everyone else got. We forget the good stuff when other things are very frustrating. I'm not recommending that you go all Pollyanna on everything, but just that it's important to see the whole picture in life. If we never see how our efforts are earning us good things, we miss our successes and focus only on our failures.

Most individuals have some of both. (Not failing isn't even a good thing; it means you're not risking anything and growing requires risk.) Very, very few of us don't succeed at something and not seeing a success means we don't get to learn from it. After all, we need to see when we've done something that works. When clients come in, telling me that their relationships have gone pretty well since our last session, I always ask Why? What did you do right? What did you do differently?

In my doctoral training, asking why was presented as a bad thing because people can feel defensive when why comes up and this is true. But I'm not talking about an accusatory why; I really want to understand--Why did this change? What did you do differently? Because if things were going badly in your relationship before and now they're better, maybe something you did actually worked.

We need to appreciate our successes, need to see the stuff that doesn't go wrong. This kind of perspective gives a balance to the bad we notice and helps us to aim our behavior better next time.

Appreciating the good stuff in our lives helps us to make better choices. Clients sometimes come in, telling me that their spouse is terrific, but they--the client--are a terrible, lousy person. Not possible. You picked the spouse; you had to have said yes to the proposal or to have proposed yourself. Your living with your wonderful spouse has to give him/her something. Seeing what you've done well or what you've inherited through very good luck (great athletic ability, your own kind of intelligence) helps you deal with the challenging moments that come with every life.

I have a daughter in medical school who worries because some other students have better grades than she does--never mind that she's nowhere near the lowest in her class and that those who graduate with a "C" will still be our physicians in a few years. And some of them will be really terrific doctors. She doesn't always do as well as she feels her massive studying should yield. But I point out to her that she's in medical school and that takes quite a bit of success, in itself. It seems to me that being where she's at needs to convince her of her ability.

We don't tend to over-value ourselves. Even those who bluster and brag are often covering a deep sense of not being good-enough. But getting through each day is a miracle--really, think about the people who don't make it. It's not so important how we look after coming through the storm, but that we make it through.

Appreciate yourself and your blessings. Give yourself the recognition you deserve.

NO PERFECT PARENTS

Don't kid yourself, no one parents as well as they wish they did. Raising kids is one of the hardest things on this earth and when you put pressure on yourself to parent your kids without ever messing up, you're being too harsh. And unrealistic.

You Weren't Treated Well:

Most individuals--even if they appreciate the effort their parents put into raising them--most of us have moments when we felt our parents failed us. You probably excuse this because you don't want to be too hard on them and you know they didn't have it perfect either.

But do you give yourself the same leeway?

Individuals with particularly difficult childhoods often make a great effort not to do what their own parents did. Maybe your parents abandoned you in a basket outside a fire station, maybe they subjected you to abuse or neglect--either of these can leave you feeling both flawed(like their behavior was due to something about you) and determined to better by your kids.

You Want To Give It Everything You've Got:

Then again, you might have had okay parents. They had their difficult moments; they were human and flawed, but you've seen how you can do better. After all, you love your kids more than life. You'd do anything for them...you've probably sacrificed more than they'll ever know.

Maybe Less-Than-Perfect-Parenting Helps The Kid:

Individuals need to know that screwing up is part of life. How better to learn this than to have a parent--who sometimes screwed up--pointing out to the kid that perfection isn't achievable. If you're wrestling with this yourself, you can't very well help your kids deal appropriately with their mistakes. You have to forgive yourself and it's easier when you've learned from the choices you wished you'd made differently. Don't think you can always make the right decisions...just learn from the things you wouldn't do again.

Outside of neglect and abuse, parents most often screw up not by what they don't give their kids, but by doing too much. Rescuing your children from the consequences of their choices just robs them of learning opportunities. While it's very difficult to watch someone you love dealing with difficult things, how can your kids learn they are capable of handling life if you're always rushing in to do the heavy lifting? Let them learn. Let them feel their own power.

The more you allow your children to avoid conflict and only do the fun stuff, the more you're weakening them. While it's your job to provide housing, adequate clothing and a secure environment, you're not responsible for making life easy. As a matter of fact, doing too much of this leaves your children unprepared for the realities of this world.

Let your kids face life (but don't think this gives you an excuse to disconnect from and emotionally-abandon your kids). If you love them, love them. Be available. Believe in them. Let them screw up. Know they can do whatever they need to do. Accept that they don't need you to rescue them.

Sometimes believing in a child's capacities is the most important gift you can give. Be there--be an air bag, so they will survive their experiences--but don't be their escape hatch.

MARRIAGE OVER?

Many an individual comes to my office saying their relationship just isn't how we used to be. They're trying to sort out what to do with the marriage--whether to leave or to stay and keep plugging away. These folks report eroded emotions. That which used to be loving and connected, just isn't anymore.

When you get to the point of using the words "always" and "never" in your fights/arguments/discussions, matters have progressed. Your conflicts have gotten to a pointless level where no one wins and if someone feels like he's winning, he's still losing on a relationship-level.

So why stay?

If you can't work things out and you're unhappy in the relationship, you just need to move on...right? Only moving on without another lover in the wings means being alone and alone is really scary for a bunch of us. Maybe staying together in an unhappy, unresolved and seemingly unresolvable marriage is better than facing being alone. It can certainly seem that way.

This the rocky soil that grows infidelity. Don't let popular sentiment sway you, no happy relationship is broken by infidelity. These relationships were in trouble already. When someone cheats, it's always because there were unresolved issues in the first place. This doesn't let anyone off the hook, though. Cheating is the easy, but dysfunctional way out of a relationship.

Cheating stems from disconnected emotions and unresolved relationships issues, but don't assume that this means there's no connection in the relationship. Often partners have shared history or shared children. Disentangling these ties can be very difficult and the perceived support of another significant other can give people the boost to move forward.

You stay in the unhappy place until you find someone else to cuddle you, someone to tell you how terrific you are, someone to promise that he'll never be like the one you're currently married to. He's different. You'll never have the same problems with him, never reach the same dead ends.

Sadly, in a few years you may find yourself in the same spot with a different face, different name.

If your marriage is in trouble and can't be resuscitated--it's surprising how many can be--then don't wait to get involved with someone else before you have the courage to leave. Do the strong thing. Believe in yourself and just leave. Don't do this before you work on yourself, though. Every relationship involves two people. It's not all your fault, but there's something of you in the mess. You're contributing to the issues...sometimes just by allowing the conflicts to go unchallenged.

Work on yourself. On your stuff. Look at what you can change and then change it. If the marriage is still unhealthy and unhappy, leave. Don't stay because you've grown comfortable with the discomfort. Don't think an unhappy marriage is a good place for your kids to grow up.

Above all things, don't wait till you fall in love with someone new before you get out. That's just buying more trouble.