Impaired Judgment
Direct Answers - Column for the week of September 23, 2002 My husband has a twofold addiction problem, drinking and drugs. In the six years we have been married, he has had periods of sobriety, but they don't ever last. I feel he has not confronted the underlying problem: he was molested as a child by a family member. He is currently in jail due to getting drunk and hitting a police car. Before we met he had an arrest history for violent crime, but he was never violent with me. He has a good core to him, as well as a feeling of worthlessness. When things are good they are very good, and you know the rest of the saying. Al-Anon does not appeal to me. There are too many victims. I will not bail him out or give him money. He knows I feel he has to face the music. Luckily I am financially able to take care of myself, but I wonder if this marriage can ever be saved. I am nearing the end of my patience with him. I refuse to allow him to make more excuses. My feeling is you always have a choice in what action you take. You do not have to be a drug addict. I don't want to kick a man when he is down, but I'm very tired. Emmy Lou Emmy Lou, you are not kicking a man when he is down. You have done nothing but try to help. Now it is time to decide on your best course of action and what your life will be. Sometimes helping someone, in the sense of protecting them from consequences, is exactly what they don't need. Consequences are the only thing which will make them change, because they won't change until the worst that can happen, happens. If you are drawn to individual counseling for yourself, then by all means do it. It may offer you an opportunity to talk about how you got into a relationship with someone under the influence of drugs and alcohol. How do you have a genuine relationship with someone who is chemically impaired? No one can make your husband change until he is ready. That may be long after he is out of your life. Wayne & Tamara Determination Tell me what to do when your own mother can't stop screaming at you, when you know what she's saying has nothing to do with you. The worst thing is she knows it, too, but she still screams. Being a vent for her is not what I want. No one would want that kind of anger in their life. I hate it, but I'm turning into her. I scream the same way she does, except I do it when no one is around. Cate Cate, one day a man with a problem dog went to see a monk who was a dog trainer. It seems whenever the man moved toward any doorway, his dog bolted through ahead of him. The monk and the man talked as the dog lay beside them. Down a hill, a short distance away, was a gate. The monk asked the man to get up and walk toward the gate. The dog raced to the gate, and the monk called the man back. Again and again the man was directed to walk toward the gate. Each time when the dog ran before him, the monk called the man back. Each time the dog made less effort to follow. Finally the man reached the gate and went through as the dog watched. In this way, the monk broke the dog's habit. Each time your mother screams at you for no reason, walk away. When your mother realizes what happens when she screams, her behavior will change. When you realize you have power over the situation, you won't need to scream. At that point, the two of you can begin to talk. Wayne & Tamara About The Author Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com. Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Walk On The Path Of Peace (Part 2)
If you are praying daily for wisdom, for peace, a fuller realization of Truth, for happiness and that which you are praying for is still far from you, then you are praying for one thing while living out in thought and action something else. Begin to think and act in the spirit of that which you seek, and expect it. You will day by day begin to experience the reality of what you are asking for, so that ultimately you will become one with them.
Getting Past Those Blah Days
Get It Out
Summertime - Take Time To Smell The Roses
I AM SO GRATEFUL for the time to smell the roses.
Lying in a hammock between two shade trees
Or wandering through a multicolodred rose garden,
Sitting quietly and communing with nature
Beholding something beautiful in each person I meet.
What Does Faith Have To Do With Marketing?
No, this isn't going to be a sermon or anything ? don't worry about that! I'm no preacher, so I wouldn't even think of trying; but what I do have is faith in myself and faith in the fact that I can be successful on the internet.
Beauty, Gratitude, and the Open Heart
"?beauty on your earth is a shadow of the beauty of our heaven, and it's a bitter thing to have a blindness for beauty on earth, for it makes a longer teaching to see the beauties of heaven." Spoken by an Irish spirit in the book The Boy who Saw True (anonymous author).
5 Simple Tips On Using Your Senses
1. Breakfast in Bed.
Spring Quotations - Top 30 Quotations About Spring Time
7 Strategies to Overcoming Anxiety and Panic Attacks
You Can Overcome panic attacks and anxiety!
Information -- Schminformation, Enough Already!
We are drowning in it, our grey matter is swollen with it, half the time when we need a piece of it and we know
it is "in there" somewhere, we can't access it because the poor Grey Matter Computer is so jammed it takes
forever to search for the file and then it's usually "just lost" or was mistakenly deleted. And that's just our
brains...what about our files, drawers, shelves, filled with papers, books, stuff.
Get On with Your LIfe
You've lost your job, that's all you know, and you don't have money to go to school. Get on with your life. You sunk all the money you have into an internet business and haven't made a dime. Get on with your life. You say that you are broke and homeless have no education and no hope. Get on with your life.
How to Overcome Loneliness
Nowadays the majority of people live in very large cities. It is hard to imagine that in cities of millions of people that anyone could feel lonely. However, it is because of the huge size of the cities that we do feel this way. Twenty years ago, you probably knew everyone who lived in your street, at least by sight. Now you are lucky if you know your next-door neighbors.
Patience - The Antidote for Stress
Why is it so difficult to hold steadfast to a commitment to the very thing we desire? I'm sure you've had the experience of challenging your client with something to do, or to be, in service of moving them closer to their heart's desire. As you reconvene again and again, you note that the client can't seem to stay committed to the steps that will realize their dreams. Certainly the age-old response is fear--but perhaps there is more going on.
Powerful Caretakers - Taking Good Care of Ourselves First
Our community consists of powerful caretakers. We do a great job of assisting and loving those around us. However, many of us fall short when it comes to taking good care of ourselves. We expend our energies giving to our kids, our jobs, our partners, our schedules and more. Then, at the end of the day, we have nothing left for us. If this goes on for too long, we can begin to experience our lives as less than fulfilling.
My Journey
I believe it's important for you to develop a mission statement for your life; one that is unique and articulates your values, goals, dreams; how you want to live.
Adversity, What Is It Good For?
As I sat down to write this article, I was reflecting back over the last week ? a week filled with adversity. We all go through it and it is during those times that we may often wonder what is it all for anyway? What is the point? What is it good for?
Go Between
Direct Answers - Column for the week of June 16, 2003
Neither A Borrower
Direct Answers - Column for the week of November 4, 2002
Loving You
The difficulty in finding love that is good for you stems from the same difficulty you have loving yourself. For those who believe in God or a higher power, to not love yourself is to not love the very source of your existence. To not trust yourself is to not trust the source of all life. To not forgive and have compassion for yourself is to not have forgiveness and compassion for others created from the same source. What is this source? Call it what you will, all matter comes from energy and all energy comes from Source. Leave the scientists and religious thought leaders left to their devices to try and explain that. You focus on your relationship, to self and to source.
The Brilliant You, Unreleased!
You're a remarkable person. But, you knew that already. Still, buried among apathy, unbelief and inhibition, is the brilliant "you" waiting to be released. You already knew that, too. A few disappointments here, several temporary defeats there, and POOF! just like that, you settled for being a risk-conscious, opportunity: self-denied, generality. Nobody makes any progress by standing still. You're not an exception; and you're not alone.
Beautiful Day Blues
The massive orb dominates the aqua crystalline backdrop of its own making, floods its rays on everything below. The sky devoid of a single cloud seems as empty as I feel and the beach looks like an arid desert, molded by tireless wind and blazing heat. I picture myself atop an Arabian camel, parched with thirst, crossing an unforgiving series of never-ending dunes, up one and down the next, no rhyme nor reason, only the nose of the animal in front of me.
|
