ClydeStyle

Tag: Relationships

  • The Crime of Cheating!

    So it seems that in America we have a conscience. Albeit a conditional conscience, but nevertheless a conscience.

    Tiger Woods and many other super athletes, famous actors, rich folks and presidents have all been caught cheating on their spouses. The only difference between 70 years ago and now is that today we act like we really care. When we look at the fall of marriage in America, our attempt to keep it sacred is to crucify the ones who get caught violating the bonds of marriage as a reminder for us all. It’s sort of like in medieval times when they would have public executions.

    Well, Tiger Woods was the latest victim. Sad to say for me I won’t see him and golf the same anymore. The reason is not what you think. I DO NOT condone cheating on your spouse, but it happens. I don’t condone lying either, but guess what? It happens. However, here we have this rich guy, who has made this woman rich beyond her wildest imagination. He’s a very powerful man who does many charitable things – including a state of the art school for inner city kids to provide them with a first-class education. One reporter made the comment that he shouldn’t have the school anymore because he’s not a good role model. Seriously?!?

    The man plays golf very well — better than anyone else on the planet. Let’s say that he is a role model. Wouldn’t that role model status be limited to just golf? Or are we really to believe that because he’s an awesome golfer that he has to live up to the standards of moral excellence as well? Is there some secret code that says a man who excels in anything, must be as good in everything else?

    Tiger shouldn’t have cheated. He probably shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, but for this adult to be reduced to this scrutiny about his personal life is not fair. The crime for this cheat isn’t the cheating – it’s the self righteous views of the public. Cheating doesn’t mean Tiger is now a bad golfer, a bad father or even a bad husband. It just means he cheated and it was a bad decision.

    It’s not even our business. Some argue that this is the price for fame. It’s not. He is a victim of circumstance. Seventy years ago, this wouldn’t have made the news. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and many other athletes, rich folks, presidents and famous actors cheated. Men particularly would cheat because they could without much of a penalty back then. There were not even laws to take care of the victims back then. So guess what the victims did? They stayed. They made adjustments and they remained married. It was what men did and women were expected to take it and be thankful for what they had. (Rent the movie Mona Lisa Smile for more info on this).

    Again, I am not condoning cheating. What I’m saying is that if this is the standard we are going to maintain, then we should do it for everyone. Not just the rich and famous, but everyone. But we can’t stop there. What about the victims in these cases? When is there a judgment against them? Maybe Tiger’s wife when she got angry with him, she withheld sex. Maybe Tiger likes to do really kinky things that she doesn’t want to do. Maybe she’s not as clean as Tiger would like her to be and it’s a turnoff for him. Or maybe she’s just a spoiled little daddy’s girl whose attitude of entitlement has pushed Tiger away. Or maybe she has done nothing to deserve this. In all of these cases, they don’t need public commentary, they need private counseling.

    I hope my point is clear. If not I’ll spell it out one last time in these three easy points:

    1)      A marriage is sacred and we should worry about what’s going on in our own homes and stay out of other people’s homes unless we’ve been invited in.

    2)      Super athletes are great at one thing – the sport they play – and we should admire the talent and honor God for the gift, but point the moral finger at ourselves. We shouldn’t place expectations on other people. We should only place them on ourselves.

    3)       If there is a mistake a person can make to wipe out the many things they’ve done well, then we’ve condemned everyone…because everyone makes mistakes.

    Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones!

  • Breaking up is hard to do

    Marriage has become big business – especially in the United States.

    Not only do we spend a fortune on daddy’s little girl’s special day, but the lawyers in the divorce settlement get to have their “special day,” too!

    On average, fifty percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce.

    The occupation you and your spouse choose may also have an effect on divorce statistics.

    If you are a clergyperson, the divorce rate dips to 20 percent (probably due to pressure from Protestant churches – most won’t accept a minister who is single).  But if you are in law enforcement, that number swells to 70 percent.

    But no matter where you fall on the divorce meter, divorce is still a traumatic event. Few husbands and wives consider the need for calm, rational thinking while making decisions that affect not only the adults, but impact the children, too.

    Many important decisions need to be made when a couple is considering divorce. But at some point, things often get so bad that one or both partners decide that they can’t stand to be around each other any longer – let alone conduct a rational discussion.

    What was once thought to be love has now turned into hate. here is no agreement on anything. There is no such thing as a compromise. And as a result, there is no peace in the household.

    Add kids to this volatile mix and now you have something very explosive.

    Like a drive-by shooting, I have seen a spouse use the kids as a shield to block insults or send them to the soon-to-be-ex in the form of an emotional bomb.

    Don’t be fooled. This isn’t a marriage anymore – it’s now a war!

    One couple I counseled was masterful at this.

    When the wife wanted to leave, the husband deflected her insults about men by telling their six-year-old son that when his mom made disparaging comments about men, she meant all men – including him!

    In another case, the wife sent her young daughter to her husband after he announced that he was leaving her because of her drinking problem. The daughter looked at her dad with those cute little brown eyes and said, “Daddy, why are you leaving us?”

    Breaking up is hard to do because you have to learn again how to talk to each other, be civil, and choose not to retaliate or play the tit-for-tat game.

    Plus you also have to consider the kids FIRST in everything.

    Divorce is like a war – but no matter who is left standing at the end, there is no winner. All sides lose – especially the kids.

    I’ve had to teach couples how to be cordial, how to react, how to avoid extra hurt for the kids and how to be fair.

    I have to remind them that their decisions shouldn’t have anything to do with the spouse and everything to do with the quality of person they are.

    We as humans tend to trade our good qualities for bad ones when we’re angry or emotionally upset.

    One might question if we really had the good qualities in the first place.

    A marriage and family therapist would be worth his/her weight in gold if couples were to start out with one for premarital counseling and then keep the therapist around for the first few years of the marriage.

    This is the answer to the divorce problem everywhere!

    Couples who divorce must learn how to compromise and how to give up “self” for the sake of the kids.

    Isn’t that interesting?

    If it’s possible that during divorce proceedings a couple can learn how to compromise and not be selfish, I wonder what would happen if they learned these things before they married?

    Maybe divorce attorneys would become an endangered species.

  • The Gospel of Love

    There is a lot of information written about love. If you type the word “love” into a Google search, 1.4 billion search results appear.

    I was reminded of a song when I graduated from high school entitled “What about love?” by the rock band Heart. The song is about a person who has been sending love to another and for some reason it’s not getting through. The person she is sending her love to is climbing the ladder of success and doing big things and she’s reminding him about love.

    The chorus says:
    What about love?
    Don’t you want someone to care about you?
    What about love?
    Don’t let it slip away.
    What about love?
    I only want to share it with you.

    Love expresses so many things about us – our needs, desires, wants and our vulnerability. This is a universal way that we can give a part of our essence to each other. Love, done the right way, is God’s greatest gift to mankind.

    What about love gone wrong?

    It’s hard to have a conversation about love and not talk about hate. It’s great and I thank God for free will and giving us a choice. The idea was as we learned better, we would do better.

    In one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs he says:
    So I’ve learned that love is not possession.
    And I’ve learned that love won’t wait.
    Now I’ve learned that love needs expression, but I’ve learned too late.

    I believe there are people in this world who need an enema in regards to their love. In other words their love is stopped up, trapped inside of them and they don’t know how to get it out.

    These hurt people, hurt people.

    Because of their hurt, they become damaged goods and they desire that everyone would feel hurt like they do. You may have met some of these people. Some of the best places to find them is at work and at church!

    You can tell they are hurt in the things they say, the way they look, how they dress and it’s even reflected in the number of true friends they have. Their love is constipated!

    There are three ways to fix constipation:
    1. Have someone unpack it for you. In the nursing business this is the quickest way to get it done. And they actually go up there and get it.
    2. Use medication. There are some really good products on the market that use all natural ingredients for this.
    3. Let it happen naturally. Your system will get so backed up that eventually it’s forced out (drink plenty of water with that one).

    Of course, I’m referring to a literal case of bowel obstruction, but for love the answers are on the same line of thinking.

    Let’s take the last one first.

    Method Number Three has a few drawbacks. For love to eventually build up and flow out will happen in a sea of tears. Unfortunately, by this time, the person who was trying to love you has given up. This third method describes a condition where circumstances have made this person break down to a very lowly state.

    Some people never recover from this.

    They become depressed and may succeed at suicide. A person in this state needs to feel the love immediately and know that their show of vulnerability is not an embarrassment, but an improvement.

    Method Number Two is just good old-fashioned therapy. We all need therapy from time to time – it’s not that we’re crazy. Occasionally, we need to take something that will help get us back on track. Good therapy does just that.

    Method Number One has to be performed by someone who has a very close relationship with the person whose love is constipated. This person has to reach in and grab it. That means the constipated person must be confronted in love regarding their attitude, behavior or actions. The person who cares enough to confront them must not give up and be willing to fight the good fight of faith and to believe that the relationship can survive. And it can, because love covers a multitude of sins!

    This is the “good news” of LOVE.

  • Who’s really to blame?

    It seems as though our laws and legal system are missing the grade as each relates to being a deterrent to crime. We make laws and those laws are broken. We set up a court system and it gets overcrowded and has more repeat offenders than a Cedar Point ride.

    Is there a way that we could set up a system that would really work: Be a deterrent to crime and not overcrowd our court system and jails?

    I’ve taken a therapeutic approach to this solution.

    What if everyone had to have a family tree? And with the family tree — that would always go back two generations – all the members of the family would be responsible and accountable for their own family.

    This would mean that if my son went to jail, not only would my dad and I get fined because of it, but our family would have to pay to have him housed in jail or prison until he gets out. So if he was there for 30 days, it would be our collective family’s responsibility to make sure he gets three hots and a cot or reimburse the jail or prison system for providing it. If he was in prison for 10 years, then we would have to provide the same.

    I wonder if this was the law, would people do better at raising their children? It seems like my system would work in a number of areas. What if my son had children out of wedlock and didn’t (or couldn’t) take care of them? Then my dad and I would have to fit the bill for that. What if my kid was cited for bullying kids at school more than three times? What if the fines doubled with each offense with the starting offense being $100? That would mean with the third citation we would owe $400 (in addition to the $300 we paid for the previous two). Is that enough to make parents raise their children properly?

    I believe that because of the great depression, subsequent parents afterward were frightened into making sure that food, clothing and shelter were priorities. This meant that our physical needs in most cases would be taken care of. Television shows from the 50s and 60s bear witness to the classic family model of a stay at home mother and a father that was the “bread winner”. The parents’ roles were designed to meet the physical needs, but what about emotional, mental, spiritual needs?

    Today, simply providing for the physical needs of your children is the same thing we do for pets. Something has to thrust us into the lives of our children. Kids today are missing the unconditional love that comes from BOTH parents.

    A boy needs to know what it’s like for a man to love him and be intimate with him without shame. A daughter needs to know and feel the security that comes from having the first man she ever loved tell her that she is beautiful, intelligent and can do anything she puts her mind to. Both children need to see their dad love their mom and sacrifice for the whole family. On that same line, the children need to know and feel a mother’s nurturing and love, unconditionally. A boy needs to have respect for his mother and sisters and see other females the same way he sees them. This is the governor of his hormones for there would definitely be something wrong if a boy tried to put a move on his mother or sister.

    The whole point of this is that we need to get back to the things that are most important – the family. And it just seems that in America the only way to get people to understand the magnitude of this problem is to hold them financially responsible for the actions of their offspring.