Should You Stay Or Should You Go?
Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
—The Clash
One of the questions I get asked the most is whether or not someone should stay in a marriage or a relationship. While listening to The Clash, I came up with this list.
You should stay knowing that:
You can only change you. Challenging as that might be. If you’re trying to change your partner, stop it.
You should go if:
There is any physical, verbal or emotional abuse. (Channeling the scary voice from the Amityville Horror) Get Out!
You should stay if:
You understand that there are trade offs in a relationship. Bottom line, you’re gonna love some things about your sweetie and there will be some things that will drive you crazier than an itchy man up a wool tree. Sometimes frustration and love walk hand in hand.
You should go if:
He or she is overly controlling, checking your email, obtaining your passwords, going through your phone. Checking the odometer and having you report your gas mileage (oh yes! It has happened!) is completely over the top. It’s time to go. Jealously and possessiveness means there’s no trust. It’s not cute. It doesn’t mean they love you. Pack your bags.
You should stay if:
You understand that that there will some issues that the pair of you will totally disagree on. And you won’t even agree on what that issue is. What you can do is identify it and accept it and move on.
You should go when:
You’re afraid to say what you need or your needs don’t get met without herculean effort. It shouldn’t be that hard. Relationships are a mutual thing. Everyone should get their needs met and it shouldn’t take an argument for that to happen.
You should stay if:
You are able to take responsibility for your own happiness (not to be confused with getting your needs met). You should be able to discuss your dreams and goals, while remembering these are YOUR dreams and it is not up to your partner to make it happen. You should be supportive of their dreams and goals as well.
You should also stay if:
The sex is still sexy. Not the sole reason to stay however.
You should stay if:
You can remember the moment you connected. The moment you knew that this person was someone special. When it gets hard or frustrating that’s the moment you come back to.
You should think about it when…
Infidelity occurs. (I heard you, you just called me crazy!) Seriously, I’ve seen relationships survive this and come out stronger. I don’t believe it’s always a deal breaker. Need help with this one? I’ll take those questions on a case by case basis. Write me!
Love strong!
- Brenda
Brenda on Grief, Loss and Moving Through
Dear Brenda,
My nephew and his best friend died in a car accident on September 4th of last year. My nephew was 20 years old and was a good man and son. My sister lives in Daly City, CA (bay area or San Francisco area) and she is very devastated over what happened. She cries everyday and calls me. I am here in Los Angeles and I do not know how to console her. At times, she is very angry and I understand her very well. She’s going to a grief therapist but she said it is not enough. She also said that it is very hard especially at night and early in the morning. What should I do? I myself am also grieving and need help. Please advise.
Dear Grieving,
Loss. I put a period at the end of that word because of the finality of it. A life or a relationship is over. A door has closed and there is no going back. And often that’s what we want to do. Instead we’re turned on our heel, faced in another direction and often we feel we’re standing alone.
The wound we carry from the loss can be a deep gaping thing that refuses to close or be filled. At first we fill it with the administrative tasks that come with death or loss, the paperwork and packing away of things, the phone calls. All the while we ache for their footsteps at the front door, the timbre of their voice vibrating in our ear, their scent in the hallway. The wound doesn’t heal, according to Rose Kennedy it scars over, but we still feel the loss. The pain clutches our heart unexpectedly. Often. It sounds as if that’s what happening to your sister.
We’ve heard of the Kubler-Ross model of dealing with death and tragedy, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Some folk get stuck in any of these stages. Some folk never make it to acceptance. Everyone is different and there is no timetable for any of this.
What I’m trying to say here is that it’s been a year. It might take two and that’s okay.
I found the following sites where you can create an online memorial for your nephew. You can also create an iMemory book in his honor. Doing this can help you and your sister process and work through the grief.
- Brenda
Brenda answers: Am I in a healthy relationship?
Dear Brenda,
How do I know if I’m in a healthy relationship?
Dear Relationship Curious,
Do you like you? Because that’s where it all begins, if you don’t love you, no one else can.
A couple of marriages ago (Yes I mean more than two) I married a man I had no business marrying. But I was young and thought I knew everything. I wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone else, because I hadn’t had a relationship with myself. I thought it was about sex. But soon learned that there were others who gave better “room service” than me. I thought it was all about showing him how much I loved him. Buzz. Wrong answer.
“How do you expect me to love you, when you don’t love yourself?” He said once during one of our chats. The light went on, but I still didn’t get it.
With husband number two I actually took the advice of a radio talk show host Dr.Toni Grant (don’t judge me!), who advised women to “return to their traditional roles” so I cooked, cleaned and had scheduled sex (to make sure HIS needs were met) until I burned out and I was bored out of my skull with the mundane life I’d chosen. And finally, we stood in front of judge and called it quits. I’d stopped being me. And it made me damn unhappy.
So when I say, it starts with you, I mean it. It does.
A healthy relationship means that you don’t mind hanging out with yourself. You think you’re pretty cool. And while it’s great to hear others say that, deep down you already own it.
A healthy relationship means you and your partner listen to each other, are patient with each other. You feel special, appreciated and loved.
In a healthy relationship you get to be you. There is no pretending, no folding you up to make yourself fit into the other person’s life. You get to be honest about your boundaries, diseases, likes and dislikes, political affiliation, favorite sports team, spiritual practice. You get the picture. You get to be you without judgment. And while you don’t have to do a full accounting of your life, the decisions you’ve made and the consequences you’ve endured, honesty rules.
A healthy relationship is a partnership. Let me say for the record that no one likes housework. Don’t be a slob, pick up after yourself. Share in the drudgery that is housework. When you don’t, resentment builds and that is slippery slope towards nowhere good. Also, financial decisions should be mutual and both partners should benefit in some way.
People laugh together in healthy relationships and have things in common that they enjoy together and some things they do by themselves. For the love of all things good let your partner have some “me” time or it will get boring and someone will become resentful. Have a hobby, friends, and time separate from your partner and with your partner as well.
People fight fairly in healthy relationships. They listen, they set boundaries, they respect boundaries, they communicate their needs, and they feel heard. They are honest, they forgive, they negotiate, they let go of things and move forward.
A healthy relationship is exclusive and inclusive. You both are exclusive to one another. No one else is in the relationship. The flip side of that is that you are both inclusive of family and friends. It’s not about just the two of you all of the time. That’s called an addictive relationship. And you don’t want that. Can someone say potential stalker?
So Curious, I hope that answers your question. Did I leave something out? Or is your view of a healthy relationship different? Alright readers, chime in.
Best,
Brenda
Divorce. Handle it!
Dear Brenda,
I’ve been separated from my husband for about two years. One day he picked up his things and left. We’re now going through the divorce process. I have three children with him. He doesn’t help me with them. He doesn’t pay child support or ever see them. He was physically abusive, but now he is just mentally abusive and verbally abusive.
I’ve become involved with a man who has been a family friend for years and our feelings are developing into something that I’ve longed for, for so long. I love him and my children love him, but my problem is that now that my husband knows about him, he wants to make the divorce difficult by fighting for the kids. He’s placed in the temporary divorce orders that I can’t have any one of the opposite sex in my home between certain hours. I’ve complied but how do I deal with the mental abuse he continues to give my kids and I? He’s constantly telling the kids that if they see my boyfriend at the house after a certain time to call him. He calls me and tells me things like “he’s taking advantage of you,” and “how can you do this to me and the kids.”
When he left, he was gone for 2 1/2 months and didn’t make one phone call to us. NOTHING! And now he doesn’t even pay child support or see the children. My boyfriend and I take the kids to the park, to the movies, and out to eat. I have more of a family environment now than when their dad was in the picture.
What to do to handle the situation the right way?
Dear Handle It The Right Way,
Handling it the right way means that you need to set limits and boundaries when it comes to the children especially if he is being mentally and verbally abusive. It sounds as if you have a lawyer and I hope your lawyer knows that there was physical, mental and verbal abuse in the home and if it is continuing.
Your children are not spies and should not be treated as such. This sends a negative message and is very hard on them. You can try telling your ex, but it probably won’t do any good. However, you don’t have to listen to the garbage he spews when he calls. You are not a dumping ground. Simply set the phone down and return to hang it up later.
Please remember that “you” didn’t do anything to him and kids. Remind yourself that he needs mental help. And yes, it’s easy to fall into the guilt trap around divorce and abuse and that pesky “I shoulda, coulda, woulda” crap, so yes, you chose this person and had children and now you have to dismantle this thing. Yes, divorce is hard, now let’s move forward.
How do you handle it? Handle it with compassion. Handle it by speaking up. Handle it by remembering how powerful silence is. Handle it by taking steps to make sure you and your children are safe. Handle it by remembering this isn’t war, and that after taking this relationship apart, you’re going to have to put it back together. Handle by caring for yourself and honoring your boundaries. Some days you might have to handle it with a good cry.
Now handle it!
- Brenda
Exercise Your Mind and Your Body Will Follow
Hi Brenda,
I am a 14-year-old-girl and I am obese. I have tried my best to do all sorts of diets and I used to go to the gym twice a week, but nothing worked out.
In school people make fun of me and tease me behind my back. My best friends have started to ignore me and they don’t even answer my calls. Please tell me what to do.
Dear I-Am-Obese,
Let me start by saying that you are a beautiful work in progress and that weight loss doesn’t start in the gym or with diets. Good health begins with your thoughts. Right now you should know that you are perfect as you are and those kids that choose to tease you are just jack-holes.
When it comes to food and exercise adults have the most choices, they usually buy and cook the food for the home. As a teenager, you’re about halfway there. I’m just assuming at this point that you don’t make food choices for the entire family, but you do have the ability to make some choices. And ‘choice’ is the key word here.
Here it is, you change the outside by first changing the inside. The first thing you exercise is your choice. Ask yourself why do you eat. After people tease you do you grab a candy bar? When your friends don’t answer your calls do you go get something to eat? If those actions trigger a desire for food you might be an emotional eater. Sometimes we’re afraid to tell others how we really feel, that we’re angry, or that we’re sad or our feelings were hurt and we choose to eat instead. Not everyone who puts on extra weight is an emotional eater, some people simply consume too many calories and don’t exercise enough and there are no “feelings” connected to the food, they simply like to eat. But I was talking about choices right? Yes. Moment to moment you have the power to make choices about what you’re going to eat and how much of it you’re going to eat. You have the choice to dance or sit in front of the television. You have the choice to choose a fruit or chips to snack on. Right now you are making a choice whether or not what I’m saying is total crap or if any of it rings true. That space right there is where you have the power to make real changes.
What do you want your life to look like? Are you happy and smiling? Smile now. Are you outdoors, walking and enjoying nature? Take a walk now.
Make choices that move you toward the life you envision for yourself. Exercise your mind and your body will follow. I’m rooting for you!
- Brenda
Should You Stay With Your Mentally Ill Partner?
Dear Brenda,
My retired army husband has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and delusional disorders. He refuses to go the doctor or take medication. He has been hospitalized several times and arrested twice and always has the same outcome, he comes home and quits meds, starts drinking again and everything goes downhill fast.
We were separated for 6 months and he is on probation until April 11, 2011. After he came home I told him he had to have a job and stop being so out of control. So he had a job for a year and quit it last week. Now I am back where I started.
He blames everything on me, the economy, the death of his grandparents and parents, the death of my father and brother, both of whom died of cancer. When his parents died, they were in Florida and I was in Maryland… still my fault. He gets angry and starts “lecturing” or screaming at me and it will go on for 5 or 6 hours, unless I leave.
How do I make that break? My kids are grown and since this has been going on for over 10 years, they understand for the most part. I have a retainer with a lawyer; this is just a very hard decision.
- Hard to make a the break
Dear Hard To Make That Break,
Author Alice Walker once said, “Women are the mules of the world.” We take on so much, we care and nurture, and sometimes we crumble under the weight. Being the primary caregiver for a person who has a mental illness is a tremendous responsibility.
I do have some questions. Is the behavior caused by the mental illness the only reason you want to divorce him? When he takes his medication are you able to live with him, love him? Do you have any help at all from his family or your children? Obviously you’ve given this some thought; yet you don’t list them here, so I’m curious what they are. Have you thought through what your life would look without him? Will you feel guilty for leaving? Can you live with that? Can you live yourself if something unspeakable happens? Would you consider a separation? Can you live far enough away to have some peace and quality to your life while also being close enough that if you are needed to sign him into a facility you are able to do so? What about his family? Do you have any support? Quite possibly without you there he might spin out and end up in a place where he must take his medication.
Obviously I can’t answer this question for you, but I hope I’ve given you some things to think about. If you don’t do anything just yet, please do one thing, join a caregiver support group.
I must also say that just because a person has a mental illness, doesn’t give them license to treat their loved ones like crap.
Here are some links that you might find helpful.
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Crisis Help (For support group information) 1-800-273-TALK
All the best to you.
-Brenda
I’m 60 and I want to change careers. Go for it!
Brenda,
My husband and I separated after 30 years. I have been working for 15 years as a hospice nurse. Now I switched to psychiatric nursing, which I did years ago, because driving to the hospice was so exhausting and expensive.
I am now in my sixties and have no money except what I earn. It would be great to work less since I will never be able to retire. Also I would like a job that would entail less responsibility for people’s lives. It would be great not to return to school. Any ideas? Is it ridiculous to think of a career change now?
Dear Is-It-Ridiculous-To-Think-Of–A-Career-Change-Now,
No, it isn’t ridiculous at all; many people burn out and just want or need a change. No problem with that. However IIRTTOACCN there are some challenges that need to be worked out before you can move forward.
Get a pencil and paper and figure out your basic expenses, rent/mortgage, car, health, food, utilities, debt, and entertainment. Figuring out how much cash you need to live on is key. Then you have to ask yourself where your expenses can be cut?
Can you move into senior housing? That can save you hundreds of dollars and as for your income when applying, the lower the better.
Do you have any kind of health benefits through your employer? Can you apply for a government-sponsored program that might pick up some of your medical expenses?
The most important question though is what do you want to do? Would you like to stay in nursing? Can you take that expertise and move it to another arena? Or would you like to do something different? What is your passion?
I thought AARP.org offered the best resources for seniors looking to change careers or re-enter the workforce.
Good luck! And remember that something spectacular is just around the bend!
- Brenda
The Wicked Stepmother? Step parenting is the hardest job in the world.
Dear Brenda,
I’ve been separated from my husband for ten months, we were married for five years. Our son is 18 months old and daughter is four years old. I moved out of the house when I was visited by a man who showed me pictures of my husband’s car outside his wife’s new apartment. This man told me that he and his wife were married 17 years. The man told me my husband was his wife’s boss, and that it was my husband who helped her leave him by moving her out of his house. He told me that all the work trips my husband had taken since our son was born were with his wife.
As I replayed the months post partum, I saw how distant my husband had been. My husband has two kids from a prior marriage, a daughter 12, and a son?14. My stepchildren have always been high maintenance emotionally, needy, due to the nasty divorce between their mother and my husband. We saw them every other weekend.
After our son was born, I asked my husband if he could take his weekends with my step-kids outside the house while I was sleep deprived taking care of our two and also heading back to work full time. I had nothing left in me. It turns out that the weekends he did that; my husband took my step-kids along with his co-worker/girlfriend’s kids (girls 22, 9, and son 16) on his weekends to be all together, apparently planning to leave me for their new family together. I will not even address the racial aspects of the co-worker being black and my husband not, but I will say that the husband who visited me told me his wife always hated my husband’s white a** and was documenting some wrongful doings on him to have him fired. ?
Rest of the story short is, given the high profile of my husband’s career, he has now been investigated and the outcome is that he is being removed from federal service. When I moved out of the house, I filed for divorce from my husband based on adultery with his co-worker. I used my husband’s ex-wife’s attorney since I would not have to pay for an attorney to re-build the history on him. We have a temporary arrangement for custody and now child support since my husband had been paying for his kids and hers to do everything together, the judge has ordered him pay me ten months worth of back support. My husband’s claim for counter divorce has been that I emotionally abused him and my stepchildren. My attorney disagrees and believes that my step-kids mother would never let her children claim such nonsense. ?
To date, I suppose my husband has a few weeks left on the job, and is now acting like he wants to all of the sudden spend time once a week with our kids. He is claiming now that I made him choose between our kids and my step-kids. Saying I pushed them away, was cruel to them emotionally… He is also claiming that he is trying to right himself with God. Facing his annual salary drop of $170K to potentially zero, he wants to be a dad to our kids once a week? After our divorce settlement, he will be required to pay child support to both me and his ex to total about $60K a year.
While I hate to admit, I love my husband still with all my heart. I never had a choice in trying to work things out as I could tell he was already gone long before he left. He looked me in the eye and lied about his whereabouts, and I am most upset about how he pretended to want a son together; and then he left our baby anyway.
I admit that I love being the single mother and having my career. I love the drama free weekends without my stepchildren causing nonsense with their mother. I love having my privacy. I did not have that with my step-kids around. They gave their mother a play by play of every word and thing done at our house. I don’t have that anymore! I never want to see them again. They ran around with their father, lying to me, hiding what they were all up to for 7 months after our 18-month-old was born.
My husband wants to claim that they were all getting back at me for how I treated them. He says all I ever cared about and became consumed with were my kids! Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that every mother’s responsibility to love the children she gave birth to? What I am having trouble articulating is my disgust with my stepchildren. I did everything possible to help them get through their parents’ divorce. I bought them books on divorce, took them places, bought them clothes, so they could focus on themselves not on the issues of adults. My point is, they knew how hard it was for them to go through such a trauma as kids, how could they go along with something so wrong at the detriment of putting their own half siblings through that? They don’t realize they got special attention from their father during his affair with his co-worker so long as they kept their mouths shut to their mother and me.
These kids are teenagers now, and know the difference between right and wrong, and they just went with it. It was like they all conspired to hurt me and damage me as much as possible. How do I articulate this to the judge? I don’t want my two children around them. I am raising my children with values and morals. I feel like such a fool having; my husband, my stepchildren, the co-worker girlfriend, and her kids all having such a great wonderful past year together laughing about how angry I would be if I ever found out or laughing at how they were getting revenge on me for being post partum, exhausted, burned out, and just plain lonely without my husband around to help with our 2 small ones. I cannot articulate to others what this is or my anger towards everyone! And then I am guilty of having my hands full with 2 small ones! Can I be honest with you and say that I would live with my husband some day and be willing to raise our children together, but want nothing to do with the step-kids? I dream of moving to another state so I would not have the interference with them monthly or be anywhere near the gold-digging girlfriend and her kids! ?
I think my husband is pretending to come around and make time for our kids now because he had not planned on losing his career over his mess. I told him it is job to tell the judge he thought beyond the childish Disney themes of happily ever after with the girlfriend’s family, and wicked stepmothers. We are two months from our custody hearing and four months from a property hearing.
Please assist me with some words in describing how I cannot ever take back the step-kids he is using against me. Am I crazy to feel bittersweet at this moment? I don’t want to play into his lies about how I feel about my step-kids now, but it’s almost like he has worked to make me hate them! HELP? I can’t say this to a judge!
Dear I-Can’t-Say-This-To-A-Judge,
You can’t say it to a judge because you know it sounds as crazy as a itchy man up a wool tree. You’re saying that you hate what your ex husband did to you, but you love him enough to take him back if he had significantly less time with his children from another marriage. Basically, you would like to have a relationship with him, without them.
Hmmm. Ambitious.
But most of all unrealistic.
So let’s be honest.
To ask your husband to take his children away for the two weekends that they have previously spent at their home with you and their other siblings sent the message that, ‘I don’t want you here and I have the power to make that happen’ and ‘my kids are more important than you’. Perhaps that wasn’t what you meant….
Then you said this:
“Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that every mother’s responsibility to love the children she gave birth to?”
Yes it is, so let me gently remind you that the man you married feels the same way about his children.
Parenting is hard, step parenting is harder.
While I do feel the pain of betrayal, what I can’t understand is the amount of blame you pile on the stepchildren. You say, “I never want to see them again. They ran around with their father, lying to me, hiding what they were all up to for 7 months after our 18-month-old was born.” Those children did not make vows to you. Your husband did. Those children did not have any obligation to tell you anything. And for the record, I don’t think you any trouble relating your disgust for your stepchildren. Let me say, the disgust you feel belongs squarely with you and your ex-husband.
And before all the stepmoms rev up their computers, let me acknowledge that being a stepmother is the hardest job on the planet. It’s an intricate dance of stepping forward and back and you better be on beat. Just one wrong move and toes are stepped on, you’ve bumped into another couple and sent them tumbling, and the other folks on the floor snap at you. Clumsy! You spend the rest of the evening apologizing. It’s like a high school dance, a lot of dread interspersed with moments of dizzying happiness.
You asked your husband to remove his children from their home. Your husband made the decision to allow this. If anyone lacked morals and values in this situation it was the adults. It was the adults who lost focus on their relationship and putting it first, it was the adults that did not communicate.
I-C-S-T-T-A-J, tell the judge that your husband comes with children and that you have the need for there to be no other children in the home except for yours. The judge will probably tell you to find a partner that has no children and the patience and the desire to parent yours.
Any stepmoms out there? What do you think?
- Brenda
