How To Tackle The Root Cause Of Domestic Violence

The problem of domestic violence has been in the news again, as it seems to be every few months or so. As usual the out-of-control perpetrator is male, the victim female, innocent children are involved and the consequences are devastating for everyone. It’s a story we hear far too often.

While it is true that not all violence is committed by men, the majority of violent behaviour involves men. Violence is not the only form of domestic abuse happening behind closed doors in our society: emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse can be equally damaging. The simplistic innocent-female-victim/evil-male-perpetrator model is not always the full truth. However, the stereotype does tends to cover the majority of domestic violence cases.

Despite the excellent work done on by various organisations working to prevent domestic violence, the problem of men’s violence towards women and children continues to hang around like an offensive odour. How can this be, when it’s in the news so often? (more…)

How To Handle A Boyfriend Or Husband With A Controlling Mother: Part 2

The solution to this whole issue is for the man to man up and start stand up to his mother and saying what’s important to him whenever there’s some kind of conflict so that he can learn to side with you in the relationship rather than with his controlling mother.

There’s really nothing that you can do as a partner in terms of what his mother does, and the solution to the problem is not for the mother to change her behavior. You can’t expect other people to change, and we have really no control over other people’s behavior.

 

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How To Handle A Boyfriend Or Husband With A Controlling Mother: Part 1

Most of my advice is aimed at men, but today I have a video for you ladies out there on the topic of how to deal with a man who has a controlling mother. I’ve written a previous article on how to deal with a controlling mother, and I’m getting an increasing number of comments left by women in response to this article which was originally aimed at men. And the women are talking about their frustrations in having dealt with partners who had controlling mothers.

What I’ll cover here today is what you should if your boyfriend, husband or partner has a controlling mother and this is having some kind of impact – and it’s generally a negative impact – on your relationship with the guy.

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The Day I Finally Stood Up To My Critical Mother

My mother and father are still together after 50 years of marriage. They are good, church going people who are very community minded. They show love by acts of service and are often kind and generous to other people. But the way my critical mother treats my largely passive father is toxic, and I recently took the opportunity to stand up to their behaviour in order to reverse the negative effects it has had on my own life. Here’s how it panned out:

Standing Up To A Critical Mother

Standing Up To A Critical Mother

Recently my parents and I all attended my maternal aunt’s 90th birthday party, along with some extended family. We spent the weekend in a lovely guest house in the country and since it was a long drive for my aging parents, they asked me to give them a lift there and back. I am a little apprehensive because I know the way my parent’s behaviour often triggers me, but I see it as an opportunity to connect with them and spend some additional quality time together.

The two-hour drive to the guest house is relatively uneventful, with occasional friendly chatter and lunch at my parents’ favourite cafè on-route.

However, I am starting to notice the pattern in my parents relationship that often upsets me: my mother “corrects” everything my father says, in a way which sounds critical and belittling to me. His reaction is to withdraw and shut down in response to this criticism; a common trait I particularly dislike in myself.

Initially, I just witness what is happening and my internal reaction. But over the course of the weekend as I notice more and more incidents where my father says something that my mother thinks is foolish, wrong or otherwise in need of correction, I become increasingly agitated.

In my ideal world, all the years of therapy and emotional healing that I’ve had would insulate me from the effect of this and I’d be free to let them relate however they choose without me being triggered.

But in the real world, I’m not that enlightened. Not yet, anyway.

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Do Women Really Want Men To Be Vulnerable?

I’m a big fan of Brené Brown’s TED talk on The Power of Vulnerability. I keep coming back to watch it again every few months, and it never fails to move me each time I do. It reminds me that authenticity, connection and vulnerability are the keys to freedom while guilt, fear, shame and disconnection are the bars of the jail cell in which I’ve lived so much of my life. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend you watch it now.

And then watch this awesome follow-up titled Listening To Shame where Brené talks about the impact on her life of having the first talk go viral. After telling the conference of her research-induced breakdown (a.k.a. spiritual enlightenment), the video went viral with four million hits on the Internet. She went into a meltdown and didn’t leave the house for three days because of a vulnerability hangover. That’s the feeling that we get when we reveal something we’re ashamed of in front of other people. It’s the reason we avoid revealing our true selves to others: we know there’s likely to be an unpleasant emotional reaction within us at the thought of other people knowing the parts of us and our story that we don’t like.… Continue reading…

How to Get Over the Girl Who Ripped Your Heart Out

Ever had a girl break your heart so badly you thought you’d never recover? Couldn’t get her off your mind? Desperate to get her back? Then you might find John’s story helpful; and besides, I need to debrief to get this guy out of my system.

I met John in a youth hostel while on a winter road trip up the east coast of Australia in search of warmer weather. He seemed like a decent guy who was always cracking jokes, and before long the two of us were entertaining some of the other backpackers with our stories of adventure and comic irony.

John seemed intrigued when I mentioned that I was a recovering perfectionist, and asked me several times to elaborate about that. I told him the story of how I had a fulfilling engineering career up until the point where I decided I didn’t enjoy it any more and decided to change direction. He could relate: John had studied law, and hated every minute of it. Then he’d joined the military, and he’d hated that too. He hated prosecuting people who hadn’t done anything wrong, and in general his conscience bothered him a lot. He was from California, which he hated because it was being over-run with Mexicans.… Continue reading…

Courage, Vulnerability and Connection vs Shame and Guilt

I’m a big fan of TED talks, and I love the speakers who have the confidence and courage to talk directly from the heart. One of my favorites in Brené Brown’s speech The Power Of Vulnerability, which you may have heard me rave about before. Every time I watch this speech, I find it connects me to a deeper to my own feelings of fear and shame around being vulnerable.

I’m still working on overcoming my deeply rooted fear of other people knowing how I’m feeling, and for me this is the essence of vulnerability. Watching this speech moves me to tears and I know that means that I’m healing my own fear and shame around feeling vulnerable in the past, which leaves me feeling more confident for the future. Which is why I keep coming back to this talk every few months for more.

Brene’s research into human connection and vulnerability led her to explore the emotions of guilt, and it’s rarely discussed cousin: shame.

Connection with others gives purpose and meaning to our lives. It’s why we’re here. When you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about connection, they tell you about disconnection.… Continue reading…

How to Resolve an Argument with Your Mother

I just got this question about resolving an argument with your mother in response to my article on How to Recover From a Controlling Mother. Steve asks:

I just got off the phone with my mother who was berating me because I had not responded in a timely fashion to an email, which made her ashamed and disappointed. I went to my computer and looked up “how to deal with a controlling mother”. Your article looked interesting so I began to read it, and as I did my eyes opened up as if you were speaking directly to me! I would love to speak with her about these things, and also with my father, but her defense is locked down tight: she is a psychologist of many years, and would just discredit anything I had to say. She also insists that my father would not want to talk to me about anything on an emotional level (he really doesn’t like to be dragged in between us), and therefore I shouldn’t bother. I also run the risk of making her angry, which is VERY easy to do, and then I worry that I’m hurting her. Just writing this really exposes to myself the psychological mire I exist in… Advice?Continue reading…

How To Be Popular

I hardly need to spell out the advantages being popular: more friends, a wider social circle, [intlink id=”33″ type=”page”]greater confidence[/intlink], more people to play and have fun with, and more women to choose from when dating. Being popular can either be superficial like Glinda in the musical Wicked, or a deeper trait based on being an all-round great guy. I’d suggest going for the deeper version every time.

With that in mind, here are tips on how to be popular:

Make Other People Feel Good

Popular people love making other people feel good because it’s more fun having fun with other people than doing it by yourself. Learn how to make other people feel good by being around you, and they’ll want to be around you more and more. Pretty simple, really.

Learn How To Make Other People Laugh

Making other people laugh is a great way to make them feel good. Develop your sense of humor and learn to express the quirky, amusing thoughts that go through your head. Learn to tell stories that amuse other people, show off your strengths, and make them laugh. If you don’t consider yourself funny, read books on stand-up comedy and learn the secrets that comedians know about how to make other people laugh.… Continue reading…

How Theatrical Improvisation Increases Your Confidence

I’ve been taking a bunch of theatrical improvisation courses lately because it’s a really fun, engaging way to increase self-confidence. There’s a part of me that loves being on stage, without the old inhibitions that used to get in the way of everyday life. The skills involved in theatrical improvisation, also known as Comedy Improvisation or Improv, turn out to be essential life skills, especially when it comes to interacting confidently with other people.

Much of what I’ve learned in Improv class reverses a lot of what I learned about how to act while growing up. Many of us have huge chunks of our creativity, and our true personality, beaten out of us in the education and socialization process while we were young. We got punished for failure, bullied for being different, and ridiculed when we got things wrong. So we learned to play it small, avoid risks, and generally keep our head down to avoid getting kicked. It was a conservative survival strategy that worked at the time, but doesn’t work so well in the adult world.

Theatrical improvisation, on the other hand, teaches us how to:

  • Fail brilliantly.
  • Say “Yes” to opportunities.
  • Take risks.
  • Listen to other people.
  • Get out of our heads.
Continue reading…