When Problems Take Over a Relationship If you’ve been hurt and a Problem has taken over your relationship, there’s plenty that you can do, other than succumb to the Problem yourself. Just because your boyfriend wants to get stinking drunk every time he goes out, doesn’t mean you have to clean him up when heContinue reading “Create Problem-Free Zones”
Tag Archives: codependency
Feed the Person, Starve the Problem
One Halloween when I was a kid, I came home from trick-or-treating with a plastic pumpkin full of chocolate. My mouth had been watering ever since the second doorbell, but my costume prohibited taking an early snack. As soon as I got home, the mask came off, and I had my first piece of chocolate.Continue reading “Feed the Person, Starve the Problem”
When Problems Take Over a Relationship
Even when people are firing on all cylinders, relationships can be tricky. When there’s a persistent problem, like an illness or an addiction in the mix, they can be impossible. Persistent problems can be the source of much harm. The alcoholic you can’t rely on. The gambler you can’t trust with money. The depressive whoContinue reading “When Problems Take Over a Relationship”
The People of the Mind
As if it wasn’t hard enough to deal with the people who hurt you, you also have to deal with their representatives you carry around in your head. Actual people you can divorce, send to jail, move across the country and never see again; the people of the mind follow you, they share your bedContinue reading “The People of the Mind”
The Re-Negotiated Relationship
Once you’re in a relationship with someone, you’ll always be in a relationship with that person. It’s like the Hotel California, you can never leave. I don’t care if you never speak to her again, if you move to the other side of the world, and put up a dartboard with her face on it;Continue reading “The Re-Negotiated Relationship”
Calibrate Your Compass
When you escape the madness that your relationship has become, whether you are gone for the rest of your life or for twenty minutes, you have an opportunity to do something that can set the course of your life from that point on. You can calibrate your moral compass.
Getting Closer by Separation
Look at the shoes you’re wearing. Your two shoes go together, they match. No one can say that they don’t. Even if you lose one and leave it behind in the road, they are still a pair of shoes. Now tie them together, one to the other. Go ahead. Now try to walk. You’ll beContinue reading “Getting Closer by Separation”
The Escape Plan Checklist
Every Problematic situation needs an escape plan. Escapes that are not planned tend to go awry, so plot your exit strategy beforehand. These are the elements of an escape plan to consider when a loved one has hurt you. What would trigger the escape? The most important part of any exit strategy is figuring outContinue reading “The Escape Plan Checklist”
Personal Peace: Have an Escape Plan
If a grizzly bear wandered into your home while you were asleep, slipped into bed beside you, and woke you up with its hot breath in your face, what would you do? I think you would plan your escape.
When Reconciliation is Impossible: Settling for Personal Peace
Not everyone makes it all the way to reconciliation. You can’t get there alone. If your partner has not done his part, you’ll have to settle for Personal Peace. Personal Peace is nice; but, because it’s personal, you can’t share it. If you have done your part to arrive at reconciliation, you’ve already experienced muchContinue reading “When Reconciliation is Impossible: Settling for Personal Peace”
Keith R Wilson 