Happy Mother’s Day.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
By David Joel Miller.
To all the mothers out there who have given their unconditional love regardless of what your children look like or do here is wishing you a happy mother’s day.
If you didn’t have a mother like that, then work on giving yourself that love on this day devoted to the way a caring mother can make us all happy.
Happy Mother’s Day!
By David Joel Miller.
Do therapists tell parents what kids say?
Photo courtesy of pixabay
This can be a very touchy issue. Nothing more infuriates a parent than the sense of loss of control over their child’s care. Parents routinely want to know all about what their child is talking about in therapy. Children often ask “Do you have to tell my parents,” before they will disclose something. There are no simple answers.
Two primary questions here.
1. How much should the parents be told?
2. How much are they legally entitled to know?
There are good reasons why parents need to know what is going on with their children. There are also some equally good reasons why they should not be told. Let me try to explain both.
Consider this a general answer and deliberately vague, lots of factors play into this situation and these vary widely from location to location. So the legal practice in one state may not apply in another. From the therapist’s point of view, there are something’s the parents need to know and other things that will interfere with the process if the therapist tells them.
The parent, therapist, and the child may also discuss ahead of time just what things will be told to the parent and what should be kept confidential.
Some parents want to know everything the child says. They want the counselor to pry those secrets out of their child. They ask us things like “Is he doing drugs?” “Is she having sex?” The great illusion of some parents is that if they knew all their children’s secrets they could better control the child’s behavior and “Keep them from making mistakes or doing something wrong.”
Let me give you a real-life example of a parent’s effort to control their child’s behavior and how it backfired. This particular example is based on a news story, not my clinical practice so parents, if I have seen your child, relax this is not your kid. I have imagined a few things that were likely to happen after the news account left off.
Dad was worried about his daughter staying out late and was suspicious she was having sex with one of the boys from her school. Dad wants to put a stop to this behavior. He gets an adult this girl trust to talk with her. Have that sex talk. She reveals that yes after going to a local hangout she and this boy did go off and have sex. The girl is 17 the boy is 18. So this sex, in my state, would have been illegal as statutory rape but not reportable by the counselor as child sexual abuse.
Dad is told. He becomes enraged. Dad pressures the police and the local D. A. to arrest this older boyfriend for statutory rape. Dad also files a lawsuit against the hangout where the two of them met for endangering the morals of children. Let’s not worry about the merits of a suit like this just now. The boy is in jail, the hangout is fighting to stay in business and now checks all the kid’s ID’s and no longer allows anyone under 18 to enter. Everyone in this small town knows who had the sex that caused the problems for all of the other teens.
The result?
This Girl, now furious with her father, sneaks out her window, goes to another spot, and hooks up with a couple of older guys. She is going to get even with dad. She is now having sex with lots of older guys, not just the one cute potential boyfriend who is away in jail.
A better approach would have been to talk with the girl about love, relationships, and the dangers of unprotected sex.
Parents make the mistake of thinking that they need to control children’s behavior to keep them safe. So very often that “protected” child turns 18 and now all bets are off.
Parents, at some point in your child’s life, probably in the teen years, your role should move from protecting your child to teaching them how to make good choices. That learning to make choices part scares most parents. What if they make a mistake?
Parents fear this because frequently those parents have made all those mistakes themselves.
We all need to live our lives, learn to make choices, for better or worse, and sometimes in the process, we fall down and get hurt. A good parent can loosen their grip enough to let the child make some decisions and learn from them before they reach the point of having to face those huge, life-altering, decisions all alone.
Lots of teens ask me to not tell their parents things because they know they have messed up. Often the parents are very understanding and can help the teen solve the problem. Embarrassment and the keeping of secrets are not helpful to the teen.
If there is a danger the parent will overreact, or harm the child then the counselor may be ethically bound to keep things from the parent.
More than one parent was concerned about what the child was saying because the parent was engaged in illegal activity, used drugs, or had some other secret they wanted to hide.
If you are the parent whose child is in therapy, trust the therapist to tell you what needs to be told, to report what legally has to be reported, and to try to help your child through the process of learning to make their own decisions.
If you are that teen in therapy, have this conversation with your counselor. Ask them what sorts of things they will be telling to your parents and what is confidential. Unless there is a safety issue involved it is generally best to let your parents know what problems you are dealing with and the counselor can help you with the process of telling them. Don’t let embarrassment keep you from getting help. We all make mistakes in life. The smart people know they need to fix those mistakes and sometimes that means asking for help.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Friendship.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Some friendships are destructive; some drain the life out of you. Why then do we hold on to those friendships even when there is something inside of us telling us this is not right?
Certainly one quality we want in a friend is someone who cares about us and likes us all the time. It is not much of a friendship if their feelings towards us are dependent on us being a certain way or doing a certain thing for them.
If we expect that kind of total acceptance from a friend then we might tell ourselves that we need to be there for them even when it is painful or has its emotional price. How then do we decide if this friendship has become toxic? When do we need to let friends go?
Some of us stay with unhealthy friends out of guilt or duty. We feel we owe it to them to continue the friendship. Others stay in unhealthy relationships because of an inner fear that if we did not have this friend then we might have no one.
It takes courage to look at this relationship and realize that this “friendship” is not healthy. When you spend time with this friend how does this make you feel?
You should part company with a friend feeling better than when you met. That conversation you had with the friend should make you feel happy and good about yourself.
If you leave your time with that “friend” feeling drained, down or bad about yourself then you should reconsider this relationship.
Do you feel relieved that the visit is over? This is clearly a bad sign. Do you dread seeing them again but feel you owe it to them to visit?
A clear sign of a toxic friendship is the dread you get when you think about going to see them.
If the time together is all about the other person, when you are there to cater to their wants and needs, then this is a one-way friendship and they are on the taking end.
Some people are ill. We may take care of them. When we leave this person we may feel a sense of joy at having been able to be helpful. But if that person seems to constantly demand more, then this is not a healthy relationship.
If this friend’s primary interest is in doing things that make you uncomfortable then this is not a healthy relationship.
People who like to drink, get drunk, or do drugs, want those around them to do those same things. Is there pressure to be like them?
Does being around them place you at unnecessary risk? Are they involved in an illegal lifestyle? Then how healthy is it for them to involve you in their problems?
If how this person is treating others makes you feel bad, then consider that they are probably treating you that same way but you are avoiding looking at those behaviors.
Positive friends should make you proud, not ashamed of their behavior.
Take a look at your friendships, and the other relationships in your life, look at the unhealthy ones and consider how you can cut these off or limit your contact with people who are harmful to you and your recovery.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Separating truth from lies is hard work.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Ever wonder how chronic liars seem to get away with telling falsehoods while other people get caught when they say the smallest thing that is not totally true.
Here are some of the ways liars get us to believe their falsehoods.
A consummate liar will spend lots of time getting to know you, becoming your best friend, and building trust, all the time waiting for the chance to tell that one big one and get away with it.
Watch out for those who have had relationships go sour in the past and they always have a story to tell about how the other person after a long period of time did them wrong. They usually have not resolved that misunderstanding but have cut that person off.
The chances are that no one is all good or all bad and if this person has a long string of being treated wrongly there is some part they are playing in this. Be wary of someone who is not able to admit that they played a part in past relationship failures.
If they are offering something that sounds too good to be true it probably is. If they are making a special deal, just for us, we wonder why they are letting us have it. And exactly what are they letting us have.
The more you have an incentive for wanting to believe this person the more you let your guard down and the easier you make it for them to slide that whopper by you.
One way to prevent this is to be sure you watch out for any preexisting desire on your part to believe them. This results in you latching on to the things you want to hear and then tuning out the things that should have warned you that a lie was coming.
Just because one of the facts you are told is rock solid you know it is true does not mean the rest of the story is accurate. Any good liar will know to embellish their falsehood with as much truth as can be crafted to fit around and conceal the lie.
In this operation the would-be deceiver tells you lots of nice things, things you want to believe, things you think are true, and then as your guard goes down they slip in a whopper.
This technique works best if the chronic liar keeps up a high level of small truths and a relatively few large deceits.
These are only three ways we might be deceived but the repeat liar is likely to know all of these and more.
How have you played a role in letting others deceive you and how might you be more discerning in the future?
Best wishes on creating that happy life you deserve.
David Joel, Miller, LMFT, LPCC
Related articles
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Addiction.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Just read another study that reports on another problem for children of meth users. Like we needed another study to tell us that using Meth is bad for both parents and their children. We know Meth use is bad, just we may not yet know how bad and in what ways. Still, this study caught my eye for several reasons.
This study looked not at Newborns but at toddler age children of Meth users. It found parental Meth use affected these toddlers in some ways we had not looked for before.
These kids show an abnormal stress response. This will have an impact on these kids for the rest of their lives.
We have long known that the mother’s drug use during pregnancy can and does affect the child.
Alcohol is the easiest case in which to see this. We started out thinking that above a certain point alcohol could damage the fetus. For a long time, we talked about safe levels of alcohol use and how much alcohol consumption did it take to result in “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.”
This concept, that some was safe and you had to drink a lot to harm the fetus, has been modified as we found problems in children whose mothers drank smaller amounts of alcohol and still those children showed long-term problems. We now referred to these problems as “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder” in recognition that any alcohol can affect the unborn child. We also now believe that high blood concentrations of alcohol on anyone drinking occasion, known as binge drinking, can result in damage even if the pregnant woman drinks moderately or not at all. Binge drinking harms both the mother and the unborn child.
For one thing, we believe that the brain of the unborn child is heavily influenced by the chemicals in the mother’s bloodstream. What damage is done depends on which of the various structures in the brain and nervous system are being formed when the mother drinks or uses.
The fetus is experiencing a higher dose of the drug than the mother because the liver of the fetus is not well-developed. The drug passes through the placenta to the fetus and then has to return to the mother to circulate through her bloodstream and eventually be removed by the mother’s liver.
My experience clinically, and there seems to be research that bears this out, is that mothers who used Meth during pregnancy have more children with long-term learning disabilities than women who abstain from drugs during pregnancy.
This brings into question if Meth and possible Cocaine affects the unborn what effects could other drugs have?
Mothers who use depressants like Heroin appear to have children with one set of learning and behavioral problems. Children of stimulant abusers have a different set of problems.
This makes me wonder what the risks are for the children of women who consume these highly caffeinated energy drinks.
We also know that many of these drugs have larger more amplified effects on the unborn if there is alcohol in the mother’s bloodstream. This is a case of 2 plus 2 being 6 or 7 when it comes to creating harm for the unborn.
Where this new study expanded our knowledge of the effects of parent drug use on children was the evaluation of continuing stress on the children who had been exposed to Meth.
What they found was that this combination of pre-birth exposure to Meth and ongoing stress in the family resulted in toddlers who had greatly exaggerated or changed responses to stress even when outside the home.
The implication here is that the cumulative effects of Maternal drug use and then stress in the mother or family’s life after the birth magnifies the problems for the child.
All this argues for the critical need for more drug abuse prevention and treatment for women during their child producing years and for treatment to help parents of young children cope with stress and provide a less stressful environment for the child.
We can help the mother at this critical time or we can plan on building more special education classrooms, jails, prison, and mental hospitals for these kids later down the road.
I know what I think the better and more cost-effective path would be, but I doubt that the people who pay the bills for treatment will see it that way.
Getting tough on sick people is a lot easier to sell than dollars for prevention.
Here is wishing for a better and happier future for all of us and the children who come after us.
David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Trust.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
Here is what I tell clients with trust issues. I am not too sure just what others may say and would encourage both professionals and clients to leave comments about trust issues.
The mistake we often make is we either trust too much, trust completely, or do not trust at all. There are plenty of friends that I trust, mostly, with some things, but I do not trust every friend from work with the pin number to my ATM.
Many people who say that they have trust issues have a habit of jumping into a relationship without getting to know the other person, and then when they are let down, they feel this person is not to be trusted.
This pattern of moving into over-close and trusting relationships too quickly sets you up when the other person is unwilling or unable to meet your expectations.
Be sure in getting into a relationship, any relationship, and that includes friendships, that you take the time to get to know the other person, and find how much you can trust them and about what subjects.
This does not mean that you need to eliminate everyone from your life that you are not able to trust completely 100%. If you cut all the people, who are less than total trustworthy you may find yourself very alone. There are days I don’t even trust myself completely, but I like being with me anyway.
People say things, they think they are true but what they say may still be wrong. People often say that others have lied to them and as a result, they can’t trust anyone. This often happens when someone in a new relationship repeats things that others have told them. They believe what they say, and they may just be trying to be helpful but if the “facts” they have repeated turn out to not be true the other person who acted on the basis of those facts is likely to feel cheated or deceived.
Consider that the person telling you this may be wrong or mistaken and check the facts before you take action based on what someone else has told you.
For this relationship, to be helpful, you need to be able to trust the counselor. If you don’t, you need to look at why you are having difficulty trusting. Remember that no matter how much you trust that professional there are limits to what secrets they can keep. If you tell them you plan to kill someone they will not keep your secret. If you talk about child abuse, they will probably be required to tell that also.
Trust in this, and any other relationship should build over time based on how the other person handles the things you tell them.
Generally, professionals are “trustworthy, ” but occasionally we find one that is not. They may take unfair advantage of you. Take your time to get to know them and then make your judgment about how much you can trust them and with what.
This extends to friends and relatives also. We often have competing loyalties. Withholding facts from one friend can seem like dishonesty. Telling that person can violate the trust of another person. In romantic relationships, we tend to trust a lot when we want things to work. Later when the relationship goes sour, and that partner tells someone else our secrets we will feel betrayed and that our trust has been violated.
The reason you have trust issues may well be that you trusted someone too much in the past and they let you down. If you have an experience in life of having your trust betrayed it is reasonable and normal to have trust issues with that and related issues in the future.
Remember that some people make a habit out of lying. They get what they want by not telling the truth. People in an active addiction get their needs met by misleading others. Sometimes the person you believed has lied so much it has become automatic behavior.
Consider who you are trusting and do they deserve your trust. Especially be cautious if this person has violated the trust of others in the past. What makes you expect to be the one person that they tell the truth to?
The person who tells me they are suspicious that their partner is cheating and who wants me to find out what others in their family are up to is often the person who has cheated or has done other things they do not want the family to know about.
If you are dishonest, it makes it harder for you to trust others.
1. Pick people who are generally trustworthy.
2. Get to know them and build trust with them gradually watching what they do with little secrets before disclosing larger ones.
3. Make sure you are trustworthy. The old saying goes it is hard to con an honest person. Liars set themselves up to be deceived.
4. Make sure you are able to trust yourself most of the time. When you let yourself down be quick to forgive.
Here is hoping that you are able to overcome your “trust issues” and begin to trust yourself and others in appropriate ways.
David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
How long before the relationship fails?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
We counselors and especially those of us that are Marriage and Family Therapists, see lots of relationships that are troubled and at risk of ending. Some marriage counselors take the approach that they are “divorce busters” and seek to keep a couple staying together at any cost. There are counselors that will align with one or the other person in a relationship and encourage them to put themselves first and the relationship second.
Personally, I try to stay neutral and help the two individuals find the solution that is best for both of them.
What are some of the factors that keep people together in their primary relationship and what forces them apart? Much of this material comes from a researcher and presenter on couples issues named John Gottman.
Couples get together for all the wrong reasons and stay together for bad reasons also. Many couples find that they like dating, sometimes all they were looking for was fun, a good time, or some casual sex. Once sex becomes part of the relationship it alters things, people who would have moved on and let that one go, they know they are not compatible, may stay together after they start having sex.
Being in a primary sexual relationship precludes finding someone else, at least someone for more than casual sex. No one likes falling in love with someone who is sleeping with another partner.
Pregnancy happens whether we plan on it or not. Sometimes birth control fails, sometimes we forget to use it, or over time it becomes less critical.
It is one relationship when it is all fun, dating, and having sex, but it is a whole other thing once the prospect of a child comes into things. Someone who was good with a causal relationship before suddenly wants a commitment. After all, you are having a child together.
Whether the pregnancy is terminated or the decision is made to have the child everything is different after the pregnancy. Some couples decide to get married because of the pregnancy some do not. Either way, you and the relationship is changed forever.
It does not appear from my experience that the marriage license is the key factor here. The important thing is, does the couple decide that they want to be together as life partners, or are they only doing this because they are trapped by a pregnancy?
Couples that are not married have a high risk of breaking up during that first year after the birth of the first child.
Couples that do get married still find the relationship changes, often in ways, they did not expect and want. It takes a lot of work to create and maintain a relationship after a child enters the picture, especially if a long-term relationship was not what you wanted in the first place.
Couples that have known each other, dated, and had common experiences, for two to five years before getting into a long-term relationship are more likely to have a successful relationship.
Couples who date only briefly sometimes workout, but they are at extra risk. In the early stages of a relationship, we all want to be liked and put our best foot forward. You can’t keep that appearance up forever and after a few years the real you and the real them leak out. Couples who move through the dating stage and establish a long-term relationship to rapidly often find they are in a relationship they wish they had not entered.
If you have been dating for over five years and are still not feeling ready to make a commitment to a long-term relationship, then there is something in your gut telling you this is not the right thing.
Sometimes our reluctance is about the other person and sometimes it is about us. We find that two emotionally unhealthy people do not make for a good relationship. If you have issues, you need to work on yourself before you get into a relationship.
That does not mean that if you suffer from a mental or emotional illness that you should not be in a relationship. What it does suggest is that you need to work on yourself and your recovery before entering that relationship. No one else can fix you. Recovery is an inside job.
Couples whose relationship is characterized by lots of fighting, little if any repair efforts and abuse and violence often end during the first five years. This bulge in failed relationships at five years is also influenced by substance abuse and other addictions.
These relationships stay together because of the children, the influence of family, or economic reasons. Then one day, often around the time that the oldest child is about to graduate from high school, the couple looks at each other and can’t remember why they liked each other in the first place.
These relationships do not fail because of anger or hatred, they just fizzle out. Suddenly one or both parties wake up and realize the feeling of love was lost a long time ago.
They have failed to maintain the relationship and now they have nothing in common.
Added to these relationship issues is the ever-present possibility of affairs, emotional or sexual. Those relationships end because someone or something else pries one of the parties away from their primary relationship. One of the worst affairs is the drug-threesome caused by someone falling in love with a drug of choice and leaving their partner to follow that addiction.
There you have some of the more common reasons that relationships fail and people separate, break up, or divorce.
Breaking up is almost always painful, even when you know you want out. The trick is to learn to be happy as an individual and then that happiness has a chance of spilling over into the relationship.
Here is wishing you a happy life, with or without that romantic relationship.
David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Ethical loopholes strangle.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
If you look around these days you start to wonder if anyone knows the difference between right and wrong. All-day and every night the media is full of stories about wrongdoing. Each successive incident seems to top the last for cruelty and wrongness. It would be easy to become pessimistic.
The optimist will point to any number of past incidents of wrongdoing and say we are making progress. There are laws designed to prevent wrongdoing on an individual level and more worldwide awareness that when something wrong occurs anywhere in the world it affects all of us.
Occasionally we see a young child who has done some great deed of kindness and at a tender age has an apparent grasp of right and wrong, but that is the exception and not the rule. There are always more stories about some youth who has done some unspeakable deed.
Think for a moment about how you learned right and wrong. Did you have to figure it out for yourself or did someone teach you? If someone taught you, who? Have you continued to accept everything they told you or did you ever question? If you have children how are they learning right and wrong, from you or from someone else?
How do people learn right from wrong and how might we increase the number of people who know the difference?
There appears to be a process that people need to go through to learn the difference between right and wrong. What they learn depends on the student, the teachers, and the way the lessons are presented.
Just because you act well around your children or your spouse does not mean that those family members will learn your understanding of right and wrong. There are lots of things that can interfere with the process of learning right from wrong.
First the process of learning right and wrong and then how it can go awry. In my life, plenty of people have tried to tell me the difference between right and wrong. Most times they did not agree and they have various formulas for determining the difference between these two options. A few people assert that there really is no difference, that truth and falsehood like right and wrong are all relative.
This relative position may have appeal as a philosophy, but it is not much help if you are being beaten, robbed, or raped or if your teen is standing before a judge charged with a felony.
The idea that people learn the skill of “moral reasoning” comes from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I was first exposed to this concept when I read Dr. Lakona’s book Raising Good Children. These steps or stages of moral reasoning are sometimes subdivided as they develop and change over time. I will summarize their ideas from memory so if errors creep in they are my errors.
It is fair if I get what I want and not fair if I do not get what I want. The young child might say “It’s not fair I did not get a red one and I wanted a red one.” Fairness and right and wrong are all about getting what you want. Other people’s wishes do not enter the equations.
This approach is understandable in very young children and dictators of countries but we expect most other people to outgrow this way of seeing right and wrong. Our prisons and banks are full of people who do not appear to have outgrown this way of determining right and wrong.
In this version, we trade right and wrong. This comes from learning to share with siblings and playmates. So if you do something nice for me I owe you a good deed. If I do for you and you do not reciprocate then I can do whatever I want.
This stage of moral reason comes up sometimes in relationship or marriage counseling. One party believes they have been wronged by the other and therefore they are justified in doing something to hurt the other party.
People who stay stuck in this tit-for-tat stage of moral reasoning are destined to be disappointed and have a life full of conflict or they become a permanent victim as others let them down.
Eventually, most people begin to resolve their moral dilemmas by resorting to authority’s opinions. At first, it may be mommy and then later it will become the teacher.
Plenty of people abrogate their need to determine right or wrong by following a leader and asserting that if the leader says it is right then they should know.
This faith in authority explains why people can be convinced to follow a leader and do horrific things because that leader told them it was the right thing to do. If that leader can convince you that God or correct politics is on his side then you might be convinced that killing others was a moral thing to do. Even if in the back of your mind you question this leader, the weight of others who follow the same leader will pressure you to adopt that leader’s version of right and wrong.
Somewhere in the adolescent years, our peers start having more influence on us than adults. If you join a gang, then their norms become your criteria for right and wrong. If you hang with drug addicts then you develop a “hustle” and stealing or other criminal activities stops being wrong and becomes acceptable.
In a previous post, I wrote about why trying to resist peer pressure is a choice doomed to failure and why sooner or later all humans give in to peer pressure or change their peers.
Many people come to believe in the rule of law. They memorize the law, regulation, or bylaws of an organization. Their appeal for right and wrong always goes to what the law says. People quote the constitution or other law as evidence for their belief in what is right and wrong. We have a supreme court to make just those fine distinctions as both sides in the argument can see how the law agrees with what they want the right and the wrong to be.
Others resort to a particular religious book, the Bible the Koran, or what have you. They are often adept at finding a verse to quote that establishes that they are correct in their view of right and wrong. As with other laws, these religious documents may also have other portions that lead to a different interpretation and there are religious wars a plenty over which religious book is the right one or the wrong one.
It is reassuring if you can find guidance in a book or law that eliminates the need to judge right and wrong but it does not always lead to a correct way of behaving.
Beyond all these ways of separating right from wrong, there is in most of us a gut sense that regardless of what the authorities say, what our friends may tell us, or the holy book appears to be revealing, there is this fundamental thing that just does not feel right.
We have established by war crime trials, though some will disagree with this, that just because your party, leader, law, or religious book seems to sanction a practice there are some things that are inherently wrong and should not be done regardless of who says to do them.
Not everyone reaches or wants to reach this higher level of moral reasoning but it should be something that is encouraged if we want to avoid the excess of relying on leaders who might use their position, the law, or the religion, to justify doing fundamentally wrong things.
These are some thoughts about ways moral reasoning may develop. In a future post let’s look at the errors that may creep in along the way to better moral reasoning.
Here is wishing you the happy life you deserve. David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Why does your partner think you said that?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
What we remember about things others say can depend on our mood.
Two men go out to dinner with their dates. Let’s call them Bob and Sam. Bob goes home sure that his date did not like him. Sam is sure his date did. The two women said exactly the same things to their dates. Why the difference?
This happens a lot. You swear you didn’t say something, your partner swears you did. Neither of you may be lying but one of you has got this conversation wrong. Why?
One cause of memory failures is false memories. They happen more often than most of us realize and they cause a lot of relationship problems. Those memories are easier to create than you might think.
Researchers have sophisticated ways of testing for false memories and the way they are created or perpetuated. In pasts posts, we talked about how drugs and alcohol can increase false memories, but your personality and that of your partner are also factors. False memories are dependent on your mood at the time you hear things. They are also affected by your normal personality and way of perceiving the world.
A test for false memories would consist of asking you to remember a list of words. Say the list included, night, bed, pillow, nap, etc. The next time you see the researcher you read a list of words and are asked to mark which you saw the first time.
This time included in the list is a word that was not there the first time but would have fit with the category that made up that list. In this case, the missing word might have been sleep. So if you picked sleep it made sense, but in fact, the word was not there the first time. If you said that you remembered it this would be a false memory.
In our date example, we find that in both cases the woman told their date that they had an interesting tie. Bob the perennial pessimist is sure his date said he had an awful tie. Sam remembers his date as saying he had a nice tie. Sam is an optimist.
The mood, as well as the basic personality of these two men, causes them to hear the same information but they both remember things that the date did not say. What they are remembering is a form of false memory in which their mind has filled in the words needed to make sense of the comment “interesting tie.”
One way to check this out in the lab would be to leave the word “sleep” out of the retest. This time if we added two words to the list, say insomnia and restful, we could see if there was a difference in the way two people would remember that list.
Sure enough, pessimists will remember insomnia and swear it was on the first list and optimists will remember the word rest. Both are making errors in their memory. Neither is lying but they both are sure they remember things that did not happen because they learned the list of words as a category, not as a list. Then when they are retested they fill in another word that fits their version of what the category is about.
So consider that some of the things you and those around you swear were said or happen may, in fact, be false memories. How sure are you that you actually heard the things you think you heard?
Sometimes for the sake of relationships and our long-term sanity, it pays to check out with the other person what they really said or meant. That way our minds do not need to fill in missing information and there are fewer chances to create these troublesome false memories in the first place.
What is the chance that memory you are arguing about is a false memory?
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
What is he feeling?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
You hear them talking but you don’t believe them, why?
What do we do when the words don’t match the gut feeling we have? Do you trust yourself or do you think you must be wrong?
Your gut is telling you something and it should be getting more of an audience. In day-to-day life the sound is so overbearing we forget that more than half of all human communication comes via nonverbal channels. If you haven’t practiced paying attention to the other part of communication you are at a serious disadvantage.
Some small children seem to know this. Words telling them to come over here, I just want to talk with you, do not match up with the clenched fists, and the obvious signs of anger. They avoid people like that. Somewhere along the way most of us lose this ability to make use of the non-verbal parts of communication.
Here are some exercises to make you more aware of body language, nonverbal communication, and what the real meaning may be behind the words.
Exercise 1
Find a Television show you do not normally watch or rent a movie of a type that is not on your regular viewing list. Turn the sound down and begin to watch the show. What do you think is happening here? What are people feeling?
Make a few notes as you go along. Can you tell what the emotions being portrayed are from just the pictures? Can you spot when the director introduces a bad guy? How can you tell that? Most shows use a lot of music to cue up the feelings. Watch for a director that can tell the story with the pictures only. Did this come through in the story you are watching, or did you need words to tell if the characters liked each other or were enemies?
Next replay the same story with the sound up. Check what you see now with the notes you made. Do you get the same feelings now? Why or why not?
Exercise 2
Observe a couple or family through a window or in a public place, somewhere where you can be far enough away you can’t hear the words they are saying.
Watch for a while and begin to develop a theory about who these people are and why they are together.
Is this a family? Have they been together a long time? Do they like each other? Or is this the weekly visit from the absent dad? Are all the children from the same family or are some neighbors?
Are mom and dad still very much in love or is this mom or dad’s new partner out to meet the kids?
What do you think the relationships are like between the children? Do they get along normally or are they making an extra effort to get along today?
In this setting, you will probably not be able to confirm or deny your conclusions. Be willing to not know and to entertain possibilities.
A writer could construct a whole novel from this exercise but then the novelist does not need to stick to reality. Can you tell a playful tussle from a case of child abuse?
Conducting a few of these experiments trying to make meaning from situations can greatly improve your skills at reading nonverbal cues. It can also help you see how someone who is not able to read cues could miss read situations completely and acting on these misinterpretations get themselves into trouble.
Certain mental health disorders are characterized by an inability to read other people, not recognizing anger from facial expressions for example. Can you see how misreading what people mean or over-reliance on the words they say but missing the body language and the gestures could result in misunderstandings or even put you at risk for danger?
But poor nonverbal skills can hamper any of us.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
counselorssoapbox 