BETWEEN COUPLES, PERCEPTION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TRITH

People have different values and perceptions about the same behaviors and events.  What is acceptable to one is not to another.  During the many years I saw couples in therapy, I never wasted time trying to find which one had the facts straight.  Subjectivity causes distortion of facts and it has so widely been researched and proven that witnesses may believe they are telling what was there but, often, they are telling what they  think they saw.

The therapeutic work that must be done is to help them to understand what in their value system has been violated and how they have been conditioned to react to it.  Often, it is as simple as each believing the other should feel as they do.  Of course they may not, having grown up to think for themselves and coming from an entirely different context where values and  tolerance depends on religious and ethnic values as well as social norms in  their previous environments.

One of the most challenging aspects to marriage in the need for a couple to merge these in order to live a compatible life.   If neither can compromise or change any of their views due to their rigidity, the marriage will not last...at least not happily.  Surprisingly, fidelity is not a requisite for all relationships.  Impotent husbands or frigid wives often accept different rules of behavior.  When one partner withholds intimacy as a manipulation or punishment, marital rules may change.

Again, it all points to  the reality that nothing can be assumed from outside the marriage.  It is a cardinal rule that a therapist must not make assumptions or pass judgements.  The first rule taught to any therapeutic discipline is  "start where the patient is".                                                                 

WHY ARE WOMAN REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS NOT PROTESTING THE CUTBACK IN PLANNED PARENTHOOD?TO PLANNED

As more and more blocks are being put on women's health and interests, I do not hear the Republican women raising their voices.  Who in the world are the misogynists that have been voted in to represent the 18th C in our laws?  Click here,  and here,  and here.

Two high profile Republican women have not uttered a public word when they hear that their sisters have lost the 97% of their medical  care Planned Parenthood  provided their poorest sisters.  Apparently they think they are accepted in the White, big boy network.  They will soon understand they are nothing but arm candy, to the Republican men; what Maria Shriver was to Arnold   Schwartzenegger...someone to make him look good in public; to make him look like an honest man.

It is as though the Phyllis Schlafly  of the is still blocking the progress of women towards finding some equality as marital partners and in the workplace.  This woman has been the equivalent of the American Taliban for women.  Schlafly campaigned against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The amendment called for men and women to be given equal treatment under the law. Schlafly opposed the ERA because it would require women to serve in combat, and because she believed it would take away legal rights of wives and would negatively influence family life.(from her biography...se link above).  She was wrong for women as Ayn Rand was wrong in her economic ideas used by Greenspan for this country.

"IF I WERE YOU....": BUT I'M NOT

Isn't it amazing when there is a sexual scandal in a marriage, everyone has an opinion as to what the injured spouse should do.  I'm reminded of the Indian saying "Don't judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins."

If you have been in a marriage where your spouse was adulterous, if you have had to divorce and be alone starting from scratch in every way... physically, materially, and emotionally you might have some valuable warnings to offer...provided they are requested from you..

If your family life has taken a turn for which you were totally unprepared, you may even ask for some advice.  However, if you have not asked (especially of media pundits and the general public) for advice, don't give it.  Learn to live in your own skin.  Most people who need help will find it in therapy, in their faith, within their extended family or friend network, or any number of other resources.  And if they don't ask there, maybe they wish (or even need)  to stay in denial or not take life-changing action.

Martin Bashir on MSNBC offered an interesting theory.  It is well assumed that Schwartzenegger had taken steroids when he was preparing to be Mr. Olympus or whatever title his physical development gave him.  It is further known that those who have taken steroids for a long time have a plethora of testosterone.  Therefore, they may become 'sexually addicted'.  That is not an excuse, simply one of the many possible explanations.   A Greek proverb:  "All receive advice. Only the wise profit from it"

One of the articles I read is that the maid allegedly got pregnant because A.S. and the maid were having unprotected sex.  She, presumably, was married at the time.  Might she have been less than honest?  Whatever the truth is, we may never know and, indeed, it is not our concern other than prurient curiosity to be satisfied.  We have become a country of boundary-less voyeurs.  We really ought to pay less attention to the lives of entertainers, sports figures and politicians and tend to our own lives.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SEEMS TO BE IMPLODING

• McCain calls Santorum dumb after hearing him say that McCain doesn't understand enhanced methods of torture.
• Gingrich denies Ryan's fiscal plan and comments critically about the Right Wing's Social Engineering
• It is discovered that there are many more than just the two Koch brothers.  In fact there has been a group, probably more than 300 in it) who have been planning and executing plans that circumvent elected governmental officials in charge.  Further discovered is that lobbyists have been writing legislation for some time now.  They are more effective than Karl Rove.
• The above 'group' is behind the mid-West Republican governors  strange actions so in conflict with the wishes of their constituents.
• Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, join others who have shot themselves in the political foot, so to speak.
• TeaPartiers sneak as Republicans when they really see themselves as a fourth party, adding themselves to Democrats, Republicans, Independents and no TeaPartiers.
• Rating awards for their 'Family Values'  (actually now the lack of family values) along with Vitter, Ensign, Edwards, Sanford, Spitzer, and, oh so many others, Schwartenegger adds himself to receive an award for hypocrisy.
• Saki Knafo writes a brief summary of the long history of horny politicos.
• While the sex scandals offer a minor diversion, the real problems facing us are 'Just who is running our country?'

HOW TO RECOGNIZE WHICH FRIENDS REALLY FOLLOW POLITICS

Trump

The friend who a month ago told me the best Republican ticket would be Trump for President and Newt Gingrich for V.P. obviously did not pay attention.  Trump has run before but quits before he has to disclose his finances, just as he did this time.

Mitt Romney

Respect for candidates is lost when they change their positions for political rather than personally held beliefs or voting as their electorate wishes.  Romney used to be Pro-Choice when he ran for Gov of Massachusetts and is now Pro-Life.  He thought his Health Care program in MA (actually written by someone from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology which is why it is so similar to the current Health Care that Obama had passed) was terrific until recently when it is not fashionable to Republicans who used to be for it as well.

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, however, has to win the blue ribbon for being the most inconsistent   He has been known to change his position within the same speech.  Devonia Smith writes:  "Brit Hume, senior Fox political analyst, this evening, brutally  described Newt Gingrich as a man who is a "provocative thinker but a promiscuous talker" who may have set himself, involuntarily, to go  the way of Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee -  out of the race for President of the United States. Gingrich's charge that the Ryan budget plan was  "Radical right wing social engineering" was "politically inexplicable" says Hume and an example of a man cannibalizing his own party that will be difficult, if not impossible to undo.  Brit Hume on  Gingrich says he may go next (after Trump and Huckabee)  Gingrich's charge that the Ryan budget plan was  "Radical right wing social engineering" was "politically inexplicable" says Hume and an example of a man cannibalizing his own party that will be difficult, if not impossible to undo. 

Do none of these people remember that everything they say is kept on video archive and easily brought back to haunt them,

UNEVEN RELATIONSHIPS

The oversimplification is that one partner calls more shots than the other.  Senator John  Ensign will serve as a poster boy for the definition as to why they don't usually work.  In fact, he is also the poster boy for infidelity, and hypocrisy., two additional concepts which will not be discussed further in this blog.

Ex-Senator John Ensign

The reason one would describe Senator Ensign as being in an uneven extra-marital relationship ( married with three children) is because the woman involved felt she had no choice to do as he insisted because both she and her husband worked for him and would be without funds if he fired them  (as they eventually were) when he let them when truth 'hit the fan'.

The unevenness mostly exists in one having more power than the other; this may be by more money, being the employer, a professor in charge of pass or failure, a therapist using the patient's vulnerabilities to be seduced,  Incest is another sadistic example.  Is the child really in a position to say 'No'?  The sexual molestation by priests is yet another.  A couple of generations ago, priests often got Nuns pregnant.  As more gay men joined the church as a place to hide safely, altar boys became targets.  A pimp and his hookers, yet another.  They can be found everywhere.  Physically abused spouses are in the same category..  When one partner fears another, it instantly becomes uneven. One just needs to understand the concept and dynamics. 

Oddly, I found little on Google written about them.currently  Hopefully it is because 'Big Brother' is watching.

REGRET VERSUS GUIILT

While guilt and regret are often seen as synonyms, they differ.  Guilt implies a wrongdoing or crime, committing an offense.  Regret simply implies that one would not choose the same course of action were the opportunity for it to be done or said again.

There are cultural implications to one feeling guilt or regret.  Jewish mothers, in anecdote, use forcing a feeling of guilt on their offspring as a manipulation for control.  The implications are that the child has done a wrong and is therefore a child lacking in goodness.  Greek mothers are said to treat their offspring differently, letting their children know they are disappointed that such a good child could have done such a naughty thing.  If you can imagine, growing up with this difference in parental handling has a very different result to the child's sense of self as an adult.  Guilt sees one growing up with an entrenched lack of self-worth in many areas.  Regret is more apt to result in over-confidence that one's actions are to be tolerated and forgiveness automatic.  Neither is ultimately a replacement for conversations about consequences to a child's actions, and when not discussed by parents does sincere injury to the adult who has not been taught to reflect on inevitable consequences to all behaviors.

Feeling is much more apt to allow one insomnia.  I tell people, "I don't do guilt".  When I lay my head on my pillow at night I usually feel neither guilt nor serious regret.  Even if I am not proud of all my words or actions, I know none were said or done with malice or intent to damage,