“Actions speak louder than words.”  We’ve all heard it, but do we all really live it?  If someone has hurt you it always feels so much better when they apologize.  Apologies make you believe that the offender understands their mistake and feels badly for hurting you.  But apologies don’t always solve problems from re-occurring.

In relationships I think the saying should be “Actions speak louder than apologies.”  Some people are really into saying “I’m sorry.”  Flowers, gifts, and home-cooked meals might make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but are they really addressing the issue that hurt you in the first place?  Maybe his apology is just covering the situation with a Band-Aid.

True apologies are really tough.  They involve admitting that you have truly made a mistake and if you could travel back in time, you would have made a different decision.  You made a wrong decision.  You are sorry.  For most people getting in touch with themselves and admitting that they have made a mistake, especially when it involves hurting someone they care about, is very difficult.  If you find that your significant other is quick to apologize and make a grand gesture to prove the apology, then you really need to think about the validity of these apologies.

“Actions speak louder than apologies” means that what he says to quickly wrap-up the argument is not important.  The way that he changes his actions based on the problem that occurred is extremely important. Go back to the root of the situation and figure out what hurt you and what lit the fire.  Look at the bigger picture of your relationship to find the base of the problem.  That is where the solution lies…not in fancy dinners, gifts, and a dozen roses.  Don’t look for an apology.  Look for a change that shows that he understands what happened and why you were hurt.  If this doesn’t happen, then your fight will keep re-occurring and you will get caught in an endless pattern of arguing.

I can’t tell you whether or not his apology is sincere, but I can tell you that the way someone acts in a relationship is much more important than what he says about how he wants to act.

Image: Flickr

Post from: Blisstree

Should You Accept His Apology?

My divorce wasn’t of interest to anyone not immediately involved with it. My family was happy. My husband and I were not. His family?  You’d have to ask them for their opinion – I no longer am in contact with any of them. Divorce is the most crazy-making thing I’ve ever survived.

This is my experience with divorce – you love someone and then one day they become a stranger. And not just a harmless stranger you’d pass on the street. No, they become dangerous and combative and then you become a little unhinged yourself and next thing you know you are fighting over stupid things like who gets the camera or the grill.

The Gosselins, their fights are worth a lot more money.

Kate says……..

In an increasingly heated gameof he-said-she-said, Jon Gosselin is blasting back at estranged wife Kate Gosselin and her claims that he violated an arbitrator’s orders by withdrawing $230,000 from a joint bank account from Aug. 10 to Sept. 29.

Jon says………

“I’ve never taken any money out because over 10 years, Kate handled all the banking,” he said. “Over the past four years of doing the show, we accrued $2,250,000. She says in the past week I took $230,000. I have withdrawn roughly $177,000 over the course of a year, which is less than 10 percent of what we made. That’s like my paycheck…She’s hiding money,” he said.

You could buy a lot of cameras and grills with funds like that. Here’s the part I don’t get about divorce – somehow you go from being two people who love and trust each other completely to two people who are enemies airing their dirty laundry to anyone and everyone who will listen. There has to be another way. Is it possible to have a good divorce? 

I’m going to do some research to see what I can find. If you’ve got some advice or some ideas that you’d like me to share, please leave them in the comments.

Image credit: Zuma Press

Post from: Blisstree

Jon & Kate Plus Divorce

If you are in a relationship where you have asked someone to change something significant about their behavior or personality for you, then you know how difficult it is to move forward after this has occurred.  I’m not talking about asking your boyfriend to start putting the seat down after he uses the bathroom or to help wash the dishes.  I’m talking about serious issues like asking your boyfriend to quit smoking or to stop taking his frustrations out on you.  Bringing up these issues creates an extreme amount of tension in your relationship as you each deal with sensitivity to the issue and a struggle against what feels natural.

If you are dealing with a request for change directed at one specific side in your relationship, then the most important question you need to answer is:  Does this person want to change on their own or are they changing just for me?

Everyone says “People don’t change” but I am an optimist and I don’t believe this is true.  I know that people can change.  If you believe in yourself and have the desire to be the best person that you can be by being good to the people around you and being good to yourself, then change is definitely possible.  You have the power to control yourself and be who you want to be.  On the opposite end, if you don’t believe that you need to change and you are just trying to adapt yourself to become what someone else desires, then change may not be necessary or possible.

If you have been asked to change by your partner but you don’t believe that you need to change, then you need to take mature steps to analyze the situation and respond appropriately.  Pull yourself out of the situation and address the larger issue.  Does the request for change fit into your values and morals?  Does it make you feel like a better person?  Or does it require you to abandon something that is an important and positive part of yourself?  Think about why it would be so important to your partner and then why they might think it would be important to you.

If your partner says “Quit smoking” but you don’t want to quit smoking on your own, then change will probably not occur even if you want to please your partner.  If your partner says “Quit smoking” and it makes you think about why you smoke and then you realize that you would like to start living a healthy and smoke-free life, then change will occur.

Asking someone to change or being asked to change can go two very different ways.  It can push you apart or it can be a wonderful start to really bringing you closer together.  Just remember to deal with the issue in a mature manner where you try to avoid being defensive or hyper-sensitive to issues that could have an important effect on your relationship.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Can You Change For Your Partner?

As I’ve mentioned before, talking to someone on the phone, you miss a lot of those cues. Texting is even worse and no matter how many times I say, “I don’t want to talk about serious things while texting,” we do just that – we talk about serious things while texting. We argue with our fingers. It’s ridiculous. I hate this distance thing and I do not throw the word “hate” around. Usually I reserve it for Hitler and houseflies, although it would cover terrorists, as well.

I was starting to focus on the problems, the stress, the hurt feelings, and forgetting why I fell in love with him in the first place. I was at the point where I thought, okay maybe we’ve taken this one as far as it can go. I hadn’t given up completely, but I was feeling a step away from there.

Today, I was riding my bike, which is where I do my best thinking, and his song came on my earphones – Swing Life Away, by Rise Against. As I listened to the words I remembered how we bonded over simple ideas like a relationship is a team, a partnership, and shared memories of growing up in the same small town. He would say that coming home to someone who loves you, that makes all the challenges in life – work trouble, finances – easier to handle. He was a man who was actively looking for a committment and I hadn’t met a man like that in more years than I can count.

The fighting, we’ve got to find a way to avoid it. I’m not a person who has any interest in winning an argument. I do not like yelling. It paralyzes me in a way, reminds me of too many scary things. The easiest way to explain how I react is this – I lose my words. If we are fighting, there isn’t going to be any winner, I tell him. We will both lose. It has to stop. This doesn’t mean that I need someone to always agree with me, but I do need someone who can let some things go. Not everything is worth a battle.

When Bay was a little younger, we had a really hard time. She’s scream at me, tell me how much she hated me, using language that I can’t repeat here. It sucked. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. One day I found a box of old pictures and I got an idea. I took a picture of her at an especially sweet time and I taped it to the refrigerator door. When she would act ugly, I’d look at that photo and remember that my beautiful baby still lived inside that crazy teenager.

My boyfriend, he’s no crazy teenager, but sometimes he’s just as frustrating (I’m sure he would say the same about me – I’m no angel, but I do try….). I’m going to use his song the same way I did my Bailey-picture. It will be my constant, the place I can come back to, to regroup and remember that we won’t always live so far from each other…..Someday we will be fighting in the same room…..okay, that was a joke.

Image credit: Chase Your Bliss Photography

Post from: Blisstree

Music Will Be My Constant

sxc.hu

bicker and bicker they will. They are going to argue to the point you want to leave your own house and let them have at it, hey at least you won’t here the arguing anymore.

Tonight, that’s exactly what happened…well minus me walking out. But I did end up separating the two.

Here’s the deal: SoccerBoy and BalletGirl love each other but closer to the end of the night they will begin to bicker, same thing with first thing in the morning. UGH, it’s enough that I may end up bald. Okay, probably not since I have SO MUCH hair, but still.

Tonight, they bickered over who was sitting where on the floor. One didn’t want the other on a certain side or something. When I stepped in and said fine sit on that side, it was as if I had just punished the other. So instead I said, “Go to your own rooms until you can get along.” About 1 minute passed and they were back out, seeing tears broke my heart. Why the tears?

“You yelled at me,” replied BalletGirl brokenheartedly.

“But why?”

::Sniff, sniff:: “We were fighting.”

“Should I have allowed it? What would you have done?” I asked calmly letting her dish out whatever.

“The same thing,” at which point she started to smile.

In the end they were fine but still. It is definitely sibling rivalry and the battle of the wills. Do you deal with this? How do you handle it?

Post from: Blisstree

The Battle of the Wills

Kids are very perceptive creatures. They can pick up on even unspoken emotions but be ignorant of how to deal with them. The side effects of harboring the second hand stress are numerous. Your normally happy child may become depressed. They may become suddenly introverted. They may complain of stomach aches, sleeping problems or have separation anxiety. They may regress to baby stages or behaviors. A potty trained child may start wetting the bed. One of the most obvious signs is a sharp increase in cases of illness. If your usually healthy child becomes repeatedly ill, it may be a sign that your stress is rubbing off on them.

What can you do to remedy this problem? Talk to your kids. Reassure them that you have everything under control even if you don’t feel that way. Ask them about their concerns. Some of them may surprise you. My daughter once heard my husband and I bickering about an over indulgent shopping trip. He casually made a comment about having a house payment to make. My daughter overheard and interpreted his comment to mean that we were going to lose our home. We did not know why her stomach started hurting, until she finally blurted it out one day. We were so shocked, but in retrospect, could see how a child might derive such a conclusion from a passing comment.

Younger children, although not as verbally capable of expressing fears, can still communicate them through play. You can play pretend and let him be the parent, or even use puppets to act out his emotions. Kids wear their hearts on their sleeves and will usually let you know in some form, that they are stressed. If you know what to look for and how to deal with it, they should be back to their happy selves in no time! 

Post from: Blisstree

Is Your Stress Rubbing Off On Them?