Can you come out to play?

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché;

Back when I was first divorced, I wanted to find a new relationship more than anything in the world. I dated an actor for about 4 years who loved playing the role of my boyfriend but ultimately wanted an acting career more than a relationship. Then I dated another man who seemed to want to wait until we were both retired and on Social Security before he made a commitment. He waffled back and forth until I was so aggravated that I decided to give up before he strung me along for another 4 years. It was a good decision. I concluded that it made more sense to pursue my own career plans than try to find a relationship- I didn’t need to depend on anyone else in order to do that, so it was a better use of my time.

Now that I’ve created a new career path for myself, I’m thinking of dating again. But I find myself hesitant to jump in- my career and my own life mean more to me than the idea of finding a relationship and I don’t want to do the dating thing with guys who just want casual fun. I have so much work, I don’t want to waste my time and energy on the BS I see other older, single women go through when they date.

Am I letting my apprehension and past bad experiences stop me from finding potential happiness? Or am I just being sensible?

Sadie Syms

 

Dear Sadie,

I hope you can find your happiness regardless of whether you’re in a relationship or not. It sound like you’ve created a busy and full life.

Given that, it is normal to be apprehensive about dating at any age; but I wouldn’t avoid it. Yes, people are a tough lot but you never really know. You just might find someone you’d like to share time with.

If any of your prospective dates seems childish and wants to dominate your life and time you certainly do not need that. You can politely request them to go away. There is nothing wrong in being choosey.

Trying is not a waste of time… it is an investment in yourself.  But relationships are a process. Even after you meet “Mr. Perfect” it will still require work if you want to have a real relationship.

Good luck in your search,

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

Granny says: I think that you may be in for a surprise if you can push yourself into the dating ring again- there is going to be an entirely different set of contenders out there.

The people who are drawn to us are not random. Who we are as people determines who we will attract. From your question, it sounds as if when you first divorced you were needy, uncertain, and without a career. It’s not surprising that you became involved with an aspiring actor and a man who couldn’t make up his mind to commit.

Now that you have put the time into developing yourself, you are grounded, certain of yourself, and established as a professional. Chances are, you will start coming across men who share these qualities rather than the flighty, searching men you met before.

Granny advises you to get off your butt and see what’s out there.

If you have finally achieved oneness, it’s the perfect time to think about achieving twoness.

Miss Diagnosed

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché,

My best friend struggles. Since HS, her grades have dropped she has become isolated and anxious. She avoids me and just about everything else. She’s lost a ton of weight, in fact I rarely see her eat at the cafeteria. She looks like a scared rabbit. She found a big boyfriend and clings to him. I asked her if something happened and she just went  pale and walked away.  Anyway her mom sent her to a Dr. who diagnosed her with ADHD.

She at one point told me she felt better on her ADHD medication  but she still looks awful. Can’t ADHD medication make her more anxious and thin? I don’t remember any issues like this when we were younger, what gives?

Miss Diagnosed

Dear Miss,

The problem with specialists is that they view everything through the lens of their specialty and might not look at the big picture. It is also sometimes the case that people don’t tell the truth when they seek help. They may describe how they feel, but omit the objective DATA. If they knew that, they wouldn’t really need help.

A diagnosis is often made by surveys and tests, but many factors can point down the same road. Often, surveys ask the wrong questions and limit the useful information that is received.

Your friend sounds as if she has totally withdrawn. She can’t pay attention in school because she is trying not to pay attention to anything. I suspect this is more likely PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) but her ADHD diagnosis gives her a reason and cause to cling to; it helps her avoid whatever happened to her.

Your friend is indeed scared and confused. She has a secret and secrets, according to Steven King, are like heartworms- they eat you from the inside out. Her secret worm thrives in darkness and sucks up everything positive. These worms hate light and truth and will feed her false messages to prevent her from disclosing to or connecting with anyone at all. I predict isolation, blame, explosions, illnesses, anxiety and depression.

I have also seen this same phenomena occur without direct trauma. Families of soft abuse say one thing and do another. This type of confusion can produce a child who can’t focus- they don’t know what to focus on. They aren’t sure if they should trust their eyes or their faulty intuition. If any real trauma occurs in their life, that trauma can become a diversion- used as a tangible excuse to  absorb, explain and mask all their pre-trauma confusion.

More likely than not, there was background dysfunction in your friend’s life that some new trauma  added to. Focusing on this trauma could be addicting as it helps to resolve her confusion. It is why people have such a tough time letting go of a trauma. It would throw them back into the ambiguity and insecurity of earlier life.

Your friend is now living a game that she has to learn to stop playing. What would be of far greater benefit would be for her to role model the person she wishes to become rather than clamping down on the person she was prior to the trauma.

At this point there is not much you can do. She needs the right professional help. Unsolicited advice only pisses people off.

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

Granny says: It’s tough to watch a friend turn into a different and disturbing person. The most disturbing thing about it is that there is literally nothing you can do other than try to remain a light shining in the darkness for her.

People get lost and change for all sorts of reasons. We can’t control very much of it. Sometimes when we try to help we end up causing more damage than if we’d stayed out of it. People in trauma don’t have normal reactions to the things around them. They have crossed into another dimension where everything has a different meaning and language has been altered.

Some things for you to keep in mind: none of this is your fault and if your friend goes down that is her decision. Everything she is doing is her own decision.

Be a role model and be loving, but wise. People in trauma can be full of BS too, and we want to let them get away with it because we know they are hurting. But the quickest way to get someone back to normal is to maintain normal boundaries. When a friend has wandered out where the busses don’t run, a glimpse of a route schedule can sometimes help them remember the way back home.

Addendum to how antidepressents work:

Recent work in the field of mental health has shown that the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness that prevailed the last 10 years was wrong. It has also been shown that the brain is not fixed but fluid. It used to be thought that we couldn’t grow new nerve cells once the brain was formed. We now know that to be untrue. In fact the most recent studies show one pathway to major depression is in fact caused by cell loss in the regions that control learning and alertness.  Any exposure to prolong stress causes this type of cell loss. It is protective in the way that if you are being exposed to sever prolonged stress your brain adapts in such a way that you no longer pay attention to it. Only you no longer pay attention to anything else as well.

Antidepressants have been shown to cause a cascade of neuro-chemicals that as a result stimulate cell growth in these areas essentially waking up the brain. Attention to the environment thus learning is once again reinstated.

I like the adaptive, learning, and attention approach a lot better as the chemical imbalance theory was to passive. It implied you were broken and needed the medication to be ok. There was no fix. In this new theory the medication helps wake a person up to their environment but that’s only part of the work. One still needs develop skills to deal or they will just shut down again over time. It’s a help you to help yourself theory. This is infinitely more user friendly.  

Dr. B.C.

Controlling nice boyfriend:

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché,

My daughter suffers from some chronic conditions physical and emotional but her fiancé is against her being on any medication whatsoever. He has promised to take care of her and he gives her 27 supplements every morning. He has convinced her to go off her medication, against her doctor’s advice and against my better judgement. She sees this as love, I see this as crazy. She will not listen to me.

Am I wrong?  What should I do?

 

Seriously Concerned

 

Dear Concerned,

This is serious.  Many people, even with the best of intent, can be dangerous love bullies. This is a form of soft abuse. He has promised to be her everything and is requiring her to give up all of her other support systems! She will lose her connection with you and become more and more dependent on him. She might lose her health. Unfortunately, statistics show that even if her condition worsens, she won’t do anything about it. She will become less self-sufficient and less sure of herself, depending on him to tell her what to do.

Unsolicited advice is usually rejected, but she is your daughter so it is your right and job to protest. You can send her books and pamphlets on soft abuse, and codependence; and her doctor should provide a list of the risks and consequences in stopping her medications. Ignore her fiancé’s whining- he is delusional and misled, from what you describe.  A soft abuser usually ends up dissolving the relationship at some point. She will need you then.

But the best way to teach is via role modeling- thus, you cannot make her dysfunction the center of your life. You need to create a stable healthy life with healthy relationships.  Eventually, that will make a difference for her too.

Good luck,

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: My heart really goes out to you- it must be tough to watch your daughter place herself in the hands of a fanatic.

What alarms me is the sheer number of supplements you say he is giving her. Herbs and alternative medicines can be as powerful and damaging as pharmaceuticals if given in the wrong doses or mis-prescribed. Is your daughter’s boy friend a doctor? If not, he’s just experimenting with your daughter’s life.

Since unsolicited advice is generally thrown back in one’s face, I can’t advise you to give your daughter any. But make an effort to stay connected with her no matter what her boyfriend does, because your daughter needs perspective. She needs to be around people other than her boyfriend.

If you see your daughter’s health worsen, you may need to step in. After a certain point, some damage can’t be undone. Screw protocol and don’t wait for an invitation. It will always be a parent’s job to protect their children from damage at the hands of others.

If I marry I want it to last forever:

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché,

My parents are divorced. Most of my friend’s parents are divorced. If I marry I want it to last forever! Otherwise why bother?  I read that 60% of all marriages fail. With second marriages the statistics are no better. What can I do to ensure against the apparently overwhelmingly grim odds?

My Prince Will Come

 

Dear My,

In training to be an EMT (emergency medical technician), the first thing you learn is Look, Listen, and Feel. This means to evaluate a situation before you jump into it. In martial arts students learn that the best line of defense is to not enter into dangerous situations to begin with.

Too often in our culture, women are taught to act with their eyes closed and their mouths shut. One should always evaluate prospective partners with both one’s heart and one’s eyes. Ask questions and always speak up. Never make excuses for someone else.

It isn’t love that makes a marriage last, but duty.  Yet duty won’t lessen life’s sufferings; love does.

Adults need to be able to balance love and duty. Most people are good at one or the other, not both. If you cultivate skills in both, you can recognize those skills in others. Make sure that you and your partners are equals and that neither you nor they are just children in adult bodies.

It helps to be involved in a constantly evolving conversation. Make sure you and your potential partner participate in what I call “playing house.”  Talk about your intent. What do you want your relationship to look like twenty years from now? Keep checking in, and develop the skills to stay on track.

Too often, even if couples know they are off track, most deny it and go with the flow until problems are insurmountable. “Irreconcilable differences”  is the number one reason placed on divorce papers. What this really says is there was never an ongoing conversation.  I hear too often, “He is just a guy and doesn’t like to talk.” This simply means that he has no skills in sharing and negotiating. A relationship like this cannot last.

A last thought: it’s never a good idea to be islands unto yourselves. No one can be your everything. Everyone needs support. Have friends and connect with your family. But don’t get sucked into anyone’s’ BS. The quality of your life is determined by those you hang out with. If your supports are all dysfunctional, it can affect you on many levels.  Your supports should be role models not disasters.

 

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: If you can get the idea out of your head that your prince will come, that’s a good starting point to clear the way for a lasting relationship.

No prince charming will magically make your marriage perfect. It takes common sense and commitment to make a marriage work- along with love. Merely a sense of duty won’t do it- that’s what you feel towards goats if you keep them in your back yard. No woman or man wants to think that it’s duty that binds their mate.

But here’s the problem with love: nobody really knows what it is and it flits and flees like any other emotion. It changes without notice. Love alone cannot sustain a relationship over time. For that, you need skills and tenacity.

Most people don’t even want to think about whether a relationship will last or not. The very fact that it is of concern to you is half the battle. You are aware of the pitfalls- this also means you can do something to prevent them. Awareness is where control begins. I think you will do alright if you follow Dr. Brilliant’s advice and keep away from the creeps.

 

 

Square peg in a round hole:

Dear Dr. Brilliant cliché,

I have a friend whose eight year old son is having a tough time. He is smart but is constantly in trouble at school.

I volunteer in the school and can see that the boy looks miserable. He is always being scolded by teachers and he hasn’t made it out for recess once yet this year as he is always on punishment.  I think he needs help, and IEP (Individual Education Plan) intervention. Although he is intelligent, I suspect a learning disorder. It just kills me to watch how he is starting to hate school. He is beginning to takes his misery out on other kids too and can be mean.  In the past, whenever I made suggestions to a friend about having their kid tested for ADHD or some other learning disorder, it has never gone well and I have usually lost that friend. I hate seeing this child suffer but I don’t want to lose his mom as a friend.  What should I do?

Concerned Friend

 

Dear Concerned,

Unsolicited advice is rarely taken well but this is important information your friend needs to hear. However, it is not your job to tell her. A better course is to discuss your thoughts with his teacher. Not only is she the one who should be broaching this to his mom, but the child is probably driving her nuts and she might welcome your suggestions.

If, after testing, his needs cannot be met in this classroom, there are many specialized schools for children who just don’t fit in the public school mode. I recently visited a school where the kids rarely ever sat or stopped moving. It was a self- directed school where the kids were engaged in projects all day and Destination Imagination (a national problem solving competition) was incorporated into the school curriculum. I never met a more enthusiastic, friendly and intelligent bunch of kids and these were all children who were not able to be successful in the public school system.

It’s never good to be a square peg in a round hole. Kids don’t know they are a square peg. They just feel something is wrong with them. School shouldn’t be hell. Once a kid learns to hate school they are lost to our culture.

 

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: I concur; however, I will add one thought- there may be something going on in this child’s life that has nothing to do with a learning disability. I discovered that a nephew of mine had been sexually abused ten years ago by an older kid from another neighborhood. My nephew became mean to other children and a problem at school and no one knew why until he reached his 20′s and finally got to the heart of the matter in therapy.

Definitely, bring up your thoughts to the teacher- but keep an open mind too. Don’t make the mistake of dismissing other possible sources for this kid’s problem because you are already convinced he has a learning disability. You have made superficial observations over time in a school setting. The big picture could include factors you haven’t been shown.

The first step

Dear Dr. Brilliant cliché, 

Here’s a problem I have with the twelve step program, and I’d like your opinion. Why must I declare powerlessness? I am an alcoholic. I have been trying my whole life not to be powerless toward all the craziness and dysfunction that was dealt to me.  From childhood abuse to domestic violence to addictions, powerlessness is all that I have ever known! I refuse to yet again be passive, abused, and powerless.

 

Angry and Fatigued.

 

Dear A and F, 

The dervish call it cutting off your head. It isn’t about power. It is about EGO. All you know and all you have experienced goes into the big bucket you carry around as your sense of self. It makes no difference whether you are a hero out to better the world or an anti-hero blaming everyone else for your woes; it all goes into the bucket. 

The first step is a complete giving over; it’s dumping the bucket. Admission of powerlessness is admitting you just do not know. Admission of powerlessness is cutting out your ego. It is not a sacrifice to anyone or anything (as self sacrifice is), but rather a sacrifice of self. 

Love, and personal change, can only happen if you are capable of allowing someone in. The first step, by honestly admitting powerlessness, opens up your ego to allow something or someone else in.  That is the voice, the divine inspiration, that most addicts at some point experience which opens them up to change. Without the first step there is no room in your bucket for anything new. 

Chemically it is oxytosin moderating dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical behind your ego; it is pleasure, memory, and learning. Oxytosin is attachment. Normally people will not jeopardize attachments through excessive experience but for people with accelerated lives,  dopamine is so high it is no longer moderated by oxytosin. That’s when behavior becomes all about you and not about how your behavior affects others.  

Admitting powerlessness allows for the reestablishment of balance. 

 

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: So far you have been powerless to deal with your problems because you were relying on your personal resources exclusively to deal with them. Anyone from a dysfunctional past doesn’t naturally have the tools to deal with adversity, conflict or abuse. This is a type of powerlessness that is destructive and demeaning and I fully understand your distaste for it.

Admitting your powerlessness is not the same as being powerless. It is actually the first step towards acquiring power. Why? Because a problem can’t be solved until it has been recognized and admitted. You admit that you have been powerless and that you have a problem- that’s just the first step, not the end of the line.

I think that the wording of the 12 steps is unfortunate because it does seem to imply that you are giving over your personal control to someone or something else. In fact, a better way to put it would be to say that you are giving up your dysfunctional thinking to make room for a more powerful sand effective system of thought that will enable you to deal with your problems rather than screwing them up.

The intent of AA is to help you quit drinking. They have a system that has helped a lot of people. They are not the only system that has helped people stop drinking, so if you really have a problem with their rhetoric, maybe you should look into other successful programs to help you. But whatever system you use, the first step will always be that you have to admit your current way of thinking is what got you in trouble in the first place. You will always need to learn a better system of thought if you want to break out of your abusive, addictive cycle. When you acquire that better system, it will be YOU who is using it. This is where you take your power back. AA can bring you to that point if you do the work, whether you like their rhetoric or not.

 

 

 

My marijuana is better than your Antidepressant:

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché,

I have been smoking marijuana daily for the last three years starting around fourteen years old. Previous to that my life was hell.  My dad smokes medical marijuana when he’s not beating on my mom or drunk and reminding me how useless I am. Marijuana makes me happy.   None of my doctor’s medication has ever done a lick yet he keeps insisting I have to give up marijuana. Why? My grades are good and so far it’s the only thing that makes my life bearable.

-Moe Toke

 

Dear Mr. Toke,

You are right- there really is no such thing as a legal antidepressant. One often reads articles stating that antidepressants do not work. In truth, they absolutely do; but not in the manner which the advertising would have you believe.

The medications your doctor gives you are called antidepressants because of marketing. As you rightly pointed out, there is no legal medication that can make you happy. Antidepressant medication (usually dealing with the chemical serotonin) tone down emotional information… ALL emotional information. If taken in too large a dose they can even cause chemical numbness. Antidepressants also work by decreasing exaggerated empathy. They take you out of other people’s heads and improve your cognitive flexibility.

Mr. Toke, you are also right in that marijuana is an antidepressant that can make you happy; at least for a while. But happiness from a pill is not real. Happiness, in order to be kept, needs to be earned. If you bypass the normal learning curve, you acquire no skills. Not only will chemically induced happiness not last, but depression and numbness is common when chemical happiness wears off, leaving you with no behavioral changes or learned skills for natural happiness. What this means is your life will be endlessly as it is now.  Anything that induces artificial happiness in the short term steals from your long term happiness. You are trading your future to endure your present.

Chemistry is another reason not to play with artificial happiness. Oxytosin in our bodies is supposed to moderate dopamine.  These are two very important neural chemicals that need to be in balance. Essentially, dopamine gives a sense of self and ego. It regulates memory, pleasure, and learning.  Oxytosin fosters a sense of attachment. It is why human females do not eat their children as animals without oxytosin do. Normally, we will not jeopardize our attachments to appease our own egos. We consider our behaviors as they affect our group. But with artificial pleasures or an unnatural rise in dopamine, there is no such moderation. Hard core crack addicts have been known to sell their own children to feed their habit. Even recreational marijuana use might have untoward consequence.

Chemically, love requires a balance between oxytosin, seratonin and dopamine. Throwing this balance off artificially  can and will affect our experience of love. Antidepressants differ as they can be prescribed specifically to help maintain, not replace, balance.

So long as one is raising dopamine by unnatural means, it is out of oxytosin’s control and one’s ability to consider one’s effect on others will be diminished. Use of any mind altering substance will also affect your ability to be present. I know that’s the aim in using drugs in the first place; but although I agree your life sucks, Mr. Toke, the way out of it is not through chemical happiness or numbness; that actually only makes it persist forever. Instead, challenge yourself by building a life outside of the one you know now. Concentrate on school. Study outside your house; get to know your teachers. If you get to know your teachers the school work will start to make more sense.

And in school, remember- oxytosin moderates dopamine; attachments affect memory and learning.

 

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: The problem here is not whether you are keeping up with your grades, Mr. Toke. The problem is that you are turning into your father by pursuing the same path of chemical dependency that he did. Your grades can be fabulous and it won’t make a damned bit of difference. If you don’t learn some real coping skills, you are doomed to follow in dad’s footsteps.

The teen years are when one sets patterns that will last a life time. It is one thing to use marijuana in a responsible medical manner, or even to use it in moderation as many adults use alcohol. However, if you get in the habit of using pot as a habitual crutch while a teen, you are setting your life on a course that is going to be steered by whatever is hot, cold or shiny and comes with extra cheese. If you are enrolled in school or some other disciplined educational situation such as work training, you can probably graduate and get a job without becoming a bum. But when it comes to your personal life, you will always still be back at square one. Your father is a lousy role model. You can’t do any better than he did if you don’t learn some new tricks.

Get out of your freaking’ house and get on track. I know WAY too many people in their 50′s who drifted there from their 20′s in a cloud of smoke and aren’t quite sure how it happened. Don’t be one of them.

Why can’t he just die:

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché,

I have been reading your blogs about “soft abuse” and I have realized that my husband is a bully. For the last 14 years I have tried to please him but he is constantly on my case. It has been so hard. He keeps going off his methadone and relapsing and I did what I could to keep the family together. Lately things have been really deteriorating. He blames everything on me. He has even been teaching the kids that I am crazy and I feel he is turning them against me.

The kids are all I have and I am sorry but all I can think is that I hope he dies during his upcoming hip replacement surgery. I know it will once again lead to a relapse and again it will make my life unbearable.

Am I a bad person?

Mrs Guilt

 

Dear Mrs,

No, you are not a bad person but you are a passive one. Waiting for god to end your problems only enables your husband further. Besides, even if he did die you would only berate yourself with guilt and self-blame. It takes two to play the persecutor/victim dance; and indeed, you two will teach this dance to your children. It will not only be you whom they abuse and neglect.

Your children need parenting and it appears so does your husband. If it is all just verbal abuse then he is simply being a six year old and more than likely, if sober, will respond to unyielding self-confidence and back down. If he has been physically abusive then that is beyond bullying and a different story.

You need a self-defense class, a women’s group and Alanon. Your husband needs Narcotics Anonymous, therapy and an ultimatum.

Seek outside help immediately! Illness of any kind is not an excuse for bad behavior.

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: You aren’t a bad person at all. Just from reading your letter, I have my fingers crossed that the old bastard will kick off during surgery. But have to say- you are also a freaking’ idiot.

If you are strong enough to hold a family together while your husband is messing with drugs, you are strong enough to make it on your own. Why have you let this clown ruin your life?

Granny understands- human beings are creatures of habit, and your way of life is a habit which you are having as hard of a time breaking from as your husband is having breaking from drugs. What you need to remember is that a habit is a habit. If you form new, better habits, it will soon be as difficult to break from them as it was to break from your old habits.

How do you learn new habits? Get help. No one can change on their own, it would be like a surgeon trying to remove his own appendix. All of the options that Dr. Brilliant mentioned are excellent. But now you have to give yourself a good swift kick in the ass and get moving. The first step is the hardest. Once you are in motion, you will tend to stay in motion.

You don’t necessarily have to throw out your whole life… but you need to throw out your inner mythology. It’s amazing how different the same world can be when you look at it through new eyes and begin acting through a new set of skills.

 

Bully a parent – double speak version:

Dear Dr. Brilliant Cliché;

I’ve been reading a lot about bullies lately and I have a question for you- is it possible for a child to bully a parent?

Here’s my situation- I’m divorced, with two children. I met a great guy three weeks ago and I’d like to be able to spend some time with him.
He has a 4 year old daughter, the same age as mine. It seems to me that a good way for us to get together, without making my kids feel excluded, is to arrange play dates with the kids while at the same time I see the dad as friends. Unfortunately, my 11 year old son (who happens to have Asperger’s) doesn’t see it this way. He claims that I am forcing him to be a babysitter against his will. He also raised the roof because he saw me kissing my new friend.
I’m an adult woman, am I not allowed to have a friends? And I thought that it was considerate of me to include my kids rather than schlepping them to a babysitter so that I could go out on my own. But my son is completely antagonistic and refuses to try to get along. I feel as if I am being bullied and I don’t like it.
Any suggestions?

Knotty Pine

Dear knotty,

Yes children can bully parents, but in this case, it sounds to me as if you may instead be bullying your son, albeit with good intent.

You are trying to sell a reality to him that is not actually true.  This new guy in your life is not just your friend, and your son knows it. Until this man and you get to know each other better and a commitment has been made, he and your kids should not be mixed. This is true for any divorced parent, but if you have a child with Asperger’s, change and ambiguity can be especially painful.

Teaching your kids that what you say is more important than what you do is the first step in screwing them up. In the book 1984, they called it double speak; it’s a form of manipulation and control.

Double speak is common in those who come from an abusive or chaotic childhood.

It is both ironic and fortunate that your son is 100% literal. He will call your bluff at every turn and this may force you to be true and honest in your speech.  That alone will probably cut 60% of the bullshit and chaos from your life.

Saying what you mean and being consistent will help ALL your relationships.

 

Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

Granny says: Kids have fantastic crap detectors. Adults find it annoying, but then, most adults are full of crap.

We all have a tendency to put on horse blinders when a new romance beckons. It’s usually disastrous when a single person does this, but even more so when a divorced parent does, because not only do you suffer the consequences of careless behavior, your kids do too.

I know that you want a little bit of happiness and hope in your life, but be smart about it. Give the relationship a little more time to develop before you drag the kids in. Get a baby sitter and go out on a date with this new man- both you and the kids will have a much better time.

PS- and for god’s sake, don’t tell your kids that this guy is just your friend and then start making out with him. Children learn by imitation, and even if your son is skeptical, your daughter could be picking up some unfortunate ideas. Do you want to have to explain to the kindergarten teacher why your 4 year old is trying to make out with the boys at play school?