How to Get Out of Your Own Way Page 11

  In my opinion, the reason some men get physical toward women is because they cannot stop them from being disrespectful or saying evil things. I am not excusing this or saying it’s okay, but at the end of the day, a man is usually physically bigger than a woman and can easily harm a woman with his bare hands. Many women are comfortable with being disrespectful to their men. A guy can ask his girlfriend over and over to stop saying mean or condescending things to him and if she doesn’t listen he can get angry enough for things to get physical—especially if that’s what he experienced in his childhood. He may think that the only way to get her to stop is by inflicting pain, just like his mama whupped him when he didn’t stop acting badly. He remembers that back when he was young his mother or father would discipline him, and the pain from the whupping made him stop acting or talking a certain way. Some of the worst days I can remember were when I was bad as hell and my mama would make me go in the backyard, grab switches off a tree, and peel all the leaves off so she could use it to whup my ass. Some men may feel the need to go to the next level to demand respect in a physical way, because it all goes back to your childhood. In no shape, form or fashion am I justifying physical abuse; it’s completely unacceptable. Messed-up situations and personalities with a lot of tension brewing could make things explode and get crazy.

  At the end of the day, when communication breaks down, it can get violent if nothing he’s saying is getting through. Because of what he’s seen in his childhood, he thinks it’s normal for things to get physical. And the cycle continues.

  Once a man hits a woman she will either leave or just think twice before she starts getting on him for something, because she’ll remember what he did to her the last time. In that situation, she loses all control of her environment. The smart thing to do is to get out of a relationship, especially if it turns violent. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen easily, especially these days.

  Too many people go from one dysfunctional relationship to the next until they recognize the pattern. Find someone who isn’t confrontational, who represents the new you.

  The Cycle Continues…

  You have more power than you think you do. If you have kids, how they turn out will be based on how you raised them. If they’re exposed to your fighting and negativity every day, they will think that is the normal way to love someone. Don’t let their childhoods and futures be affected by your dysfunction. I am asking you to break the cycle like I did.

  Think about what you are creating because we often can’t deal with the monsters we create in people. Some parents do not recognize that what they do contributes to who their children become. They only start responding when they see the outcome, when their children are grown, and even then some parents may not self-reflect.

  Parents should look at what they are doing, how they are treating their children, what kind of environment their children are in, and what more they can do to create a better child. You have to think about when you want to stop hurting your children.

  At what point do fathers and mothers reflect and realize how they influenced their child? In most cases, if your older children don’t want to hang out with you or be around you, you have to wonder what you did. As children grow up and become a bit more mature, they may get rebellious and not want to listen to you. They won’t want to hear anything you have to say, because they believe they’re old enough to make their own decisions and do not want to include you. When they were growing up, how did you treat them? What kind of environment did you raise them in? What are your children witnessing now that will impact them in the future?

  I can only imagine that a mother or father’s worst nightmare would be to find out that their daughter decided to become a porn star or a stripper. It can be a shameful thing, especially if they went out of their way to raise their kids right, with morals, values, and integrity.

  Even for some grown children the pain of dysfunction does not necessarily end. Some children believe that the only way for them to stop the cycle is to cut off that line so they cannot give their parents another opportunity to let them down or disappoint them. So whatever parents are doing that’s messed-up, they are doing it at their own expense. Some children will not allow it to affect them.

  A parent of an older child could say he or she did everything they could, everything they thought they were supposed to do, to try and be a great parent—and that may be true. Some children just ultimately decide to go off and be whatever they decide to be.

  And so as a parent, you may be sitting back and thinking of everything you did, running down your list of all the things you did to show your kids love and wondering why you’re not getting it back. I haven’t experienced this with my own child and I hope that I never will, but I have witnessed this with other people and it can be a painful situation.

  You are the master of your environment—and when your children are little, you are the master of their environments, as well. If you are all living in a cycle of dysfunction, look at how much you love yourself, set a new bottom line, and do whatever you can to break the cycle for them.

  Parents who are dealing with rebellious teenagers or young adults should try not to own or internalize every one of your child’s behaviors, or beat yourself up about what you did or didn’t do that made them act in a certain way. Instead of shutting down, try to keep the lines of communication open to make your kids feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, so that they can work with you instead of against you. I have found that most parents and guardians would say their adolescents or young adults turned out better when communication between them and their kids stayed healthy and didn’t break down.

  It will be expected that kids will keep some secrets from you, but for the most part, parents I know would hope that their kids don’t keep any substantial secrets. It may be hard not to react when your children tell you something you’re not happy about. Some parents’ approach can be very aggressive; as soon as kids tell the truth about something, some moms and dads are extra hard on them and may go on the attack, never letting them breathe and handing out extreme discipline. Your kids are either going to fear you and tell you the truth about everything, or they’re going to fear you and never tell you shit. Every adolescent and young adult is trying to find their own identity. Either they’re going to learn about life from you, or they’re going to learn it from somebody else in the streets. Hopefully, they’ll choose you.

  Get in Control: Single Mothers and Fathers

  You all deserve to live a life of love. You should always want to be an example for your children, and love is the best example you could ever give. I know this can be difficult depending on your personal situation, especially if you are a single mother or father.

  Women—especially young, single women—can get overwhelmed when they get pregnant and are still very young themselves. A guy is either going to be there when the baby arrives or he’s not. Some guys stay and some guys “escape” when they find out their girlfriend is pregnant. It’s sad, but it happens all the time; it’s an epidemic. Depending on whether the baby’s father is around or not, a single mother may have a lot of anger and animosity toward the person who got them pregnant.

  There is no excuse for any man or any boy who gets a woman pregnant to not try his hardest to be a father to his child. The thing is, if he was too young, he was never a man in the first place. You can’t expect a boy to be a man. When one teenager gets another teenager pregnant, the guy becomes a father only as he gets older, but in those first seven, eight, or even ten years of the child’s life, he may not be around. He may not be an active part of the child’s life because he didn’t become a man until ten years later. When he got his girlfriend pregnant he was just a boy, still into boy things, and nothing about being a boy connects him to being a father. He’s still running around, clubbing, hanging out, freaking, wilding out. Meanwhile, the young woman who has a child is automatically forced to be more responsible because she’s the one who is with the child.

  When a te
enage girl has a child she’s lucky if her mother—who is now a grandmother—helps her raise the child. Her mother ends up raising her grandchild because her young daughter doesn’t know anything about being a mother herself. Her mother didn’t want her young daughter to have sex, but now she will try to get her daughter to finish her schooling and raise the baby. That’s what happens if the young mother is really lucky. In many cases, young teenage girls who get pregnant have nowhere to turn. In a lot of cases, the young father is nowhere to be found.

  An older single woman—in her twenties or thirties—may be more alone and without the help of her mother or other relatives. She may be feeling tired and frustrated about raising the child on her own, upset that she has no life and can’t afford a babysitter. She is so consumed with taking care of the child, working, trying to figure out how she is going to support and raise her baby on her own, and she is desperate for the child’s father to do his part. If a man doesn’t want to step up and be a father, there is nothing she can say or do to get him to step up to the plate.

  Unfortunately, there is such a thing as a man who has no interest in spending time with his kids. It pains me to say it, but it is true. There are two ways to react to this: The ineffective way is to feel guilty and depressed and let that negative energy take over and find its way to your child. The positive way is to focus on the only thing in that situation that you have control over: Yourself. Wasting your time and efforts on him will only make you tired, and cause endless frustration, because you will never get the results you want.

  If a woman wants the father of her child to act like a father then she will have to talk him into it. When a father doesn’t want to be involved, a woman will have to make him feel comfortable with being a father—something she may have expected him to be anyway. She may be wondering why she has to talk him into it and why he isn’t there in the first place, but she will have to put that aside along with all the anger, hostility, resentment, disappointment, and bitterness she may feel toward him so he can feel more compelled to relieve her of the duties of raising a child.

  The problem a lot of men have is that sometimes the most comfortable thing to do is not the right thing to do. A lot of us are lazy, and need to be taught that life is not about finding the easy way out. If you come at us too strong, we put our guard up, and do everything we can to protect ourselves.

  I think it’s cowardly for a man to not step up to the plate to be a father. However, if a guy is running away from his responsibilities, it may be because every time he shows up to do his part, the mother acts overly angry, hostile, and disrespectful; she may make the process of him picking up the child uncomfortable, messing up his day. He would rather stay away, leave her to raise the child on her own, and just send some child support when he can, because every time he goes to pick up his son or daughter, the child’s mother makes his life hell, making it difficult to be a father. She may have told everyone she meets that he’s not being a good father and—even if that is true—it will get back to him and bother him even more, which will cause him to not want to come around and help out. In this situation, the mother is allowing all her negative energy to overtake her. She is not acting like the master of her environment that she could be.

  Women need to understand men and their responses and think before they act. There is no excuse for a man to not step up to the plate to be a father, but you should also take responsibility for your actions. You are the master of your environment and what your child is exposed to. You decide how you are going to react to the people who come into your home.

  If you want the father of your child to be a father, you must get in control of all your emotions. Put aside everything you’re mad about—and you may be angry about raising the child on your own, or that he’s moved on to another relationship so quickly—and try to not get vindictive. You may want him to suffer the way you’re suffering, you may want to say something to him to try and mess up his day, but the angrier you act, the more you will lose control and make the process of him trying to step up to be that father a living hell. It’s natural for you to feel bitter and resentful that he’s acting so irresponsibly and selfish (in the negative sense). However, taking all that out on him will probably discourage him from coming around even more. He may deserve it—and you may be angry that you have to ask him to do what he should have been doing from the beginning—but with that behavior you will only be undermining your goal and hurting yourself. You will be making him uncomfortable with coming over there and taking care of his responsibilities so that he won’t want to see you for even the one minute it takes to pick up your child. As short and quick as it may be, getting his child can make him uncomfortable interacting with you and he could choose to avoid it for a long time.

  You can make your feelings and opinions known to the man in question, but you have to create the reality you want for yourself and for your children. Remain in control of your emotions and do the responsible thing: Don’t storm into his job, don’t make a scene in front of everyone he knows, and don’t scream and yell. When you go ghetto like that, you’ve lost control, and all you’re doing is embarrassing yourself and making him more resentful of your actions. Contact him privately, in any way you want, and tell him that it is in his own best interests to spend time with his child. Push aside all your pride, hurt, jealousy, and anger and try to make him realize the error of his ways before it’s too late. Inform him of his responsibility, and try to communicate openly and honestly about everything you expect from him in your relationship. Let him know that he is missing out on the greatest joy his life will ever know: his child.

  The best thing you can do is be the mature one in the relationship. All you can do is be a grown-up and try your best to show him the correct path. If you still want him in your life for the sake of your kid, try to reduce the negativity you allow into your house. Inform him about all the wonderful things he is missing by not spending time with his child and do your best to help him improve and make better decisions for yourself and the kids, one small step at a time. If he is going to come around, it probably won’t be a complete one-eighty-degree turnaround overnight. It’s going to be gradual, and you are going to have to be patient with him. But if you want him in your child’s life, then that is a small price to pay.

  If he refuses to learn his lesson, then I encourage you to focus on what you can do to make your son’s or daughter’s life as rewarding and fulfilling as it possibly can be.

  Don’t allow the conflicts between you and the mother or father of your child to get in the way of your responsibility as a parent. When you coexist and create a child, your responsibility is to be a parent, period. Your child is affected by whatever you do. I am focused on being a responsible parent to Shayla, and her mother is, as well.

  Kids are innocent. They have no control over who their parents are. Therefore, as parents, no matter how angry you may be at the mother or father of your child, you should not say anything negative about your child’s other parent in front of your little one. Everybody loves to focus on the later stages of the relationship, when things got bad, but go back to the first stage, when you were first in love. At some point you decided to have a baby, whatever the circumstances may have been.

  No matter how you feel about that man or woman, you had sex with that person on your own. That’s what you decided to do. Take responsibility for that. Your child is innocent and has nothing to do with it, so you must not pump all the animosity and anger that you’re feeling into the child’s mind. You cannot try and turn this innocent child away from their father or mother.

  I really resent parents who do that with their children because the child becomes confused and learns negativity too early in their young lives. I have seen this happen both ways and it is so painful for the child. You should try to not plant any negative seeds about your child’s other parent, no matter what you’re feeling.

  I tell my daughter all the time, “Your mother is amazing. Mommy loves you, Daddy loves you,
” and I mean it. “I know Mommy loves you; she takes great care of you.” While I’m with my daughter, I avoid having any conversations in general about her mother. I decided to make Shayla with my ex-wife, and I have no regrets about that. Even throughout the divorce and whatever difficulty we have had afterward trying to figure everything out, I still do not regret having a child with my ex-wife. I’m proud to be a father.

  Conflicts don’t have to be a bad thing. Accept their presence in your life as a blessing, that God is telling you that something has to change. Own every situation you find yourself in, because as the master of your environment, you are responsible for each and every one of them, good or bad.

  Every person’s relationship is different and all of our circumstances are different. Sometimes we give advice that can’t be applied because it’s for an individual situation, but in my telling my story, and sharing what I decided I wanted for me, hopefully someone will be inspired and make the effort to look at themselves and change.

  The simple act of recognizing what influences our actions and thoughts is a huge step in understanding ourselves better, making more informed choices, and becoming the masters of our environment we know we can be. We can’t change, adjust, or work on the things that we’re unaware of. If we don’t come to terms with the reality of where we are, what we’re going through, and what is causing these problems, we won’t change. We won’t even know to change.