Secret Weapon: The Compassionator Part 1

Let’s assume that your ex-partner made you nuts when you were married and still gets your goat on a regular basis. Those new dress shoes you just bought for your son come back from your ex-’s house full of mud and scratches - again! Your daughter's teacher sent home a note complaining that she was unprepared for class - again! Your kids were supposed to be picked up an hour ago, but your ex- is late - again! And now you are, too. Your blood pressure just soars whenever you see your ex-’s face.

Sound familiar? If you’re like a lot of single parents or remarried folks, the dance you do with your ex- has an effect on your health, and also on everyone around you – and if you’re angry, it’s probably rubbing off on your loved ones.

Herein lies the rub: Experts will tell you that it’s essential for compassion to occur for adults to co-parent effectively. Compassion? Please...it's probably the last thing on your mind, but you also know that homicide is not an option. (Think of all the pesky jail time involved.) So, what to do if your ex-still drives you bonkers, your Compassionator (tm) is just not working and the Maytag repairman is taking lunch?

You don’t necessarily need your ex- to suddenly stop being a jerk. You can hit the re-set button and change the course of interaction all by yourself, according to Dr. Melody Bacon, a clinical psychologist in San Juan Capistrano, CA.

As Bacon says, “one person only needs to be willing to approach the other person with a degree of detachment and a willingness not to engage in the same emotional reactivity. Try and have an argument with someone who won’t argue – it doesn’t work!”

Bacon, who also is a psychology professor at California's Argosy University and specializes in work with couples, says the hardest thing in any coupleship, even one that’s over, is to give up the struggle In some instances, fighting and arguing is the only mode of communication that’s been available to divorcing couples, but if confrontations are what get in the way of you being able to talk or negotiate with your ex-, “expect them to behave in [that way] and start to navigate from the thinking part of your brain, not your limbic system, which runs your defense mechanisms." When you have one non-anxious person, you’re more likely to have more calmness in your dealings with your ex-.

You may be skeptical that this can actually occur – especially if you're hardwired to react more like Godzilla than Buddha. But take some deep breaths and hang on --next week, I’ll write more on getting a hold of your emotions, and your brain. You and your blood pressure will definitely cool down – and yes, even your ex- may play nicer as a result.

Silda Spitzer: Why Stand by Your Man?

Like a lot of New York/New Jersey-area folks, I heard the news that Eliot Spitzer had been taken down after being linked to a high-end prostitution ring and thought A) Oh, Lord, is this a joke? And, B) is he gay, too? With the McGreevey scandal still in close by in our collective rearview mirror, my husband admitted that he’d wondered this, too.

As it turned out, the news was neither a joke nor an announcement that Spitzer was playing for another team. Instead, we learned that he’d paid upward of $80,000 for les liaisons dangereuses with a high-priced hooker named “Kristen.” And then, we saw the all-too-familiar and expected image of Spitzer and his visibly shaken and beleaguered wife, Silda, standing by her man.

The only question that I really had at that moment was: Why would a Harvard-educated, intelligent and successful woman like Silda Spitzer stand beside her philandering husband for humiliation she didn’t deserve, enduring the cameras, the prying questions from reporters, and perhaps the sense that the floor might open and swallow her whole?

I guess as a New Jerseyan, I’m still ticked off about New Jersey former governor Jim McGreevey, who lost his job after an affair with a longtime male aide. I can still remember the shell-shocked, Bambi-in-the-headlights look of his former wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, as she stood beside him in her powder-blue suit, absorbing his now-famous quote, “I am a Gay American.”

I am still wondering Why Dina Did It, and now I'm scratching my head about Silda, as were all the other women in my Pilates class on the morning that the news broke. "It’s really a wonder that any woman would be caught dead doing that in this day and age," our instructor said, adding, "I'd be throwing his stuff on the lawn." Widespread agreement ensued, with other women chiming in with unprintable solutions for Eliot's Little Problem. The two lone males in our class grew uncomfortable, and one made some noises about Lorena Bobbitt, so we moved on to back bends instead.

Later that night, I caught CNN's Anderson Cooper: 360, and there was Lisa Bloom, a civil rights attorney from Court TV going toe to toe with Alan Dershowitz. Bloom said it’s time to change the standard tableau of humiliated wife and disgraced political husband, and I couldn't agree more.

“What kind of message does this send, what kind of role model are you going to be…if you stand there mutely, and humiliated? The clear message to political wives is that you must go and you must stand there. I don’t Dina McGreevey felt like she had much of a choice.”

I went to sleep, but awoke with the Clash's "Stand Down, Margaret" in my head; it was my mental soundtrack for the rest of the morning.

I agree with Bloom that it’s time to change what women are expected to do in public life. I never thought about it before, but what sort of a message do we send our children -- that a woman must stand for any sort of nonsense because she made the mistake of marrying a bozo? And that boy children can expect the same sort of blind loyalty from their future mates, no matter how illegal, immoral or just plain stupid their behavior may be?

It's not a lesson I'd voluntarily teach my child. I think it’s healthier and saner to let the spotlight – and the shame - rest where it belongs.

Whether or not the Spitzers can get past this and piece their marriage back together, at least one person will still be able to stand with dignity. The kids will be looking for someone to look up to and lean on. My money's on Silda.

So Silda, all the women in my Pilates class wish you the best. And we all hope you’ll stand by yourself.

Emergency Maneuvers

I’ve been off duty at Families, Inc. after a short winter break in Puerto Rico with my family turned into an awful, unforeseen two-day stint in a Puerto Rican hospital.

Fortunately, I’m just fine after a scary few days of dealing with what looked a lot like a stroke, but turned out to be a pinched nerve. Scarier still was trying to get medical care in a place where very few people spoke English at all, most did not speak it fluently, and nobody seemed to give a damn if I really needed to be there in the first place. As it turns out, I didn’t.

I found myself in a completely unanticipated and awkward position as I handed over care of The Bean, my nine-year-old daughter, to H., my husband/her stepdad, while I was camped out in the stark, ice-cold bowels of Hima San Pablo hospital in Fajardo. My husband and daughter had never had an overnight stay without me. While I knew that they got on very well, I worried that my daughter would be scared, overtired and cranky after a long, late night in the ER with me. Before they left me at the hospital, I called The Bean’s dad back at home in the States, and asked him to stay in close touch with H., just in case “something happened” to me. I was rattled, edgy and freezing in the sepulchrally icy ER, but eventually I drifted off into fitful sleep under a pair of plastic-lined sheets that I fashioned into a tent atop a gurney(‘See? It pays to watch Survivorman', I thought.

As it turned out, my daughter and husband’s first solo overnight went better than expected, according to H. I could soon see that the two of them had grown closer by working together on my behalf, bringing me blankets (did you ever hear of a hospital without blankets?), warm clothes (air conditioners were set on ‘stun’) and food (that was a bug in my mashed potatoes!) The Bean brought me a yellow stuffed bunny, which we promptly named “Mofongo” after a local plantain dish of a similar hue. H. told me that The Bean hadn’t cried when they spent the second night without me, but instead curled up next to him on the sofa to watch TV. That NEVER happened at home, I mused in my darkened hospital room. Maybe this little Holiday in Hell would have a silver lining.

At the end of my second, daunting day in the hospital, I made a daring escape. My “medico,” Dr. A, was supposedly a hospital bigwig, and he let me know it, too. He showed up in the morning making vague promises of test results, then, told me he wanted to “talk business.” He spent the next 20 minutes deflecting questions about my tests and pitching me a story idea about medical travel to a new hospital that was under construction.

I told him exactly what I thought he wanted to hear. I told him it was a great story, even though his hospital was utterly sub-par, because I hoped he would play a quick game of schmooze-the-reporter and get me out of there soon. Boy was I wrong. Instead, Dr. A went AWOL. After trying all day to track him down, and the promise of another night’s stay in what seemed to me like a Turkish prison, I finally gave up. Instead, late in the afternoon, we called our US-based insurer and learned that they'd had my test results for hours -- and all were negative. Joy to the world! I promptly signed myself out.

H., The Bean and I nearly ran for the elevator as if we were escaping from a high-security prison – and headed to a little beachside joint we like for dinner. There, I watched The Bean reach out for H’s hand as she tentatively stepped onto the darkened beach.

Another barrier had come down for our blended-family-in-progress. I knew she finally saw H. as an auxiliary parent and protector. So, for me, there were tears, an oversized cocktail, followed by a huge celebratory feast. And if I ever get sick in Puerto Rico again, I will head for the airport, not the hospital!