Yesterday during Group Therapy, we read and email from a Rock-A-Holic named Jason.
Jason has been with “his girl” for seven years and they have two daughters together ages three and six.
The problem is that the six-year-old is actually his step daughter and her biological father wants to be in her life.
Jason has raised this little girl since she was eight months old while her bio father never sees her unless they run into him, doesn’t talk much about her, and rarely pays child support. He also doesn’t have a job but still manages to buy a truck and support a marijuana habit.
I have never been in this situation before but what I do know is that those children are the most important things to think about here. Now I say both kids because this is something that is going to create stress on the 6-year-old and the 3-year-old will feel it too. They’re the precious cargo and the ones you are supposed to be taking care of until they’re adults, so you have to make sure to really think things through.
For one, the biological father needs to take look at the situation and if by being in the picture is just going to confuse and hurt his daughter, then maybe he should keep his distance.
Also, the way Jason wrote the email, he referred to the mother of his kids as “my girl” which makes me think that they are not married.
If that is case, and this goes for everyone who has kids out of marriage, why wouldn’t you tie the knot? I know marriage isn’t for everyone but there is legality involved here, why wouldn’t you want to create a stable parenting team for your kids? It just seems sloppy to do it out of order.
The holiday season is finally here which means that a lot of people are going to be gathering with their families.
Unfortunately for Rock-A-Holic Randall, his family is on the east coast and his girlfriend of nine months wants them to go with her family for Christmas.
The problem is, after visiting her family for Thanksgiving, he absolutely doesn’t want to go back! Even though his girlfriend turned out well, her family is, in his words, the biggest group of losers he’s ever met!
He says he has never had dinner where so many racist and homophobic remarks were said as freely as he did with this family. He didn’t want to be a #BLD (Bitches Love Drama) so he bit his cheek “ate their crappy” food and got out of there as soon as he could.
He knows his girlfriend will be devastated if he doesn’t go, but he isn’t sure what he should do.
Unfortunately the answer to Randall’s problem is to simply suck it up. If he loves this girl, he then has to learn to love her family. It’s just a few holidays, not an everyday occurrence. For Randall and anyone else in this problem during this holiday season, just use this strategy, bite your tongue when they say something you don’t agree with and try to find the good in them.
Plus, in a 26-year study about in-laws, they found that if the husband had a close relationship to his wife’s parents, the chance of divorce went down by 20%.
My father-in-law was a good man, but he said some stupid things. When my son was born, all my co-workers and boss were at the hospital to congratulate us, and when someone said that my son looked healthy and had “a good color,” without skipping a beat, my father-in-law said, “of course he does, he’s WHITE!” This was in front of everyone I work with!
Yet, he still was good to my wife and kids…so I ignored his bad qualities for my wife’s sake. Just try to look past the bad and try to see some good in them, and you’ll make your girl happy.
Yesterday we read an email from a Rock-A-Holic named Amber.
Amber says she loves her husband but she finds herself having feelings for her boss as well.
She says he hasn’t made any moves on her but she is really attracted to him and they do spend a lot of time together. She finds herself thinking about him more and more that’s she’s even considered quitting her job so she can stop!
She can’t quit her job because she needs the second income and she doesn’t think she can find another job quickly so Amber wanted our advice.
It’s so funny how people seem to put themselves in a no win scenario where they think they are between a rock and a hard place when in reality they’re creating it.
I’m going to give my nugget and it’s very simple: my therapist told me that it is very common for people in relationships to have crushes on other people. You do have boundaries and you stay within those boundaries. If you have a reason why you can’t stay in that boundary and you want to cross it, it is time to look inside and figure out what is wrong with your life.
The grass on the other side may look appealing but the reality is…it never is; so what is wrong in your life that is making you want that other grass. It could be that you’re not in a great relationship or maybe you’re just overworked, whatever the case maybe, there is resentment somewhere.
The fact is most people just don’t want to put in the work to find the source of that resentment and fix the problem, they just want to do the easy thing which is to run away from the problem or self medicate. That’s always a short term relief…and a long term disaster.
Yesterday on the show, we talked about all the madness from Black Friday.
Many stores opened early on Thanksgiving night and there were huge lines of people waiting anxiously for ridiculous low prices on holiday gifts. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, a record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites this weekend which is up 9% from 226 million last year.
Like previous Black Friday’s, many reports came in on the violence and insanity that occurred.
There was one story about a Massachusetts man who forgot his girlfriend's 2-year-old son behind after taking home his brand new 51-inch flat screen television and left the toddler behind.
If you check out the video below, you can see how people were fighting like animals to get their hands on a phone!
I understand trying to get a good deal but why do people have to be jerks about it? We posed the question yesterday to the Rock-A-Holics what crazy things they have seen while out shopping on Black Friday and one listener said he saw a woman taze the person in front of her just to get the last TV!
We also had a few other callers who said how rude some women were to them while out shopping on Friday.
What does this say about women? According to Oprah, females are the evolved gender so why do some women think it’s ok to name call, punch, shove, and event taze other people just for a material object?
Last week before Thanksgiving break, we talked about what one teacher did that completely outraged me.
Idaho 4-grade teacher Summer Larsen is in trouble for what she let students, who met their reading goals, do those kids who didn’t.
The students who did meet their reading goals were allowed to draw on the faces of those who did not reach their goals. The students who fell short of their goals could choose to either skip recess or allow other students to draw on their faces.
Nine of the 21 kids in the class didn’t meet their goals; six chose to be drawn on and three chose to miss recess. Of those six, some had goatees and mustaches drawn on them at the other students.
Larsen was put on temporary leave for a week as they investigate this incident further.
What a very dumb thing for this teacher to do. This is a perfect example of supervised bullying. Let’s demean the children who are having difficulty in school and make them feel dumb by the hands of the other students…yeah, that’s the smart thing to do.
If I was a parent in this situation, I would be going into this school guns blazing, demanding for anyone associated with this to be fired.
This is what happens when we don’t put enough emphasizes and money in our public school system. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys to fill the position.
The way to stop dumb incidents like this is simple…give public schools more funding to pay for better teachers.
During Group Therapy yesterday, I read an email from a Rock-A-Holic named Garrett who wanted to know if he was being too hard on his 16-year-old daughter.
The other night when she returned late from a date, he noticed she was wearing silk scarf. The next day when she was wearing the same scarf, he made her remove it only to discover that she had four hickies on her neck.
He immediately grounded her for two weeks but his wife thinks he overreacted and said that girls get hickies sometimes. He said that no daughter of his will be doing so and his wife said that two weeks is a long time in the life of a 16-year-old.
Garrett wanted to know if his wife was right in thinking he overreacted or if his punishment was appropriate.
I appreciate that Garrett was smart enough to seek the council of others because let’s face it, parenting is hard.
Vicky B made a good point yesterday, what Garrett should focus on is making sure she knows how to protect herself from STD’s and pregnancy.
As a father, I would be relieved if that is all my daughter came home with and not a baby in her belly. Teenagers are going to be amorous, that’s just the way it is, so why not teach them what to do to take care of themselves so they don’t end up ruining their lives?
Is it impossible to train teenage girls how not to have a baby?
Also, in these kinds of situations, it’s always best for moms to deal with their daughters because they were a teenage girl at one point. It also works the other way around with boys and their dads.
Last week, we received a tweet from a Rock-A-Holic named Matt on Twitter about the latest news about Kevin Clash, the voice actor and puppeteer for Elmo on Sesame Street and his scandal.
For those who don’t know, the scandal started when an unnamed accuser said that when he was 16-years-old, he had sex with Clash. Clash then came out and said that he did have sex with said accuser but it was when he was of legal age.
The latest news is that “Elmo” is free! Last week, the accuser released a statement denying the charges. "He wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship."
Clash said through a representative, "I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I will not discuss it further."
The company also released a brief follow-up statement. "We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a close, and we are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode."
I want to believe that the accuser was lying the whole time, but TMZ has done some digging and according to them, Clash’s attorneys and the accuser were in negotiations and the rumor is that six-figures were on the table at some point.
Assuming that the accuser was lying the whole time, if I was in Clash’s position, I wouldn’t just want to stop talking about it, I would send my accuser to court.
If someone wants to accuse me of something I didn’t do because they want money out of me, not only are they affecting me, but my family, friends, and career as well.
We need to put a stop to these false accusations and if we start putting these liars behind bars, we still see less and less incidents like this.
Yesterday we helped out a Rock-A-Holic named Daylen who was upset with his mother.
His parents are currently going through a divorce but he suspects that his mom is already seeing someone else. The reason he thinks this is going on is because his mom was really persistent about his dad moving out quickly, she is buying a lot of expensive things, and she is going out a lot.
Daylen is really ticked off that his mom is doing this and doesn’t know what to do.
What we don’t know is how old Daylen is, and judging by his message, it makes me think that he is underage and living with his mom.
I know I’ve said this before but this is something everyone who is going through a divorce and has kids needs to hear. Parents can be so selfish when it comes what divorce does to their kids. It’s not enough that the parents are getting out of a bad relationship; they also feel like they should immediately find someone to replace their partner!
When it comes to a new relationship, even if it’s casually dating after a just getting divorced, being overt about it is not ok; the kids come first! After both adults and children have had time to heal, then it’s ok to go back into the dating world but they still have to keep it away from the kids.
Pardon me if I put kids first; no one thinks about the trauma and impact that divorce does to children. They should always be the number one priority, not buying expensive things to get new guys too look at you.
We are still in New Orleans so to hold you over till Monday when we’re back, here is a past blog:
A while back, we read a story about a man that I think is embarrassing every American I know because of his great accomplishments.
Gac Filipaj is a 52-year-old janitor at Columbia University and he just graduated with a bachelor's degree after 12 years, from the same university he works at!
Gac fled Montenegro in 1992 to escape a brutal civil war and came to the United States before he was able to finish his law studies.
He wasn’t young when he started this either, he was 32-years-old which isn’t where you want to hit reset and start all over again. It took him seven years to first learn English so he could even take the classes. Then, thanks to being an employee of Columbia University, he received 14 free credits to school which he used by attending classes before starting a janitor shift that ran from 2:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
You would think that now since Gac has a bachelor’s degree he would get a higher paying job elsewhere but that is not the case. He wants to work towards a Masters Degree and even a Ph.D. which he would use to become a teacher some day.
When asked why he’s not interest in trying to make more with his degree, he said, “The richness is in me, in my heart and in my head, not in my pockets.”
Gac’s story is amazing but I think it shows that as a collective, we have a weak minded country.
This guy is probably one of the happiest guys you’d walk into because he is free of the ridiculousness and turmoil that surrounds the rest of us.
We used to have more people like this; back when WW2 was over, the world was free and there was opportunity, people had the same vibe as Gac because they were done with the horror they had to live with.
We don’t have that anymore because we have a bunch of entitled babies who can’t understand how this guy could do something this. Without any complaining he worked an undesirable job, learned a new language and went to college all at once.
We could really learn something from men like Gac Filipaj.
We are currently in New Orleans so until then, check out one of my favorite past blogs:
Jeffery was having troubles with his new neighbors and his wife.
Jeffery has three teenage boys. They recently moved to a nice neighborhood where they live next door to two teen girls.
They’ve gone out to dinner with the family and have a great time. The only problem is that the girls are in charge of the yard word and when it’s warm, they do their chores short shorts, tanks tops, and bikinis and has caught his sons staring at them through their windows.
Jeffery says that he and his wife don’t want them influenced by “overly sexualized displays” and wanted to know if it would be ok to ask the girls’ dad to have them cover up a little bit.
In other words, it’s Jeffery’s wife that doesn’t want her boys seeing this and Jeffery is going along with it to avoid a fight.
What is happening to men in society? I’m the first one to say that women should be responsible about how they display and behave around men but if it’s warm out and they’re doing yard work in their own yard, then they’re not doing anything wrong.
They’re not wearing anything that you wouldn’t see at the beach; will you ban your boys from going to beaches too?
Jeffery, I’m sure there won’t be any hurt feelings when you go over to your neighbor’s house and ask the dad to have a conversation he doesn’t want to have with his daughters. That would go over well (by the way, I am being very sarcastic) I’m sure if I was that father, who is probably already walking on egg shells because he has two teen girls, and you told me to tell my daughters to cover up because they basically look like whores, I would not be happy about it.
Boys are going to be boys and part of growing up is checking out girls their age if they’re heterosexual. Same thing with the girls; part of being a heterosexual teenage girl is to want to attract the attention of boys her age.
It seems to me that it might be Jeffery’s wife who has the problem with the way the girls are dressing because it’s either a reminder that she’s getting older and/or that her sons are not her little boys anymore.
What Jeffery really needs to do is stand up to his wife and tell her that there is nothing wrong with any of this and to just teach his boys how to take preventative and respectful actions before doing something more than looking.
Yesterday I read a study about jealousy in relationships that really surprised me.
According to a survey done by Cupid online dating, 72% of women and 65% of men thought that having some jealousy was a good thing in a relationship.
They explained that by having a little bit of jealousy, it showed that their partner cared about them.
Steve made a great point; he said that if people want to see their partners get a little jealous, it just means that they’re not talking enough. If they took the time to tell each other, on a frequent basis, how much this person means to them, they wouldn’t have to rely on jealousy to know if the other person cares about them.
Steve was absolutely right; if we focused on positive attention instead of the negative attention that comes from jealousy, everyone’s relationships would be much better off.
Also, if it goes beyond just a little bit of jealousy and the person is accusing their partner of cheating, then they have two options, they can believe and accept their significant other when they say they’re not cheating or they can walk away because if you can’t trust them, what’s the point?
The key to a successful relationship is trust and communication, and if you don’t have those, then what are you doing in a relationship?
Last week, we received an email for Group Therapy that really irritated me beyond belief.
Tim wrote in saying he’s 31-years-old and will be getting married to his fiancé next month. He works in a very stiff work environment and only has one office friend and she is a female. They do talk and have their inside jokes, and even though he thinks she’s cute, he would never consider cheating on his fiancé because he says she is much hotter than his coworker and he loves his fiancé too much.
Just recently, he was surprised when this co-worker told him that she wanted him. When he said he wouldn’t do it, she black mailed him by saying that if they don’t do it; she would to tell the whole office that they did anyways.
Tim is afraid that like in most cases, they will take the woman’s word over the man’s word and doesn’t want to ruin his career or relationship over this.
This is unbelievable that after all the crap women went through to be treated equally in the work place and then all the BS us men had to go through to be retrained on how to treat women in the office, there are some women who would try to pull stuff like this.
How can any woman do something like this knowing that it was the plight of women in the workplace for so long and yet she’s doing the exact same thing? What is it with some women who don’t understand that basic concept and just realize that what they are doing is wrong?
This woman is the lowest of the low.
I’ve seen this before where a woman acts like an idiot then claims that she was sexually assaulted.
On one occasion, a woman I worked with came up and grabbed my genitals to see if I would get aroused as a joke then she turned around three years later and sued the company for sexual harassment for something else that she wasn’t even present for!
Here is what I have to say about all this: Men make a lot of stupid decisions because biologically, when they see a woman they would like to “breed” with, hormones get released and we lose our rational thinking and would do stupid things like this. We have had to really retrain the way we think and burn it in our skulls that you just don’t do this in the workplace. Women don’t have the same biological stuff going on so when they get aroused. I really believe this woman loves having this power over Tim and she’s abusing this , and men need to stand up against things like this when anyone abuses their power.
Yesterday on the show, we talked about a couple that frustrates me to no end.
Singer Rihanna is set to release her new album "Unapologetic" this month but the big controversy is that her new song "Nobodies Business" is going to have a duet with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.
For those who don’t know; in 2009, Chris Brown pled guilty to felony assault after a photo was leaked of Rihanna after Chris Brown hit her.
What I want to know is, if it’s nobody’s business, why are they making it our business by releasing this song?
Here’s the deal, this is everyone’s business. They are high profile people, it was one of the biggest stories ever, and they’ve done interviews about it!
This is absolutely everyone’s business especially in a country where domestic violence is prevalent.
Why would she go back to this guy to collaborate a song with him? Apparently making money is paramount to not working with someone who abused her.
All I see is her trying to make another buck and if she has to do it by working with Chris Brown then she’s fine with it.
Yesterday on the show, I read an email from a Rock-A-Holic named “Jen” who was having a problem with the guy she had just recently started dating.
“Jen” explained that she has been dating this guy two months ago and they really dug each other. They are not “official” but she says that he would have a problem with her dating someone else and vice versa.
Sadly, he just found out his mother has lung cancer and hasn’t talked to her in two weeks. She’s tried calling and texting him with no response.
What “Jen” wanted to know is if she should wait for this guy or if she should go out and be the single girl she technically is.
Steve the Producer had a theory that maybe his mom doesn’t have cancer at all and didn’t want to her hurt her feelings so he lied.
Regardless if he’s lying about his mother or not, every woman should read, “He's Just Not That Into You The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys” by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.
I’m sorry to say this but the fact that he hasn’t contacted her, regardless if his mom is really sick or not makes me think that he just not that into “Jen.”
Yesterday as everyone knows was Election Day and the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter were flooded with everyone’s political rants and opinions.
A friend of mine posted something that really annoyed me; here is what he said:
“Get out there and vote !! I don't care if you write in dexter Morgan for president Just vote. America has such a bad turn out for voting it is almost embarrassing.
I am voting Ron Paul because I believe him when he talks, I know he would make a difference. And no it's not a wasted vote, because he cant win, no it does not take away votes from other candidates that I would never vote for anyway.
It is my vote for who would be best for what I think the country needs.”
One thing that really bothered me about this is the fact that he told people to vote for a fictional character which is just going to make this process slower.
Another reason this bothers me is because everyone is taking to social networks to blab about their political opinions.
I am so tired of one group of people spewing information about where they stand on a certain subject and then another group fighting back with information disputing it!
I’ve seen this in all aspects of life, not just politics.
It’s like this when we do contract negotiations; one person says to take the deal the other says that the deal isn’t good enough. Or, when you go to two different doctors and one tells you to do one thing because “A” is wrong with you but when you go to the second doctor, he says you should do another thing because “B” is wrong with you.
Wouldn’t it be great if you can get two different people with different view points on a subject and have them sit in a room and explain to you what the best solution to the problem is with actual evidence?
For example, if I’m the patient, I don’t know what is wrong with me and I have two doctors who think differently about what is wrong with me, can’t I have them get into a debate then have someone else rule who is the winner? That makes sense but no one would want to do that!
That’s why the whole process of politics and political posturing in any profession sucks…look if you don’t want to get in the same room with the person who has the opposite viewpoint and put your money where your mouth is…then do us all a favor and shut that mouth!
Yesterday on the show, we talked about a picture that has been floating around the internet that has left many people like me irritated.
This picture that first appeared on Reddit is of a receipt from a restaurant for $138.35. The part that has upset everyone is that under the part where she is supposed to write a tip, the alleged customer wrote: “single mom sorry.” So basically this woman has enough money to spend about $140 on a single meal but not a few extra dollars for a tip.
Here is the picture of the receipt:
If you can afford $138 for your meal, how can you not afford to tip?
If you’re a single mother and you don’t have money why would you go out to eat? It is a lot less expensive to buy the ingredients and make something at home!
This is what bothers me about single mothers who use their marital status as an excuse. There is an entitlement that some women get once they have a child, especially if they’re dumb enough to raise it on their own. I understand that not all single mothers choose this life, but a good amount of them become single mothers by choice.
They want to be treated special and given breaks because they made stupid life choices!
Why is it so hard to put a few dollars down as a tip? What this woman really should have done if she wanted some “her time” is get a babysitter for an hour, heat up a microwave dinner and watch her favorite TV show for about an hour and spend a lot less than going to a restaurant.
On Friday during Listeners on the Loose, a Rock-A-Holic called in to talk about something that happened on Halloween that left her fuming mad!
On Halloween like most parents do, Dee took her children trick-or-treating and at one of the houses they went too, they gave out candy bars with political messages on them. Dee was pissed when she saw that there was a big “Reject R-47” (oppose gay marriage) sticker on her kid’s chocolate and had to explain to her four-year-old what that means.
I completely agree with Dee about being mad over this. Things like this really show you what is wrong with this country. It is so inappropriate that people do things like this because forces parents to have conversations they don’t want to have yet with their kids.
Why is it that other people’s opinions have to be forced down our throats? That’s what irritates me.
If someone wants to spread the word about a view point that is religious based like Reject R-47, (which let’s face it, anyone who is opposed to it has religious motives to be against it) then stick to places where these viewpoints are welcomed.
They should be keeping it to the people who go to their church not on the candy bars for children! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, religion and politics should never mix…it is things like this that are ruining our country.
On the show yesterday, Steve talked about the latest politician to be getting heat over their thoughts on rape/abortion, and he’s in our own back yard.
Republican congressional candidate John Koster is in under fire after he gave his two cents about what he called the “rape thing.”
He first starts off by saying that he knows a woman who was raped and gave up the child for adoption without any regrets.
Then he says, "But on the rape thing, it's like, how does putting more violence onto a woman's body and taking the life of an innocent child that's a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?"
You can hear what he said here:
The thing that kills me is how he says that he knew a woman who was raped and she gave up the kid and she is happy she did. Well, that’s because she had a choice! Pro-choice is about being able to do what you feel is right whether it is to abort, give up, or keep the baby. Pro-Life takes some of your choices away. No one is going to get mad at someone if they got raped and they decided to raise the resulting child because you have that right here in America.
This is all because Pro-Life is steeped in religion. Has anyone ever met someone who was Pro-Life and not religious? Probably not.
The fact of the matter is that abortion is legal and it doesn’t affect those who are religious because they wouldn’t get one anyways so why is this a political issue?
Can we stop mixing religion in politics please? Talking about one is bad enough so when they get thrown into the mix together, it’s just unbearable.
Yesterday, I read an email I received from Eric that really made no sense to me. In all the time I’ve done Group Therapy or done topics on the radio, I’ve never heard of something like this before.
Eric travels a lot for work and he gets tired of eating alone so what he’s been doing for a long time is he goes on Craigslist to look for dinner dates; they both go Dutch and there is no after dinner treats.”
The problem is…his wife is not happy about this! That’s right, he’s married and she think this is as bad as cheating!
I don’t understand why someone would want to go eat with perfect strangers they find on possibly sketchy websites.
A texter suggested that he look for people in his same field of work on a site Linkedin to have dinner with so that way he’s networking as well as he gets a companion during meals.
I get that he probably just enjoys being around female energy but that is a dangerous line to walk.
Would Eric be ok with his wife having dinner dates with random men from the internet while he’s away?
Even though it’s platonic, the more time you spend around a woman and enjoy her company, the more you will want to take it further with her, especially if you’re lonely.
