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Dear Joe,

I have known someone for over a year, they are currently in the Air Force but the times we spend together before they left and on their visit home were great. We get along very well and I love him very much. He is constantly expressing his feelings to me as well. Seems like no big deal right? WRONG! He is due to come home in June, not far away and I want to see him more than anything in the world, but my mother doesn't want me to. She thinks he did something which he did not and is very aggravated with this.

She used to think he was the best thing that happened to me. How can I get her to see the truth?

Lovestruck & Confused

Dear Lovestruck,

Good and meaningful relationships, are too few and precious. A good and honest relationship with your parents is one of them. A commitment of your heart to someone who may end up being your lifelong partner is another.

Both are important and neither one needs to be sacrificed. Whether (your boyfriend) did some terrible (thing) or not, is not the issue. It is only the focus point of a disagreement between you and your parents. Certainly, you've had disagreements before with your parents. This one is just a little more intense, because it is passionate and of the heart.

Your parents, can no better choose who you are attracted to, no more than, you will be able to choose who your son or daughter is attracted to, if you are fortunate to have children later on. They simply want to protect you. Remember, your parents have spent a lifetime making your decisions for you from the time you were young, and unable to walk or talk or eat on your own. Acting and reacting in your best interest, has become second nature to them, just like blinking or scratching an itch. To some parents, conflicts on your journey to maturity are just as precious, as a hug when their child has just taken their first step. It is because they see it, as an important step to build the character and emotional strength of their child, just as a "boo boo on your wittle knee" was when learning to take your first step.

For most parents, letting go and giving way to the independent thought of their growing sibling, is both joy and pain. The withdrawal symptoms from no longer needing to baby their baby is hard. The thought of having to share your heart with some new guy, and standing back and allowing their child to make their own mistakes is hard. There is no clearly defined line of where a child stops being a child and becomes an adult. Some people never get there.

You have really only three answers to choose from,

1. See the guy behind their back.

2. Tell the guy, you can't see him anymore.

3. Confront the issue.

Seeing him behind their back compromises your relationship with your parents. A good relationship is based on trust and you would be violating that trust. They would find out eventually anyway. Also, it compromises your relationship with your friend too, he will wonder what you do behind his back.

Telling the guy, you can't see him anymore compromises your heart and your happiness. It also hurts the person whom you love. Years later, you would feel an empty spot and very possibly have resentment against your parents, always wondering, what might have been.

Confronting the issue is the only real choice. It's hard, but both relationships are worth standing up for. Understand your parents frustration, consider the merit of what they are saying and let them know, that all of the years that they have spent trying to pound good judgment into your head was not lost. Let them know, you were listening and that they have to trust you and believe in you enough, that you have the intelligence to use what they've taught you and to make the right decisions. Let them know, it's where your heart is and he makes you happy.

Remember, there will always be something about your friend, that your parents may not like. He's not perfect, and the cliche (no one is good enough for my daughter) comes to mind. Listen calmly to what they have to say then explain in a nonoffensive way how you feel.

Avoid ultimatums. That is, don't say something like, (if I can't see him, then I'm leaving) be patient. By the same respect, don't be led by an ultimatum such as (this is my house and you go by my rules and if you don't like it, you can get out). Too many families are separated for years because of stupid ultimatums. Just understand that people say stupid things when they're angry before they think. If it gets to that point, don't answer the ultimatum with a stupid answer like (I'm leaving). Instead, end the conversation. Calmly say, we are all upset right now so we need to talk about this later. If they attempt to continue the conversation, calmly repeat the words again.

Although, they may not tell you, they will have more confidence in you and see you as more mature, having handled the upset in a mature way. They will be more responsive to what you have to say the next time you talk.

Good luck lovestruck

DestinyJoe

Dear Joe,

Hi. Always looking for good advice and not necessarily utilizing all of it, I come to you with the following. Patience - is it a learned behavior, or are we each born with a certain amount, to be realized with age? I once believed I was a fairly patient person. Being a single mother who had worked with the developmentally disabled, also home health care, I thought I simply "had to have patience" - until very recently. Suddenly I find myself too tired to perform simple daily functions, and the slightest provocation by my child produces "time out". I am currently in the process of moving, and, therefore, in between career phases. I do not have any unusual amount of stress or stress from any unusual source. Any ideas? Just Plain Tired

Just Plain Tired

Dear Tired,

Patience is simply, self-control. Part you're born with, part learned and part you develop through the combination of the other two and acquired experience. It is the ability to control yourself, when something didn't go your way.

Whether you failed on a term paper, you're stuck waiting in a check out line, or you just had your most favorite thing, destroyed by some stupid idiot who did some very stupid thing, after you just explained it 10 times in a row. Even worse, maybe that (stupid idiot) was your daughter, your wife, your father, you get the idea. Remember, it only a thing; its people that are important.

Patience is also, remaining calm and persistent while you are working on a project, that takes a long time and a lot of work before you see the actual result. Say, something like moving.

Patience on short-term projects and patience on long-term projects are basically the same except, there's more time for things to go wrong on a long-term project.

When something doesn't go your way, a silent guard in your mind, jumps to attention and says, (hold on a second, let's think about this). If something happens quick, and you react without thinking, you may say or do something you'll regret later. When something is said and done, you can't reverse time and un-say or un-do it. Then you will say something like, "I didn't expect you to..." Or "you caught me off guard..." Or "I let my guard down..." Followed by something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

When you are trying to be patience, it is a mental decision you've made ahead of time, to suppress your primitive desire to verbally or physically react, but rather to use vision, reason and established sensibilities to correct the problem for the greater benefit of the cause.

When you say that you don't have "any unusual amount of stress or stress from any unusual source", you are right and you are wrong.

The Cambridge American dictionary describes "stress" as "worry caused by a difficult situation." It also describes "worry" as "to think about unpleasant things that might happen or about problems, esp. In a way that makes you unhappy, or to cause (someone) to think that way."

A clinical definition of stress is "The sum of the biological reactions to any adverse stimulus, physical, mental or emotional, internal or external, that tends to disturb the organisms homeostasis."

What does it all mean? It means, your homeo and your job has been disturbed. The physical up-routing and moving, the mental and emotional concerns of moving away from people and things that are familiar to you, and moving somewhere that will be new. Even if you are moving back to somewhere you lived before, it is new and possibly even more uncertain, because not only are you thinking about how it was last time you were there, you're also thinking about if it will be new and different from the last time you were there.

You're not getting stress from an unusual source, it is coming from you as a response to stimulus of higher than normal number of events, that are occurring in your life. Congratulations, your normal. Your tendency to call "time out" on your child and feeling tired are symptoms of stress. You are causing your own stress by becoming overly indulged in the importance of the problems. Just understand, that problems, and things that go wrong, are just part of the formula in any project. Accept the problems that occur, more as a challenge, rather than a problem and kick its butt. To your child and to the people working in this project with you, just tell them, that because of all of the details, you will not be at your best and that through this difficult project, you will need their understanding and patience, and to work together as a team and everything will be all right.

Occasionally, somebody complains to me about a project they say is too hard for them. I usually answer by saying, "don't worry about, it builds character"

If things seem too overwhelming at times, then just give yourself a "time out". I recommend something like, stopping by the park on your way home and feeding the ducks. It'll keep you from quacking up.

Good luck in your new home,

Joe

Dear Joe,

My boyfriend is in jail again for selling drugs. Do you think, I should go visit him?

Signed, Unsure

Dear Unsure,

It is not easy to make a choice when your heart is saying one thing and your mind is saying something else. You must care about him if you're thinking about seeing him. On the other hand, since you're asking the question, "should I," you already know, there is a reason why you should not.

There are two things that you should know when making your decision. First, every person is the way they are. In the same way that a fish will always swim in a spider will always spin a Web, people will likely continue what they usually do. An artist will draw, a Carpenter will build, A. Baker will bake. The second thing is, when somebody wants to change or improve themselves, is not an easy thing to do. When somebody does not want to change, NOBODY can make them.

Your boyfriend has chosen a direction he wants to go and you must choose yours.

Think about where you are right now, what you like and what you want to do. What your interest, hobbies and goals are?

Now think about where you want to be in a 5, 10 or 20 years. Will you be married? Will you have kids? A house? A job? A career? Will you be a nurse? Doctor? Housewife? Computer programmer?

Now imagine a straight line connecting, from where you are now, to where you want to be in the future. On that line, are all the things you need to do, the steps you need to take to get their. Everything outside the line will not help you achieve your goals. They are only distractions that will lead you down false pathways.

In your journey through life, try not to be distracted by the things that will keep you from realizing your dreams. During the pursuit of your dreams, you will meet others that share your interest and your goals. If you have children, will their father (or mother) be someone who represents a positive model for which they can be proud of and rely on for help and guidance?

The answer to your question, (should I go see him?) is, focus on your goals and ask yourself, (is that guy in jail inside or outside your line?)

Looking Forward , Joe

How expensive is cheap shampoo???

This is a response to an article suggesting a great way for fathers to save money on expensive shampoo buy buying a large bottle of cheap shampoo, hiding it and using it to refill an expensive shampoo bottle.

The idea is, everyone will think you're buying expensive shampoo, when you're actually buying the cheap stuff.

This brings me to the question, "is honesty the best policy?"

If you say no, to expensive shampoo, will you be attacked by countless assaults of silent glare, being called cheap, or maybe some incidental door slamming? If so, hiding a big bottle of shampoo is not the answer. The issue of shampoo is only a symptom of a bigger problem. That problem is, a communication barrier.

If you think, you'll get strong objections to cheap shampoo, chances are, you were talked into changing your mind on other things too. You must have been talked into buying expensive shampoo at least once. How else would you have a bottle of expensive shampoo to refill?

The scam might work for awhile but eventually, someone will usually find out. I recently talked to a 35 yr. old woman, who said, "my mom did that, she did it with bread too."

When I asked her old she was when she found out about the shampoo scam, she answered without hesitation, "I was 12. You could tell because you had to use more."

Despite popular believe, honesty is still the best policy.

If you don't feel, it's necessary to buy expensive shampoo, or you just don't want to spend the extra money, just say it. Confront the issue when it first comes up. Just say it calmly, gently and do not change your mind. Changing your mind will only make you look like a push over, as well as, make it even harder, the next time you need to make an unpopular decision.

A possible way to handle it might be to say, "I don't think it's necessary, but I can get the good stuff if you want to pay the difference."

If they say, "that's not fair!"

You could say, "well, I agree, that's a same reason I don't think it's fair for me to pay the difference."

Above all, don't get angry and don't feel guilty. They will feel victory in knowing they have caused you displeasure for not giving into their demand.

It may be hard at first but in time, they will learn that you care about them enough to take the time and effort to be honest with them, even when the decision is an unpopular one. They will also feel secure in knowing, they can count on you for a straight answer, no matter what.

Sooner or later, they will be in a situation where they will have to make the unpopular decision. Maybe peer pressure to smoke or drink or do drugs or get sexually involved.

By dealing with them honestly, you have provided them with positive examples that will help them when they need to make, "an unpopular decision."

The hidden costs of hiding the shampoo is high. Once your scam is realized, it will teach them, its ok to lie and that you don't care about them as much as they thought you did. It also shows them, you don't have the guts to deal straight with them. Eventually, they'll try a similar scam on you.

Honestly, if you don't have the guts to say no, it's cheaper in the long run to buy the expensive shampoo in the first place.

Truly, Joe