Like many women, I have my own Harvey Weinstein-like stories.

Although the story of Harvey Weinstein misusing his power and influence to sexually harass and abuse women is shocking to many, the pattern of his obnoxious and unconscionable behavior is nothing new to our culture. Indeed, most women can name more than one time in their life when someone like Weinstein tried to pressure them with unwanted sexual talk, physical contact or advances, including me.

One incident that comes to mind is when I worked for the Hearst-owned San Antonio-Express News and was a very green and inexperienced reporter who was eager to learn and please. A managing editor from a Midland Hearst-owned paper came around the newsroom to meet everyone and see what the San Antonio paper was doing. He kept coming by my desk to chat throughout the day, and finally asked if I would go for a drink with him after work. I was a single mom, it was not my night with the kids, I thought I might learn something from him, so I said yes.

We got together and soon he began touching and trying to kiss me. I refused. We were having dinner in a restaurant and luckily I saw another reporter and her husband walk in, and I begged them to come sit with us. He continued his obnoxious and unwanted pursuit right in front of them. I was terrified to be too mean to him because in essence, he was a boss.

As soon as I took him back to his hotel I called my managing editor and told him what happened. Human Resources was brought in the next morning, the man completely admitted it, and what his punishment was going to be was all that needed to be decided. The paper begged me not to encourage his firing, as he was beloved by his staff in Midland. They promised they would demote him and see to it that he did not advance in his career, so I agreed.

A few years ago I checked to see what he was doing. Yep, he was editor of the newspaper — a huge promotion. So much for justice. I was told back then that I could sue the paper for all of this and expect to get about $40,000, but I would never be allowed to work in the newspaper business again.

I was labeled a troublemaker — shame on me for wanting a better world.

So you might understand why I had a reaction when reading that NBC quashed correspondent Ronan Farrow’s reporting on the Harvey Weinstein scandal. By all accounts, Farrow had women ready and willing to tell their stories, and also had the damning secret recordings of Weinstein doing his ugly sexual bullying. At one point NBC told Farrow to stop pursuing the story altogether. Finally they released him to report it elsewhere, and the rest is history — like the Berlin Wall, Weinstein came tumbling down, and deservedly so.

Reading all of this caused me to remember numerous incidents in my own life like the one above, and still another one while reporting as a features writer and columnist at the Express-News in the late 1990’s. For two years as I was chief reporter for Fiesta, a 10-day long party fest and festival with numerous events and parades from morning til night. I knew almost everyone involved in every aspect of events.

There is a Fiesta King each year, crowned by a group of men known as the Texas Cavaliers. The Cavaliers is a by-invitation-only organization and at that time consisted of mainly privileged white men who were conservative old rich, though I know they have since sprinkled in some men of color. They wear outfits that are bright sky blue with red trim, that look eerily similar to Nazi uniforms, and organize a River Parade during Fiesta that is world-renowned.

A huge Fiesta tradition is collecting Fiesta medals, and King Antonio has medals he or his assistants pin on the public he encounters.

This particular year I was getting a lot of voice mails and emails (mainly anonymous) claiming that old King Antonio was using pinning medals as an excuse to stick his hands in women’s bras and cop a feel or a pinch. The more I looked into it, I found women who said it happened to them, and that their boyfriend or husband saw it and was furious and it was all they could do to keep their partner from throwing King Antonio a purple shiner to go with his fancy red plume. One woman who talked to me was a local news anchor.

I took it to the editor of the paper, and each time he told me to gather more information. Whatever I had was never enough. Finally, a man called me who was a Cavalier insider, and he told me that the King had commanded that all flat-chested women be pinned by his assistants, and big-bosomed women reserved for him. Another woman called and told me that the Party Pix guy, who roamed many of the events, had snapped a photograph of her with King Antonio pinning a medal on her, and in it you could see The King’s hand far inside her dress, which was a tank-like garden dress. I went to the Party Pix store, and after roaming through several hundred photographs, found the one she told me about and a few others.

I bought those photographs and the editor said it wasn’t enough. The story never ran, and I was pretty disgusted and disillusioned about it. This sort of editorial omission has been going on forever. Every reporter has seen it. If the editor rubs elbows with the people you have found some unpleasant truths about, the chances of the story running can be small.

I hope we are entering a new era where women can courageously speak out against any sort of violation perpetrated on them by men, and especially the ones who abuse their power and position, and find a media with the equal amount of courage to report it. How else will we ever change this dark piece of our culture?

In the end, I had gotten to know many Cavaliers because of my reporting of their many Fiesta events and participation, and we had an extremely cordial relationship. When word spread that I was working on a story about their King that wasn’t so positive, many criticized me to my face, and I was shunned by the organization and the men in it. So the person doing the investigating risks isolation or personal and professional damage. Something all whistleblower types know a lot about. This is why so many women don’t speak out. The finger gets pointed at us. We become trouble-makers and lose friends and goodwill in the community and workplace.

As for me, I am grateful that this may be coming to an end. We all have to have to have the courage to fight for what is right, and men need to learn to treat us with respect, without exception.

http://www.texascavaliers.org/

How The World Screws Us Up

A therapist’s life can be complicated. We go to school and intern for years, we study, write and read a zillion books and articles, do research and walk away with a bunch of extremely helpful knowledge about how to be happier, healthier, and a better person and family member. The fact that we aren’t allowed to tell every dysfunctional person we see out in the world how they can apply what we know to their life stinks. Why can’t we do it?

1. Counseling ethics dictate that we can’t pursue people for therapy. They have to come to us.

2. Appropriate boundaries for all of us means acknowledging that all adults have free will to do as they please, so long as it doesn’t cause damage or hurt others. Unsolicited fixing and advice is a boundary violation.

So, since I can’t say anything to anyone unless they ask, here is what my life can be like:

· A couple at the grocery store verbally lashing out at their child and I walk past with zipped lips.

· A couple obnoxiously bicker and make cutting remarks to one another at a dinner party while I glance down, digging my nails into my thighs under my napkin.

· Someone says something on television or in the media that I know will reinforce some wrong or misleading idea that will influence people negatively.

So, it can be difficult to know what I know and sit back and observe the things people say, but I can write about them in a blog so long as I don’t call anyone out. So here goes:

He’s so selfless. The person saying this means it as a compliment and I wince each time I hear it. The average person will deduct from this that is not OK to do for yourself, which is not true. In fact, it is necessary to put yourself first and to make sure you’re healthy and happy in mind, body, and spirit before you can start doing for others.

All that attention and love is going to spoil her. As far as I know, there is not a correct amount of attention, love, time and affection that is too much. Give all you can, whenever you can. The only issue here is to make sure your giving nature doesn’t create expectations, and you do that by setting boundaries with the people you do things for.

That’s selfish. I hate this word and think it should be removed from the English language as it also discourages lack of self-care. Selfishness is lack of consideration for others. To do nice or generous things for yourself is not selfish.

Well, that girl is one who follows her own drummer. When I’ve heard this, the speaker usually meant that the person was different in a bad or look-down-your-nose way, with the implication that if you are outside the box there is something wrong with you. This will encourages those who are different from the rest to feel bad about themselves.

She thinks she’s better than anyone else. This should never be said. Most people that are judged in this way are simply shy and introverted, and may even have social anxiety. They give off the impression that they aren’t interested in others, but the truth is it causes them such inner turmoil to interact that they just stay away. Anyway, it is a boundary violation to guess or assume what other people think or feel, or why they do what they do. Instead of assuming, why not ask the person themselves about it?

These patterns of communication screw us up because of what will be insinuated from them. People often don’t feel safe to let others know what they’re thinking, feeling or doing out of fear of hearing stuff like I listed above. My advice is to do be yourself, do what you want so long as it doesn’t hurt you or others, and forget about what about what society judges will say. I promise you that they don’t know what they’re talking about, anyway.

Being relational: Few do it — everyone needs to know how.

Mike refused to speak to his wife Laura for weeks at a time, and by the time she dragged him to my office she was at her wit’s end: “What do I do if he refuses to speak to me?”

They told me their issues, which weren’t that complicated or major, but could not be resolved because Mike always clammed up whenever his wife approached him with her criticisms and complaints. Mike refused to talk because he said his wife was witchy when she came after him and once he responded he couldn’t trust how she’d react.

“Doctor Becky, this woman is like a damn drill sergeant,” he said as he glanced at Laura. “You have no idea how impossible it is to get a word in with her, so I have chosen not to even try.”

“From this day forward,” I said to Mike. “You need to know that it is never acceptable to give your wife the silent treatment, no matter what she says or does. You may never go mute again, get it?”

He nodded, but said, “What do I do, then? She might bite my head off. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“No matter what she does or may do, talk to her like an adult when she approaches you with a concern. Stay calm, and no matter what she says or does or how she does it, YOU will respond with calm words, you will be an adult, OK? You need to know that it is childish to stop speaking to your spouse. It is not relational.”

I then turn to his wife, Laura. “It is also not relational to chew a person’s butt out with criticism and harsh complaints. What you are doing is childish, too. You can’t play the drill sergeant anymore. You must find another way to approach your husband with your needs and wants.”

“Well how do I approach him, then? He’s not a great listener.”

“I don’t listen because of how you approach me,” Mike said.

“You have a right to make a request,” I said. “Adults know they can’t control their partner, so they don’t demand, they make requests. Like, ‘Would you mind turning the TV volume down, please?” Or, Honey, ‘If you find it difficult to pay the bills on time, would you mind allowing me to take charge of it?’”

“What you don’t do is walk in and tell them what a loser or jerk they are, or how badly they screwed something up, cause if you do then they’ll shut you out,” I said.

One term I use a lot in my private practice as Marriage & Family Therapist is: being relational. I think it is a pretty huge concept that everyone should be aware of — here is how it works: Most couples that come into see me are behaving in ways that block relationship, or back-and-forth healthy interactions. They do this by being verbally aggressive or harsh on the talking side, and defensive or shutting down on the receiving side — a couple cannot communicate if this is what is going on. What we need in a relationship is for both partners to be able to keep their emotional walls down so they can communicate and connect on an ongoing basis. You do this by being respectful and making it safe for the other person to talk to you by remaining calm and adult-like in what you say, and in how you receive information.

Here’s a few rules of thumb on how to do this:

• When you become aware of an issue with your partner, don’t let it sit too long.
• Choose the right time for the conversation. Don’t ask to talk on the last win-or-lose play of the Super Bowl. Wait until you both have some relaxing space and time and then softly and gently request a conversation.
• The conversation. Your tone and body language must be soft and non-intimidating and your best self must be in charge. Tell your spouse how you feel about a certain situation, then make a humble request that you two work out a change or compromise. Ex: “Honey, it hurts my feelings deeply when you talk to your mother negatively about me. It has a feel of disloyalty to me, so I really need to make a request that you not talk to her about me. Would that be OK? I really need this from you.” If your spouse refuses to cooperate after such a reasonable request, you probably have deeply serious issues a therapist could help you with.
• If your spouse approaches you softly for a conversation, then you as the receiver need to be open and soft in return. Sit in a relaxed, non-defensive position with your best self firmly in control. Make sure your facial expressions and body language are open and relaxed. No matter what your partner requests, promise yourself you will make sure they feel heard by validating their feelings, then respond calmly and respectfully. Ex: “Wow, honey, I see that my confiding to my mother in a negative way has really hurt you and caused you to feel I am disloyal. That is not the kind of husband I want to be. I will not speak to her again. You can be sure of that. I am there for you and I want you to know that. I am so sorry I did something that hurt you so much.”

Remember, the idea in these conversations it to be, kind, soft, respectful and recognizing of each other’s feelings. This is what being relational is. It is creating a peaceful and safe environment so you can talk about your feelings and concerns without fear, and controlling your responses and reactions so your partner can say what they need to say without fear, too. The next important step is to be responsive to what your partner is requesting, so long as it is reasonable. Honoring your partner’s reasonable requests and needs is a very important piece of being relational. You bend, and they bend for you.