Joelle Steele's Blog - RELATIONSHIPS

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011/01/2022: Fighting Fair - Stick to the Topic

I generally try to avoid conflict, but that's not always possible or even realistic. There's a problem and it has to be resolved. But with some people, trying to resolve even the most minor problem is almost impossible. Over the years, I've realized just why that is: They never learned how to stick to the topic and look for a solution or a simple compromise.

I first came into conflict with someone in the 1980s when I was managing residential properties in southern California. I learned so much about conflict and compromise during that time. I ran into countless people who didn't know how to fight fair. They just couldn't seem to stick to the subject long enough to resolve an issue, to arrive at a compromise.

My most combative and therefore problematic tenant was Lila. Here's roughly how our first of many similar conversations went:

Me: Lila, your neighbor contacted me about your dog …
Lila: She has a dog too . . .
Me: Lila, she says your dog is barking …
Lila: Of course she barks, that's what dogs do . . . She doesn't clean up after her dog.
Me: Lila, she says your dog's barking is keeping her awake at night.
Lila: So talk to her about getting a pooper-scooper.
Me: Lila, she is not my tenant. You are. You have a rental agreement that …
Lila: Look at that mess, right there, see it, that's her dog, not mine.
Me: Lila, this isn't about her dog. It's about your dog. I need for you to …
Lila: (slams the door in my face).

The problem with Lila was that she couldn't stick to the topic of her own dog's barking long enough to address that problem and resolve it. In a relationship I was in during the early 2000s, I found myself in a similar situation early on:

Me: Could you please not leave your dirty dishes in the living room?
Her: Well you left your dirty towels on the bathroom floor this morning …
Me: I'm sorry. I left them there because the hamper was full and I'm doing laundry later …

It was at that point that I realized neither of us was not sticking to the topic and so I ended that potential conflict immediately, and we talked about sticking to the topic, which stopped this kind of thing from happening again.

Be specific and stick to the subject so that you can both address the problem or misunderstanding without bringing up unrelated issues. This gets you to the root of one specific problem so that you can look for a solution or compromise, and compromise is usually the best way to solve a problem.

Most arguments arise because it's impossible to always agree 100% with another person about everything. So, depending on the kind of conflict, you may both have to agree to disagree. Sometimes it's just about listening to and trying to understand the other person's feelings or perspective. In other instances, you may both need to do a little give and take to arrive at a solution you can live with. But to arrive at a solution, you have to learn to fight fair and stick to the topic.

04/10/2022: When Friendships Die

I used to think that friends were friends forever. I thought that if something went wrong in a friendship that it would be easily fixed because of the bond I had with that other person. We would talk about it and come to terms, apologize, etc. But it turned out that I was wrong, and I had to reconcile that within myself. Friendships do die, and sometimes they die by choice, my choice or a friend's choice.

The friendships that died because I ended them were the hardest, because I had to make conscious decisions to end them, and to do that, I need to have some pretty darn good reasons. I am not frivolous or superficial when it comes to relationships of any kind. I would never end a friendship because of some petty little grievance. It would have to be something pretty big and ugly, like dishonesty, betrayal, etc. However, there are some friendships that were simply outgrown.

The first time I ended a friendship was in 1985. I had been friends with a woman for almost eighteen years. and she had changed a lot in the past five years. I lessened the time I spent with her, thinking she was just going through a phase. But I suspected her of lying to me on several occasions, and after she stole from me twice and I caught her the second time, she pitched a fit and threw one of my antique vases at me. That was the end for me. I felt terrible off and on for several weeks. About a year later, she died, and I was left with so many unanswered questions.

In 1997, I moved from Los Angeles to the Monterey Peninsula in California where I had grown up. I lived there for eight years before moving to Washington state. My time in Monterey turned out to be a period of changes that centered around friendships and relationships in general.

The first relationship that died was only a couple months after I arrived in Monterey. We had been friends since high school. The cause of the relationship ending was a basic misunderstanding combined with a very big lie told by my friend's brother about me. Her response? Blood is thicker than water. End of story.

It was in 2000 that I again ended a relationship. This was one that was of much shorter duration. We had been neighbors for two years and then roommates for three. I felt like I was the maid service. She did nothing whatsoever to take care of the house. She was a chronic complainer, and I sort of knew this before we lived together, but I didn't know the extent of it. I suspected she was depressed but she didn't want to do anything about it. I ended that relationship, and I did a lousy job of ending it too. My bad, as they say. I was sorry to do it, but she was driving me crazy and it was affecting my own mental health.

In 2001, a friend dumped me for something I didn't do. But, I was so relieved that I didn't even try to defend myself. I had wanted to dump her for about two years. I just didn't know how to do it after being friends for twenty-three years. But we had very obviously outgrown each other. I have always been proactive about problems in my life. She was still whining and doing nothing about the same problems she had when I first met her. I was sick and tired of having to listen to her, and many times I felt she was paranoid and possibly delusional. So many people don't realize the impact their behavior has on others. I had no second thoughts or doubts or concerns about the ending of this relationship. But then she contacted me and wanted us to be friends again and she kept calling me and talking non-stop about her problems and ignoring me completely. I finally had to be really rude, and I told her to not call me again as I hung up the phone on her. Bad ending, but sometimes that's the way it goes.

In 2004, I dumped someone who I thought was a friend but was anything but. It's too long a story to tell in full, but suffice it to say that she lied and betrayed me on several occasions that I didn't know about and that had created some problems in my life that I couldn't connect back to anyone in particular until a mutual acquaintance had the same problems that were traced directly to her. When I found out she was the cause and then confronted her, she admitted it and made it sound like it was no big deal, no apology, no nothing. But it was a big deal. And that meant goodbye.

I moved to Washington state at the end of 2005, but apparently this rash of ending friendships was not over quite yet. In 2009, I got dumped and also dumped someone else only two months apart. A friend of fifteen years from Los Angeles turned out to be a raving racist. This was extremely ugly and very disturbing to me. Racism had never come up in any conversation I'd ever had with her. She was a Bible-toting Christian, always preaching about love and faith in the Lord. Well, don't know where that love went. She began making racist remarks about Muslims, and about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama who she was sure was a Muslim. I was appalled, and I didn't even know what to think or say. Then she made some very derogatory remarks about a very dear friend of mine who is Black. When I tried to talk to her about this, she just gave me a lot of ridiculous excuses for why "white is right." Hate is something I will not tolerate in anyone, so that was the end of that relationship, and I had no second thoughts about giving her a piece of my mind and dumping her sorry ass for good.

That same year, I was dumped by a friend of five years. She gave no explanation, would not speak to me, would not return my calls, or answer my emails. To this day I have no idea what happened, what went wrong, etc. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I may have said or did to hurt her or anger her or whatever caused the breach. I even emailed her an apology for whatever I might have done. But then a mutual acquaintance said she saw her on the street and made eye contact with her, but she just walked past without speaking. So, I assume I probably had some part in this break-up, but she also seems to have had some issues of her own that contributed to her decision to end our friendship. (NOTE: She ended her life in 2022.)

Now, that's the end of people I have dumped or been dumped by. But, just in case you think I now have no friends, it is quite the contrary. I have been friends with Liz since 1974 [She died in 2023], Gretchen since 1976, Annette since 1978, Jill since 1983 [She died in 2024], and Tracey since 1988. In addition, I have many friends who I have known for decades who simply live too far away from me to maintain an active friendship, but we are still friends. And, I have always maintained distant but friendly relationships with my exes. And, I have a ton of cousins, and I am close to all but one of them.

Cleaning house where friends are concerned is one of those things that people simply have to do in this world. Friendships do die, and we just have to move on and make new friends. And, we have to hope we learned from our past relationships so that we can be better at being friends in the future.

05/02/2021: After the Love is Gone ...

Earth Wind & Fire sang, "Somethin' happened along the way/What used to be happy was sad."

How did it all start? What happened? What went wrong? Was it always wrong and you just didn't see it? Did you see it and just hope things would change? How did it end? And, more importantly, how do you go on? I have asked myself these questions quite a few times. I have dated numerous men in my life, and I have been in six romantic relationships. They didn't all end badly, but they didn't all end happily either.

My first relationships were all about age. Both too young. Mr. Right #1 was my high school boyfriend. We got along well, but we were headed for colleges in opposite ends of California. We ended when I graduated from high school in 1969, but I introduced him to his wife, and we remained friends until his death forty years later. Mr. Right #2 was my first husband. We were together for about five years total. The marriage ended in 1975 because neither of us really thought through where we were each going in life together. Again, we remained friends to this day.

After these first two relationship, I did a lot of dating. I went out with him about 20 or so different men. I wanted to know what men were really like in general, and I wanted to be sure that the next man in my life really was Mr. Right. I had a set of questions that I used to find out what a man was like before I even entered into further conversation with him. I had discovered that asking a man what kind of work he did was very revealing. That was my first question. I wasn't interested in his job. I was interested in what he said about what he did for a living. I heard so many men immediately launch into how awful their job or their boss was, how their ex-wife or ex-girlfriend, was hitting them up for support, etc. Sorry, my dear, I have to go powder my nose …

On the rare occasion that I met a man who did not gripe about how awful his life was, I went out with him, sometimes only once, sometimes several times. Dating was different in the 1970s. People spent more time going out, not just hopping into bed with everyone they met the way young people of the 1970s are so often depicted. You dated someone to find out more about them to see if you would be compatible before you declared your undying love.

So, when I entered into my next relationship, I was very sure that he was Mr. Right #3. We were an excellent fit in every way. He was nine years older, a widower with a 2-1/2 year-old son. We were living together early on, got along perfectly, and I loved being a mother to his beautiful little boy. But then a double-tragedy struck. Just two months short of two years together, his son died from a previously undiagnosed head injury sustained when, as an infant, he his mother were in an accident caused by a drunk driver that took his mother's life. I was devastated, and so was his father who had a complete breakdown, disappeared leaving all his belongings and his career behind, and was never heard from again. I hired a private investigator to try to find him, and his best friend made inquiries of everyone they both knew to see if anyone had heard from him. He's still missing to this day, and I still miss him to this day.

I didn't think I would ever recover from this double loss and I had entered into therapy to deal with my very unsettling grief. But, before any of this happened, I had unknowingly already met Mr. Right #4, my future second husband. He was 13 years older, and we were friends for about seven months before we went out on a date in 1978. I was surprised at how great this relationship was. I had been so grief-stricken for so long, and suddenly all that sadness lifted. I felt like it had to be too good to be true. But it wasn't. But we had one giant problem, and that was that I had to move away and we were having seemingly unresolvable problems dealing with a long-distance relationship. In 1980, we parted amicably after three years, and both of us went into other relationships.

My relationship with Mr. Right #5 began in 1981, and it turned out to be a relationship with Mr. Wrong. It ended after almost three years when I found him in bed with another woman. And that's the end of that story.

Meanwhile, Mr. Right #4 had just ended a relationship of the same duration, and we talked about it at length on the phone one night. We decided to try harder to work out our long-distance issues. We did, and we resumed our relationship, eventually getting married. We were together for a total of 15 years, but the last two were a nightmare. His life had been marked by the loss of all four of his remaining family members and his best friend who was also his long-time business partner. This happened to him over a two-year period. He started drinking, and the drinking eventually became a daily occurrence that started in the morning when he woke up and ended only when he went to sleep at night. He was a sad drunk, and his life was falling apart, and it was all affecting my life as well. He wouldn't get help, and I went to Al-Anon which was no help to me at all. I ended the relationship in 1994. But, while the relationship ended, my love for him never did. We didn't divorce until many years later, but in the meantime, he continuously called me, always drunk, and begged me to take him back. In 2017, I divorced him "in absentia," after numerous attempts to locate him failed because it turned out he had died in 2016.

In 1999, long before I divorced Mr. Right #4, I had moved on to Mr. Right #6, a man 12 years younger. This was a relationship that I ended in 2002, and that I often regret having ended, since he was a great guy in every way, and our three years together were really good ones. So why did I trash this great relationship? It was something I should have thought through before we became involved. First, when I met Mr. Right #6, I was still very much in love with Mr. Right #4 and hoped he would stop drinking and that everything would go back to normal for us. I know, totally unrealistic, but my heart is not always in sync with my head. Second, I had always wanted to move from California where I was born and raised, to the state of Washington where all my family was located.

I loved Washington and I loved my family but couldn't afford the move. When the financial opportunity presented itself for me to move, I talked to Mr. Right #6 about it, trying to find out if he would like to move there with me. He didn't. Not at all. No way in hell, etc. Bottom line, we split, he refused to speak to me again. I moved.

So what really happens after the love is gone? Well, for me, I mourn the loss, try to figure out what really went wrong, and then, I move on. I firmly believe that when things go wrong in a relationship, both parties have to bear their full share of responsibility for the break-up. I can see that my relationships with Mr. Right #1 and #2 were stepping stones into adult relationships. Could I have done anything to keep them alive? Probably. I could have gone to a college near where my high school boyfriend was going. I could have gone to marriage counseling with my first husband. And as for Mr. Right #3, I'm not sure what I could have done there since it was clearly a matter of circumstances beyond my control, and pretty much beyond his control too. With Mr. Right #5 during my hiatus from Mr. Right #4, I simply cannot forgive cheating. I can forgive almost anything, but not that kind of betrayal. And as for Mr. Right #4, you can't control another person's behaviors. You can learn to live with them, but when the quality of the relationship has deteriorated to the degree that ours had, I don't really see anything that I could personally have done to improve the situation. As for Mr. Right #6, that was all on me. My fault from start to finish. I wrote him a letter a few months after I moved apologizing to him for ending the relationship and for starting it in the first place when I knew (and he knew) that I had always wanted to move to Washington. He didn't respond.

So now, as I write this, it's 2021, I'm 70 years old, and I've been in a relationship with Mr. Right #7 for a year and a half. Like all relationships, it has its ups and downs, and time will tell how it all pans out. Hopefully, in the future, I won't have to be asking the Earth Wind & Fire question about what happens after the love is gone.

NOTE: I married Mr. Right #7 in 2023.

02/23/2021: Critical Thinking About Relationships

How often have you ever thought critically about your relationships with your family members, friends, significant others, employers, co-workers, etc.? Probably not that often. But our relationships are what make us who we are, and if those relationships aren't working for any reason, we need to figure out what's wrong and what to do about it, because the longer the relationship's needs are ignored and unaddressed, the harder it will be to fix them.

It's helpful to look into relationships more deeply to see what makes them work, what makes them dysfunctional, and what makes them harmful. Some relationships start out well, last for years, and then suddenly fall apart. Is that just because they served their purpose and are no longer viable? Or did something go wrong somewhere along the way that never got attended to? Was the relationship a healthy one to begin with? Or was it toxic and you just didn't know it? Did the other person change? Did you change? Or did your relationship needs or your attitude towards a particular relationship change? These and many other things can cause a relationship to become strained and ultimately end. So you need to start thinking critically about any relationship that seems to be going sour and make a decision about it and find a solution to the problem.

No matter what kind of relationship is not working, remember that it is never one person's fault alone. A relationship is not about YOU. It's about US. Both parties are always to blame when things go wrong, even if one or both of you can't see that. Since you should know yourself far better than you will ever know the other person, look at yourself critically. What is your role in the relationship? Are you the one who is always unhappy with the other person? Or is it the other way around? Who starts the arguments? Are they always about the same things? If so, why? Why haven't you BOTH fixed that problem?

Do you listen to the other person when they are upset with you? Do they listen to you when you are upset? Do you make yourself clear when discussing problems? Some people can't get past pointing the finger and passing the blame onto the other person. This is counterproductive. It will get you absolutely nowhere and will just make the situation worse. There are two people in any relationship and both share the responsibility for the success of that relationship.

Do you know how to compromise? Every relationship demands a certain amount of compromise. You give a little, the other person gives a little. Do you expect the relationship to always be equal in every way? Not a good idea. No relationship is equal in all ways or at all times. One person sacrifices for the other's good and vice versa. Can you both see the same priorities in your relationship? Are your value systems in sync? If they're not, can you find a middle ground, or can you simply accept the other person's viewpoints?

If you can't think critically about a troubled relationship, you may need to consult with a therapist, possible one who can mediate the situation between both of you and help you both develop a clear picture of what has gone wrong and how to fix it. Not all relationships will survive, with or without a therapist. And, there is always the possibility that one or both of you is too badly damaged and needs one-on-one counseling to deal with old baggage that occurred before or outside the relationship. But, on the bright side, therapy really can help, and throwing a relationship away should be a last resort option. It is a rare relationship that can't be saved with a little work and critical thinking to find the solutions.

08/10/2020: Love At Any Age

A year ago, it was 2019. I was 68 and single. I had been in a few relationships in my life, and had been married and divorced twice. I was always happy within myself, and was happy whether or not I was in a relationship. Would I have liked to be in a relationship? Sure, why not? But, it was not high on my list of "things to do" in life. However, in 2004, I did dip my toe into the online dating pool for a few months. Turned out I was a very hard fit. I'm a hybrid of sorts. I'm a highly educated white-collar worker who has also spent many years in blue-collar occupations. I love my work and I have traveled a lot. I didn't find anyone locally or online with whom I was even remotely compatible.

My brother suggested that I was simply in the wrong place, because I live in a semi-rural area near Olympia, Washington, the state capital, with its surplus of retired government workers. He thought what I really needed was more of a "metro-sexual" type of man, the likes of which would probably be found in a bigger city like Seattle. But I had no intention of relocating, so I eventually just decided to content myself with my life the way it was as a single. And since I wasn't lonely and I didn't need a man to be happy, I just went about living my life as usual.

Then things changed. It started one morning in 2019. I was on my way to the grocery store. It was a beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest, a part of the world that I think is truly gorgeous year-round. The trees were brilliant green, the sky a bright blue dotted with giant, white, puffy clouds. I thought to myself, rather off-handedly, "I am so lucky to live here. It would be great to have someone to share this with who appreciated it as much as I do." And then I added out loud, almost shouting, "Universe!" (I believe in a spiritual connectiveness among people, not in a god.) "Please send me someone who would love this part of the world as much as I do, and who will love me and who I will love too."

Exactly three days later, the Universe came through. Someone came into my life. His name was Richard. It was not the first time Richard had been in my life. We first met in 1975 at a magazine stand in San Mateo, California, near where I lived at the time, and down the street from where I was working. We did a quick bonding over our mutual interest in photography (I bough two photography magazine). He asked for my number.. We were romantically involved for about six months and then ended as friends and still saw each other occasionally. The last time we had seen each other was in August 1978 when we went to the ELO "space ship" concert at the Oakland Coliseum. After that, we both went on to live our separate lives.

The years went by, and in 2007, I was Googling people I had known years ago to see what they were up to. I Googled Richard to see if he was still pursuing photography. I found his Flickr page and his email address was on it, so I shot him off a very brief email saying that I had seen his photos and liked them, and that I was glad to see that he was still taking pictures – something like that. He wrote back, also just a brief response. A couple weeks later, one of us – I don't recall who – sent the other a friend request on Facebook. Over the years, we liked each other's posts and sometimes commented on them. That was all it was.

But then that day in 2019 came along, and three days later, out of the blue, Richard texted me via Messenger on Facebook. What ensued was an incredible series of very, very, very, extremely long, long, long daily correspondences by text, phone, video chat, and email. When I downloaded the Messenger file from Facebook several months later, it was 120 pages long. We texted and talked about literally everything. One thing led to another, and to make a long story short, he visited twice with the intention of moving in with me, and then packed up and moved from Vallejo, California to live with me in Lacey, Washington.

Is this a fairy tale romance? Well, yes, for the most part. We had some very rocky times during the first three months as we got used to living with each other. But we ironed out our issues, and things have run quite smoothly ever since. And we are a pretty great fit. We communicate well most of the time. And, not only do we sometimes finish each other's sentences, we also share many similar interests, have the same sense of humor, are intellectual equals, have the same spiritual beliefs, love to work, and are well-traveled. And we both love living in the Pacific Northwest.

Are we soulmates? Did the Universe really answer my prayer? Yes, it definitely did. And now I'm wondering what other prayers the Universe might care to answer for me ... or for you, or for whoever else might be reading this!

NOTE: On December 8, 2023, Richard and I were married.