I was annoyed mostly by comments from Jim, and responded: "So you think to have a stutter is not that bad then Jim? OK, I challenge you to go up to bar and order a pint of lager, but when you order it I want you to stutter on some of words."

I showed him how I wanted him to say order, when to stutter etc. I then said: "After you have stuttered on words, I want you to see how it feels and to experience way people look at you. You may then understand a little bit more of what I went through."

Jim declined this challenge, even after a severe amount of prompting and teasing from different members of our group.

Having a stutter is not nice and when someone who has a stutter seeks help, please offer them your full support.

Stephen Hill

Nothing will change in this relationship until Adam decides to learn how to take responsibility for his own good feelings rather than expect Patty to do it for him. Patty wants him to come to her as a powerful and secure man, not as a needy little boy needing her constant kisses to feel okay about himself.

Adam needs to take his eyes off how Patty is treating him and instead focus on how he is treating himself and Patty. He needs to open to learning about what he is telling himself and how he is treating himself that is causing his emptiness and neediness. He needs to stop being a victim of Patty’s behavior and instead focus within on what he needs to do for himself, for little boy within him that wants love and attention. He would have love to share with Patty if he were to focus on giving himself love and attention and on making himself happy, instead of trying to make Patty happy in hopes that she will make him happy. As it is, he is just trying to get love - giving to get.

Adam is coming from a very common false belief – that our best feelings come from being loved and desired. The truth is that our best feelings come from being loving to ourselves and to others. Adam won’t know this until he decides to change his intention from trying to have control over getting love to learning about being loving.