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Relationship with Relatives

Brothers, sisters and other relatives have a particularly difficult time treating each other civilly. Ever notice how strangers always get heifer treatment from your siblings than you do? There is some logic to this practice. After all you don’t pick your relatives and siblings but you do choose who your friends will be. So, if your sibling or relative acts like a COW, you have no obligation to put up with that behavior. Some people feel that the rude behavior of a sibling or relative should be tolerated just because this is a relative. In fact, tolerating uncivilized behavior in such people just supports their rude, COW like behavior and allows or enables them to continue to do this to others. Supporting this behavior is not good for you and it is not good for them.

Funny, when we encounter a lift le bug in our homes, we tend to smash it, as if to say, ‘let this be a lesson to all you other bugs.’ Yet, if someone comes over and insults us we just smile. I bet that if we smiled at the bugs and smacked our relatives, the bug problem would be about the same, but our relatives would treat us better. There should be NO PEST STRIPS for humans. You just put it at your front door and all the nasty people would get stuck to it. “Hey Uncle Bob, stop squirming. As soon as you act right I’ll let you in.

Tipping the COW: Change this behavior in relatives and siblings by not accepting it, not feeding into it, and confront it when it is displayed toward you. For example, a friend has a sister who since her divorce has become a bitter person. She is loud and obnoxious in public. Often she colors her language with the most vial of language. She doesn’t take care about her appearance so she looks disheveled and dirty. The sister loves to go out with my friend for night life, but she is embarrassing to my friend. For months this went on until my friend couldn’t take anymore. Going out with her lewd sister gave her panic attacks. She asked for my advice and I told her to confront her sister about her behavior and tell her that she wouldn’t go out with her anymore as long as she continued to act and look this way. I told her to do so is an act of kindness. It is not being mean or insensitive to the situation of her sister. My friend took the advice and confronted her sister. Initially her sister was offended, but after a short period of pouting the sister controlled her tongue and started to take more care with her appearance. They are now back to going out together for night life and they better enjoy each other’s company. My friend did the civil thing for her sister and it benefited both of them.

Immaturity

Immaturity is a huge problem in relationships. Immaturity is a huge problem in our society. Whether it is because the younger generation has not suffered through a war, depression, or the constant threat from a foreign power, the fact remains that the younger generation is churning out immature people at an alarming rate. In mental health care of youth, if the vast majority of problems that end up in shrink’s offices were properly diagnosed, that diagnosis would be immaturity.