TROUBLESOME RELATIVES

Everyone's got them--relatives who make you nuts and leave you wanting to shake some sense into them.

S.D. writes "I have a mother who is VERY HARD to communicate with. My mother and older sister are so much alike. I've never had a close relationship with either of them. There are a lot of issues I wish to address but feel it is impossible to get through to them." She continues on, writing about an adolescent brother and her mom's poor parenting of him. "What should I do? And what should I do if I want to be closer to my mom and sister?"

Another reader writes of her concern for her elderly parents and their distress over the state of her relationship with her sister. She feels her sister is destructive to her and bullying, but her parents are torn between the two sisters. The reader says she feels happier and at peace with her decision to end her relationship with her sister. "I needed to let her go for my health and happiness...She has done numerous cruel, childish things to me...She wants an apology[from me] .... Am I wrong...to [not] keep a negative, hurtful person in my life because they can't deal with her?"

Just because you're biologically related to others doesn't mean the interaction is automatically healthy. Ask the kids in foster care. The problem with family members, though, is that you sometimes think you ought to be able to tell them how you see things and that they ought to give your opinion some consideration. S.D. disagrees with the way her mother parents her teenage brother--and it can be hard to watch what you consider poor parenting. But does that mean you can share your opinions and mom should be happy about them? Let's be straight about this, you're talking about your conviction that your mom is doing a very poor parenting job...and you want her to be happy about your opinion? Not going to happen.

S.D. asks what she should do to be closer to her mom and sister, but I'm wondering if closeness is really desired in this situation. If you don't like them, you don't want to get that much closer...and it's okay not to like them. Some of us have really unlikeable relatives.

The reader who writes about her elderly parents grieving over her non-relationship with her sister also has to accept some unhappy realities. There's nothing to be done about their sadness that the two of you are at such odds. They wish for a Norman Rockwell family, which is understandable. You know that's not how things are. They can't have what they want, which stinks. This reader can only be a loving daughter. There's nothing she can do to change her sister and self-protection is a right. On the other hand, dear reader, look at your own behavior. Try to be the best person you can be. You have power over your own choices, not over your sister's choices or those of your parents.

This can be a tough reality. You can't change others--even the ones you love. You only get to direct your own life. Whether this includes bad parenting of a younger sibling or a desire for you to get along better with a relative who's bad for your health, you have to take care of yourself.

This is hard enough.

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For women dealing with relationship decisions--like Elin Woods and Sandra Bullock--I have book that's being released this month. Should I Leave Him? specifically focuses on how to address the challenging decision of whether to stay or go. It also offers some concrete suggestions on ways damaged relationships can be improved, if that's what both parties want. And if you decide you need to move on, there are specific ideas on creating a new life for yourself. Should I Leave Him? is available at your local bookstore and on-line at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

I WAS HAPPY WHEN...

Nostalgia has it's place, but don't forget to be somewhat realistic about the old days. Happiness is a general condition of feeling good about one's life, good about one's work and good about relationships--basically, feeling good about one's self. It's easy to get sucked into the belief that former days were golden times with little of the issues you now face.

Don't fool yourself. And don't buy the "I'll be happy when..." thinking, either. If you believe you need a marriage or a job (rough times in the job market) to feel content in your life, you're wishing instead of living. People who win the lottery report that their happiness quickly returns to what it was before the big event. Those who pine for certain events or conditions to change their lives are often disappointed when these events occur. Ever talked to a parent who ached and longed for children before the infant arrived? She is probably quick to say she loves her child, but also quick to report that there have been challenging moments, too. This is not to say that she's not thrilled to have a child, but that life isn't ever easy, if you define easy has having no conflicts and facing no challenges.

This kind of thinking implies that you need circumstances to be all good before you can be happy. Circumstances are rarely all good.

Frequently when couples come in for relationship counseling, one or the other will refer wistfully back to when things were great. Relationships are challenging and generally have both euphoric and despondent moments. It isn't realistic to think you'll find one that has no conflict and no down moments. Sometimes those down moments can be really, really low.

Happiness is generally a matter of outlook and belief in yourself. If you feel that you're fairly competent and pretty much in charge of your own circumstances, you'll tend to feel happy overall. You don't want your life experience to be determined by the situations in which you find yourself. Few of us are happy when we end up in a fender bender or get a cold, but these things occur in life. We make mistakes and have to deal with the challenges that follow. As frustrating as these can be, it's important to catch the lesson that comes with these. Happiness is built on finding (no, I'm not going to break into song here) the silver lining to the cloud. The few drips of value you can wring from a really unhappy moment.

We learn through those moments, not from the lovely, wonderful times.

Lovely, wonderful times are terrific and you want as many of these as you can get, but don't think happiness is about needing to get everything--and everyone--straight and on track. Parents who try to do this with their children are asking for trouble since kids have minds of their own--which you want them to have, after all.

Your happiness isn't defined by re-capturing a moment from the past or by achieving a perfect blend of all the right things in the future. Happiness is a life condition. You can make good choices for you--and I hope you will--but you'll still have bad things you'll have to deal with.

Happiness requires you to have faith in your own ability to handle whatever comes.

NOT MY KID!

We are a nation of individuals who are very defined by our choices. We're fiercely protective of our rights and our freedoms. We argue these in the legislature and in the press. We demand freedom of choice...but we have a hard time allowing the same to our children.

Parents are tremendously important in children's lives. As a parent, you have a lot of influence, but you need to realize you can't determine their lives. This is one instance where you can definitely have a bad impact on another person--that's easy to see--but you don't get to rob the kid of choosing bad things.

It's sad and ironic, but there are limits to what parenting--even good parenting--yields and this is because the kids get to choose. Even when they're making bad choices, they get to pick their own fates. Having choice means your children can pick the lives they want and they do this regardless of what you may have had in mind for them. College or not; money-making career or not; bad relationships or good.

You don't get to decide.

You just get to be the kind of parent--the kind of person--you'll feel good about. That's the limit in this role. Don't think this is easy, either. It's not. Parenting is hard and sometimes thankless, but then, you're doing it for you--you chose to have your children because of what the role meant to you. (If you think you raised kids because someone else wanted this of you, look at your need for that person's approval.)

Never lose sight of the reality that choices yield consequences...for you and for your kids...and don't think you're doing your children favors if you intercept their consequences when they grow into adolescence and adulthood. You grabbed your toddler when he would have run into the street because it was appropriate and necessary then for him to be shielded from the consequences of life-altering choices. As kids grow older, it's important to realize that experiencing consequences is the only way we humans learn. Some of us can see others' experiences and internalize the lesson, but most of the time we have to see first-hand that our actions bring us certain things.

You love your kids and you want good things for them. You want to believe good things about them, but it benefits them (and you) if you work to be objective and if you let their choices be about them, not about you.

A child's choices doesn't mean his parents are good or bad. Whether he chooses to get a higher education and makes a lot of money or whether he chooses to be a drug dealer--this is a choice he gets to make, not you.

You get to decide what kind of person you want to be--whether you protect your kids when they're young and deserve your protection, whether you beat them or not or whether you ignore them and neglect the relationship. These are your choices. This is what you get to see as a reflection of your parenting--not what they do.

Kids get to decide what kind of lives they lead, just as you choose yours.

ARGUING, NOT FIGHTING

You may not like to argue, but doing so is the only way to work through conflict in the relationship. Don't think you can just ignore issues and they'll go away. But arguing doesn't have to mean yelling, screaming and hurling your cell phones at one another.

There's productive arguing and unproductive arguing. Whether you call this by the milder name of disagreeing or by the scary-sounding term fighting, conflict with loves ones is unavoidable. If you hate this, that's understandable. Most folks don't like being at odds with their significant others. We generally want to get along.

So, here are the rules for dealing with conflict in a healthy--if not fun--way:

No name calling:
There are couples who've been married a long time--and plan on staying married--who disagree with this. They see name-calling as a part of heated disagreements and some say this is the only way to let their spouses know how upset they are. But calling one another names doesn't help anyone to listen and doesn't get your point across. It actually rouses defenses and makes listening difficult.

Everyone needs a chance to talk:
This means you work to keep interruptions to a minimum and you don't spend the time you aren't talking in trying to come up with new things to say about your feelings. You actually listen to what your mate is saying. Really, really listen. Think of this as a situation in which you need to make sure you can take notes. It's a good idea to check with your mate to see if you heard him right. If not, then ask for a repeat.

Everyone has a responsibility to talk:
If you retreat into silence and don't say what's bothering you, don't plan on anything getting better. Individuals who do this usually say that their mate isn't listening to them anyway or just gets mad at them when they do talk. This may be true, but there are better ways to deal with the situation than just not talking. If necessary, you can repeat yourself--in a calm voice--using the same words. Do this several times, like a broken record. The repetition in the same words usually helps your agitated mate get that he's not actually responding to what you said.

Listen:
It's tremendously important that you work at understanding--hearing--what your mate's saying to you. You may disagree with his comments and you may feel like you're being accused unfairly, but you need to understand the emotions behind what your mate is saying. You need to listen.
When couples fight, they generally go for gut punches. This may hurt, but what the viciousness is saying is that the speaker doesn't feel listened to or understood. There's no other reason to get this ugly.

Accept differences in perspective:
Truthfully, you may not share every perception. Your mate may see things very differently than do you. Accepting a different view of things is vital. Don't think your way of looking at things is the only right way. That's narrow and communicates to others that they are always wrong. If you spend a lot of time telling your mate that his perspective is wrong, that he's wrong in his view of things, he's not going to feel listened to and he's certainly not going to continue wanting to be with you.

Even when you see a very different view of a situation, accept his right to how he sees it. You each have valid observations. The truth usually lies somewhere between your viewpoints.

Work at understanding what's happening to you:
This is vital and can sometimes be difficult. You need to do some serious introspection. You need to know what's really upsetting you and you need to understand why. This isn't always immediately clear to you and you may have to mull it over. This is why the old adage of "never go to sleep angry" may mean not going to bed without discussing the issue, but resolution doesn't always come with just one discussion. Sometimes, you need to think about the conflict and you need to work through your own feelings to understand why you're upset.

Accept that the resolution isn't going to be just the way you want it:
This is a big one. Resolution involves finding a middle point between your perspective and his. You aren't going to get everything exactly the way you want it. But you need to feel heard and understood. This is important and necessary. You also need some part of your concerns to be addressed in the resolution. It can't be all his way, either.

Relationship conflict sucks. You can talk about make-up sex all you want. There's nothing fun about fighting with the one you love, not if you're taking this seriously. But conflict arises in every relationship. Trying to avoid it just places you more at risk for relationship failure and isn't good for your heart muscle, either.

So talk, listen, work it through and do it before you get to the point of calling one another names or plotting murder.

Life works better when you work things through.

OVER-SCHEDULED?

As a result of our cultural desire to be "productive" all the time, we're creating a nation of people whose minds take temporary, mandatory vacations. You may believe--and have been told this by parents, bosses and the media--that you need to make the most of your time. What's not addressed in this is the brain work that's done in down time. Play time. We have a bunch of folks who get lost at random moments because they need idle time.

With a slew of people in struggling relationships--and on psychological medication--less scheduled might be a good thing.

Ever find yourself at a red traffic light in the front of a line of cars...and you drift in the moment while you're waiting for it to change? You're lost in thought and don't see the green signal, earning a honk from the individuals in vehicles behind you--those also driven to make their schedules. Your brain has just taken a holiday. Maybe you're worrying about what has yet to be done in your day or maybe you're just gone.

Do you find yourself wandering through the grocery store, staring at the items there, but unseeing? Others may steer their carts around you, muttering, if you're blocking the aisle. Go to an upscale grocery store on the weekends or evenings and you'll find the parking lot packed with expensive cars and the aisles stocked with staring CEOs and doctors. Lost in the moment.

Find yourself dreaming about a retirement that enables you to rest? To not get up with an alarm clock's buzz and to do just what you really want to do? This is a fantasy for many; the hope of quitting their jobs and having no demands on their time. Sadly, the Wall Street crash and our challenged economy is leaving high and dry some individuals who bartered their working years for the dream of a golden retirement with no demands.

Many have bought into the idea that "doing nothing" is a shameful waste of time. The same individuals fill their children's after-school hours with sports, productive activities and classes. They say they don't want the kids to be bored, but they're sending a message to the young. This approach is further validated by the demand on college applications for a wealth of extra-curricular pursuits. Kids are supposed to start non-profit organizations for the homeless and raise money for Haitian relief...all the while taking Advanced Placement classes and earning excellent grades.

We're raising a nation of depressed individuals who don't know how to play. Adults seek release from their stresses by indulging in alcohol or in smoking pot. They don't know how to disconnect otherwise.

Our over-scheduling mania spills over onto our children, too. We don't encourage children to enjoy simple activities. There's not time to just play. Play is a creative, brain-building activity that requires minimal structure. Given a toy car, a puzzle or a Slinky, young children get lost in play. They find new ways to explore simple objects. But this is the kind of play that is no longer typical. We want them to be productive. We buy them toys to enhance their vocabulary or build their problem-solving skills, not realizing that these skills are learned in unstructured, undirected time.

They need to play.

We need to play. However you define this--whatever is renewing to you--play is important. Don't think your brain doesn't need unguided moments to wander off. You'll find it doing that at random moments anyway if you don't let yourself disconnect.

Turn off the cell phone. Watch silly television, if you like. Parachute out of planes. Grow a garden--not because it's the green thing to do, but because you like playing in the dirt.

Let yourself play.

LABELED ABNORMAL

Adopting a "psychologically disabled" lifestyle is becoming a career choice for some and a lifestyle for others. With the societal acceptance of emotional challenges has come a sad embracing of incapacity.

Good therapists want to help you get functional and happy.

It's important to accept that we all have issues. Life is full of challenges and these range from personal issues, like debilitating anxiety, to struggles in developing healthy, rewarding relationships. It's hard for everyone, no matter their gender, race or economic level. Yes, life presents bigger challenges for some (just look at those dealing with significant physical limitations), but that doesn't mean it's easy for anyone.

You need to ask yourself, however, if you view life and it's challenges as something to be overcome or if you think you're defined by your issues. Do you need your issues or can you let them go, if you get help in understanding how to do this?

There are a number of individuals who seek the "disabled" label as a kind of self-definition. Typically, they believe they have a chemical imbalance that makes it necessary for them to rely on pharmaceutical medication to function. Medication can be very helpful in the short term, but believing you must take an anti-depressant or an anti-anxiety medication your whole life is short-changing yourself.

The human brain is amazing and complex beyond belief, but don't conclude that you're just missing a certain chemical as an explanation of the emotional issues you're facing. This is a rough road and involves the need to tinker with medications--switching doses and medications--over the years. Brain chemistry can be changed by the thoughts you choose.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a condemnation of medication or those who find it helpful.

But embracing dysfunction has become an acceptible alternative for some people and, from this perspective, individuals never get better--are never able to heal and learn.

You deserve better. Learning to believe in one's self can be very difficult, but you can do difficult things.

Therapy can be helpful precisely because the therapist doesn't have a stake in your choices(like your friends and family). Good therapists strive to maintain objectivity and they're working themselves out of a job. They want you to get better. They want you to not need them forever.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE?

John writes that his "Daughter is sixteen [and] clueless about how much her mother does for her. [My wife] drives her to lessons and the mall. Our daughter only does chores when asked." But John has a bigger problem. His wife is "...set off by almost anything and deals with most issues by getting angry." He writes that his wife changes the subject when he addresses a point, saying that her response to what he offers is usually negative.

He's tired of being everyone's counselor.

Sadly, this is a scenario taking place in hundreds of thousands of homes. While his teenage daughter is stepping forward into adulthood and that's a scary time for a kid. She's getting closer to this age-wise, even if she's not acting like an adult. It can also be a maddening time for parents. You're just trying to do your job. You're attempting to raise a responsible grown-up who makes good choices and sees that her behavior gets the results she's facing. You want good things for her.

Everyone's stressed here. The parents biggest concern is that their children are safe and make good choices. They want their kids to have strong careers and healthy relationships, but some of their behaviors can bring them bad stuff. This is a distressing period both for growing kids and for the parents who love them.

My best answer for John is to step back. Believe in your wife and your daughter enough to let them work out their conflicts. I know this isn't easy. You're made crazy by the fighting and you don't want to see your daughter make mistakes. Parents hate the reality that they can't stop kids from facing consequences. They want to protect their children bad things, but this isn't always possible. His wife wants him to step in and side with her. She wants him to MAKE their daughter listen. She is mad because he's trying to be the U.N., running interference between two warring factions.

Give it up, John. You can't sort this out for the two of them and trying to do this isn't winning you any points with either one of them. Your wife needs you to understand her frustrations without trying to explain the kid's feelings. Just listen and understand. Don't try to get her to stop being mad. She's in a maddening position. You also need to stop trying to explain your angry wife to your daughter. Quit defending everyone.

They need to sort through their relationship themselves.

If your wife is angry with you for not standing up to your daughter or wants you to lay down the law (Do something with her!) because your kid listens to you better, that can be complicated. Start by telling your wife that you understand her feelings. You do. Your daughter seems a little insane right now and you can see your wife's struggle with her. You may want to tell your wife to stop being so angry with your daughter(and with you!), but this won't work. People don't stop being mad because someone tells them to. If you really hear her distress and understand that she wants--as do you--the very best for your daughter--you have a better chance of her calming down with you.

You need to encourage your wife to talk to your daughter without you stepping in the middle. This can be difficult if you've always functioned as their intermediary, but you can do it. Start by telling your wife you believe in her ability to communicate with your child. Remind her how important she is to the kid. Above all, do not try to sort this out for the two of them. You'll just get beat up.

You and your wife might benefit from talking to a therapist together to learn how to better handle the challenges of parenting a teen and remaining an intact couple. Remember, when your daughter has gone off and is chasing her own life, you and your wife are left dealing with one another.

It would be nice if you could be one another's strength.