Ask Aunt B

Dear Aunt B,

I don’t see eye to eye with most of my family. Do you think it is better to just move on and develop relationships with others and consider them family or mend relationships?

All in the Family

Dear All in the Family,

This is such an important question. It breaks my heart to see all the people that are disconnected from each other. Only you know the complete situation, so please take any of my advice with a grain of salt. For those of you that don’t know what that saying (grain of salt) means, it just means a little. So as always, take my advice as one option of what you might do. Always run it by your situation and make sure it makes sense.

If at any time a relationship is not safe, then it is better to let it go. Always protect yourself and stay away from unsafe people.

Seeing eye to eye isn’t necessary in all of your relationships. I enjoy time with people who have different beliefs than I do. It is one of the ways I learn.

Anytime when another person has to behave in a different way for us to love and appreciate them, then we are being very selfish. People should be allowed to be who they are. Of course that goes for us as well, if you have to be a certain way to be accepted then that is not acceptable either.

Can you have a difficult conversation that says something like, “You are my family and are important to me. Can we just agree to disagree on this topic? I would like us to have some time together and I would like it to be friendly.” If the answer to that is no, then some time apart may be called for.

You mentioned mend relationships in your question. Are you aware of what caused the disruption? Generally these disruptions are caused by misconceptions. Is there anything you can do to clear up the misconception? I like to start with myself. I will usually ask if I did something to cause the rift. I will explain that it wasn’t my intention. I will apologize for my behavior, even if I feel that it was misconstrued. Expecting an apology from the other person is a trap. If you get one, hooray! But don’t expect one. Communication is hard work. I used to believe that if someone misunderstood me, then it was their responsibility to check to see if that was what I meant to say. I was wrong. I now know that as the communicator, it is my responsibility to make sure my message was received clearly.

Family is important. If you can mend the relationships, I would suggest you do that. If you have tried, give it some more time and try again. Take care of yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your family. Even if it all works out, remember, there are many people to love in the world. Make some new family as well. There is always room for more family.

Love,

Aunt B

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