Take Care,
Peter

Yes, you’re right – family members do argue for no good reason and things are never the same again, and what’s more, often that bad feeling spills over and affects other members of the family who have absolutely no idea what went wrong, but their feelings get changed anyway. This has happened in my own family with a cousin who has been ostracised and no-one outside that particular argument can understand why. However, it stops some people inviting her to events in case they offend someone else, and that really IS sad.

I think we have to remember that we can’t choose family and there are going to be some we can’t be true friends with because they are so different from us in terms of moral values, and what they want from life etc. You can choose friends though, and over the last three or four years I’ve lost two.

If a friend suddenly seems to ‘turn’ on you, what do you do? Well, my way is to do exactly what I’d hope others would do with me (do unto others as you would have done to you – that is my philosophy), but it doesn’t always work. Neither of these two people wanted to talk things through. Neither could see my point of view despite me trying my best to let them know – without accusation, without swearing (sadly, both swore at me) how they had hurt me. In the end, I had to just let them go. By their actions they’d proved that they were not the people I had thought they were, and having them in my life was too stressful.

It’s very sad when these things happen. It is very true that often it’s misunderstanding or ‘lashing out’ that causes the problem, but sometimes it’s simply that the friendship has run its course. You get to the point where you find out what the person is truly like after the ‘honeymoon’ period where everyone is trying to be likeable and it doesn’t always work out.

Or maybe you end up on the receiving end of what you describe; too much heat and anger, not enough thought, not enough forgiving. Relationships are one of the hardest things in the world to get right sometimes.

I think family estrangements are more common than many people think. Often people seem to avoid discussing the existence of such estrangements… either because they are too hurtful to rehash/explain or because they feel a certain “stigma” so-to-speak (for lack of a better phrase) that there is an estrangement in the family.

The golden rule principle you mentioned really is wise. I watched live video from the Peace Summit in Vancouver (it was back in September 2009, I believe) and they talked of an initiative that launched a few days ago called the Charter for Compassion. Your golden rule comment took my brain straight to their work.

I haven’t had a chance to blog about the Charter for Compassion initiative yet because I have had several friends suffer losses recently and I have been focusing on trying to support them as best as I am able.

However, I think you’d find the Charter for Compassion interesting. I won’t link to the project here because I don’t generally leave site addresses in blog comments – but if you are interested in learning more about it, it should be easy to find just by Googling it.

Jeanne

Yes, I have had to eliminate certain friends over the years when I realized they were TOXIC for me. And, it was VERY painful to do so. I may not have handled it the best way, but for me, the ONLY positive outcome was walking away for good.

This is so sad. And you know what’s even worse?!

I’d say, over the last 15 years, 80% of all my arguments have been via email. Now isn’t that lame! I’m just piggybacking on your whole point. If you’re going to end a relationship, make sure it’s done IN PERSON, and you’ve thought it through. And never via email/text, etc.

Like you said, THINK HARD before YOU SPEAK…..OR TYPE!!!