Jealousy: Coping with Outside Influences
Sometimes we feel that people outside of our relationships are tearing them apart. We get angry with the other person and try to "fix" it but the situation just seems to get worse.
Here's a letter from one of our readers who is in this kind of situation...
"What do you think of a brother who does everything his sister tells him to do? We have been togegher for 16 years, we live together,we have two cute kids togther, we have our hopes and dreams. But his sister doesn't like me because I have put her in her place, telling her to keep her nose out of our issues. She acts like a captain--"You do what I say and that's final." I have told her to worry about her family issues and to leave mine alone, that I am capable of taking of my own family and I don't need her negative statements. Ever since then, she has try her best to set her brother against me in any way she could find. It started to irritate me at a level that I try to control but I swear that I am so close to exploding. What do I do?"
Here's our reply to
It sounds like you've got some major issues that you need to resolve with your partner. You both need to sit down and talk about how you want your relationship to be together. Let each other talk without censoring, making wrong or getting defensive. You nee to listen to him about how he feels about this situation and then you tell him how it is that you feel. Together, you need to come up with a solution. It may be hard for him to go against his sister for any number of reasons and you need to find out why it's hard for him.
Attacking her is not the way to go. You have to get it straight what's going on inside him--where his fear is, why it's there, and if he's willing to tackle it. He has to decide whether he can be in this relationship with you the way you want or not. In other words, he has to be willing to lovingly stand up for your relationship.
Whatever's causing this woman to do things that you consider interfering with your relationship, you need to turn to him and resolve the problems between the two of you--because if the two of you are solid, no one can break you up.
