Problem: your aunt breaths fire at you whenever you see her. She’s belittling, insulting, hurtful, and all other synonyms for “offensive” you can come up with, and her nastiness burns you. What do you do? Is this worth a big fight, an exchange of words, a gentle palaver, or should you just leave it alone? […]
How to deal with difficult people
It takes guts to deal with toxic relationships. The difficult person might be a peer at school, colleague, parent, sibling, or neighbor, and they can do damage. This post is about dealing with problem situations in assertive ways. Being assertive means standing up for your rights in a direct, honest way. It’s about solving a […]
Difficult roommate: how to solve conflict without killing someone
It would be nice if we had a magic wand that calmed people down and solved conflict with a flurry of the stick, but things aren’t so easy. Consider the following situation. You ask your new roommate to remove her belongings from your shelf in the bathroom. You don’t mean anything bad by it. She’s […]