Elizabeth B. Brown - Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People

1999 by Elizabeth B. Brown

Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P. O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com

E-book edition created 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-0736-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

To those many very special people in my life who have
shown me the meaning of grace

To those few very difficult people who have taught me how
to love in spite of

And, especially, to my beloved husband, Paul,
whose balance and unconditional love
help me appreciate the miracles in every relationshipthe
loving and supportive and the challenging

Contents

Introduction
to the 2010 Edition

Are you searching for lifelines to keep you balanced in a relationship with a person who is driving you crazy? In this relationship, would you describe yourself as too often simmering, angry, hurt, or exploding? Is there little consideration for your feelings, your needs? Do you steel yourself against something awful happeningthe unfair, without-any-justice-thing that time after time knocks you over? Do you struggle to control your response when a shoe drops, a remark slams, blame points, or criticism flies? Then you need this book!

We know that chaos sits on the throne in difficult relationships. Confusion reigns. Remember the times you may have asked yourself: Should I get out? Should I quit my job, leavemy home, stay away at holidays? Perhaps the maybes ran pell-mell in your thoughts: Maybe if I had not said that, maybe I am guilty, maybe there is no hope. You felt discouraged when the inside whys began: Why am I left out? Why am I put down,unaccepted, disrespected, unloved, unappreciated? You ask despondently: Why do I let myself be hurt? The answer is simple: YOU CARE.

You care because you are not a quitter. You care because this is a family member, or friend, or coworker. You care because you know in the long run if you can survive the relationship, it is best for the big picture. You care because of commitment, because of children, because they are your offspring, because you are a decent person who believes in getting along and not deserting the ship or skipping out when things get tough.

Sharon cared, but she wanted change. She was burdened by the attitude of a family member with whom she couldnt get along but did not want to disconnect. As she listened to people talk about their loss in the grief seminar I was leading, she determined her grief was different: If your spousedies, your house burns down, your child commits suicide,you have to move on. You cant do anything about yoursituation. But my mother needs to be overhauled. She wantsto control everything I do. She doesnt like my friends, hatesmy husband, thinks I feed the kids junk. She is just a pain inmy life. She could changeand she shouldthen I could behappy. Her comment was the impetus for this book.

This young woman thought her situation was unique. Surely, she should have recognized that the two hundred people in the seminar were there because they, too, were struggling, wanting what they did not have and wishing things could be different. They did not have to move on just because their loss was permanent. In fact, in divorce, which today is a common loss, one of the divorcees is usually struggling with anger and hurts ten years after D-day. The statistics are as damning for those who lose a child or spouse. Loss of anythingespecially loss of expectations and dreams in our relationshipsrequires new vision, goals, and courage.

A doctor telephoned me from an airport where he had been stranded during a storm. Bored, he went to the book-ebook- store searching for a good read. He was drawn by the original cover of Living Successfully with Screwed-up Peoplea man being turned like a screw. That was exactly what I felt, he said. I have been trying so hard to stay in my second marriage. For four years I have been to counselors, asked for help, and was about to call it quits. All those years of seeking help did not put it together for me like your book did in the three hours it took me to read it. I was blaming everything on my wifeand, believe me, she deserves the blame, but I am part of the picture. Thanks for some major lifelines and lots of hope. Bottom line: Im not going to end up a screwed-up person also.

My insight into difficult relationships changed radically following a seven-year-old daughters death. LeeAnne was jovial, bouncing, dancing, and hugging on Fridayand dead on Monday from a Reyes type virus. She had developed Type 1 diabetes (also called juvenile diabetes) at age two. Diabetes in a child is tough, and though it had nothing to do with her death, the disease had abused her with radical swings in her blood sugar levels. Her friends didnt criticize when her mood swung from giggly to morose as her blood sugar plunged. They would come to her teacheror usand say, LeeAnne needs something to eat so she can feel good.

I was grateful that their caring made it possible for Lee-Anne to treat her diabetes as a challenge, not a handicap. As I studied the many ways others actions had stabilized her life, I was overcome by a vision of a very difficult person in my life. Though I loved this family member, her actions caused tremendous chaos and turmoil. I envisioned this person as a child like my little daughtera jovial, bouncing, dancing, and hugging childwho was handicapped. Though I thought her role was to nurture and support me, the reality was that God needed me to love her so that, though she might always be challenged, she had the possibility of not being handicapped.

Sometimes just getting a new vision can change how you cope. The insight changed my lifeand filled me with gratitude and caring for the very challenging person whose same actions drove me crazy before. Still, I needed lifelines and handles. I needed things to tell myself when I was coping with off-the-wall events. It is not adequate to think that just because we love all will be well. Believing that this too shall pass may be comforting, but emotions still beg for attention when hurtful behavior pushes our buttons. We will discuss the many issues that swirl around Living Successfully withScrewed-up People, such as how to keep out of harms way if someone is stepping on your foot, when enough is enough, and how to forgive without becoming trampled.

Be assured that it is possible to live, work, and coexist with a difficult person. Together, lets seek the keys to living with purpose and joy, regardless of the challenging people in our lives.

1
Put On Your Glasses

Vision is the starting point of victory.

At a soccer game I stood next to a young man who asked me a question that disturbs many of us: Why do I have the most difficult relationship problems with the people I love?

David did not know I was writing a book on relationships or that I address the question he asked in seminars across the country. He just needed an ear, and I was standing next to him, watching fifteen-year-olds play ball, when his query popped out. I asked him what he thought the answer is.

I dont know, he said. It just seems the very people we care most about are the ones that give us the most grief.

He was right: Friends and family can be painsin the heart. Too often close relationships are better at causing demolition than building. Perhaps that is why suicides increase tenfold during the holidays. Having traveled over the hills and through the valleys to grandmothers house, many of us leave wondering why we went to such efforts to be put through the wringer by someone in our own family. Times together, which should refresh, energize, and heal old wounds, often exacerbate the pain and cause new lesions. The sad truth is that families fight, husbands and wives attack, neighbors feud, friends and coworkers criticize, and children rebel.