What can you do with the “Paula” in your life?
My husband has a coffee mug with the words “My family tree is full of nuts” on it. But there is just one really strange nut in the bunch. Her name is Paula.
Paula is his older sister. She tries to do strange things like alienating the significant others and spouses of her three siblings.
When my hubby and I first got together, she and her husband and their would come over for dinner sometimes. When they were in our home, I always spoke as softly and kindly as possible because Paula would attack me verbally out of the blue in front of others, sometimes at the dinner table. Her attacks were all untrue accusations.
Then when my husband had surgery to remove part of his pancreas because of a large tumor, Paula went absolutely nuts. Because of her behavior, my husband had to demand that she behave well or not come back to visit him again.
Even when I offered to help her with various things in her life, she attacked me verbally in front of others. Eventually I wrote her a letter explaining my feelings about these issues, gave it to my husband to proof read, and then mailed it to her. But her behavior did not change at all.
Because her disrespect and poor treatment of me caused tension in our relationship, we decided to not give her any more opportunities to do these things. Deciding it would be best to not spend time with Paula any more, we no longer invite her to dinner or socialize with her at all. We wish her all the best in her life but we want her to have no part in our lives.
So although she gave it her best, Paula could not disrupt our relationship. Simply because we stood united as one.
If you have a “Paula” in your life who tries to disrupt your relationships, please stand united together with your loved ones. Please consider the disrupter a toxic person and not allow this behavior to continue. Remember that allowing anyone to continue to disrupt others’ lives embeds patterns for poor behavior more deeply into his or her mind; this is not good for the disrupter or for anyone else.
So feel free to do your “Paula” a favor and not allow this person to continue to mistreat anyone.
Always respect yourself!
Let the encouraging words in these near a river posts help you
soar like an eagle above life’s storms.
Remember, you can never take back words…
Avoid people who try to drag you down…
Does anyone you know act like this?
Give yourself the gift of serenity…
I think I know some who are like Paula! The actions you described are sometimes the only options we have.