February 8, 2024 • 18 mins
This week, Nedra counsels a caller who is dealing with a family member that has a tendency towards racially insensitive comments. Breaking contact has helped, but the glaring unfair treatment and pressure to make amends from the rest of the family has made the situation much more difficult.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm Nata Glover Towob and you
need to hear this. Usually I would put this at
the end of the episode, but I want to start here.
If you have a situation with postpartum or parenting challenges,
I'd love to hear from you. Also, if you're having
any work issues, any challenging issues with the boss, like
(00:25):
if Michael Scott from the office is your boss, like
this self centered person, I would love to hear about that.
If you have any challenges around overworking, I would love
to hear about that as well. I'm trying to pull
in some topics we may not have discussed yet, So
if you have some fresh topics, please send them our way.
You can send those messages to you need to hear this.
(00:48):
At iHeartMedia dot com. This week we'll be talking about
fairness and families and it is a letter about in
law relationships. You know, in families we often hear about,
well this person got to do that, or this isn't
the expectation for them, why is it the expectation for me?
And guess what, in all relationships, what we really seek
(01:11):
is fairness, right, like you know, whether it's with our
partners where like, you know, if I took the garbage out,
you should take the recycling out. Or if I did
the dishes, you should cook the meal. Like we're seeking
this like equality in our relationships because it just makes
things feel balanced. And when the expectations are high for
(01:32):
us and there are none for others, or when they're low,
it creates you know, maybe like this inner turmoil. I
don't want to say it creates chaos in a relationship,
but it makes us feel like I'm not being seen.
I am a whole person. I have issues too. Why
isn't anyone seeing this? And to make matters worse, when
(01:59):
someone is telling you to be the bigger person with
someone who is unkind, who is me, who is selfish,
who is not fair, it really challenges our ideas about
these relationships, right, Like I certainly can think of times
(02:22):
where you know, people have come to me in my
life and it's like, you know, you should just talk
to that person, and it's almost like this this other
person who actually committed the offense. They don't have the
capacity to apologize or to accept accountability. And maybe because
I'm a therapist or people think I have some you know,
(02:43):
high level of like tolerance. It's like you should just
call them and reach out to them, reach out to
the person who harmed me. It's like, look, I'm a therapist.
I'm not a nun. Okay, like I have feelings too,
you know I am. I am not a Buddhist monk.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I am not.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I don't have this level of peace that you may think.
I am still hurt. I am still harmed. And I'm
not saying that those people do. But I'm just saying
when I think of those people, I think of, you know,
like the epitome of forgiveness. I'm not that I'm not
there yet. I'm like, I'm still reeling from this thing,
and I think many of us are. I will say,
(03:27):
you know, I have learned to extend compassion to people, right,
that doesn't always mean that I'll go back and I'll
be the bigger person. But it's like, huh, it must
be really tough to even be the sort of person
who can acknowledge that you did something wrong, Like just
acknowledging something will just tear you to pieces, just ruin
(03:49):
your whole life. To say, oh, I did this thing,
I can have compassion for that because I don't feel
that way about things, so I could see how hard
it be to apologize. And I'm willing in some cases
to acknowledge apology related behavior, like when people are nice
(04:09):
but they haven't directly apologized, or when they're trying to
offer a kind just or hey, I cook the you know,
I cook the pound cake. It's like you ain't apologize,
but you know I like your pound cake, right, you know,
like they're trying to do something. And so sometimes you know,
even if people can't say the words, or if they're
not willing to make amends in some big way, you know,
(04:32):
it could be helpful for our relationships or the ability
to be cordial, just to accept their small gesture. Let's
listen to today's letter.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Hi, Nidra, I feel like ultimately I'm having trouble accepting
a lack of fairness and relationships. I've been dealing with
the situation with my in laws for many years now.
My now husband sister has been racially insensitive to me
in the past, and she has a long history of
self centeredness. When she was told about these things, she
chose to ignore them and not apologize at first, which
(05:05):
caused a rift between us. She since apologized, but she's
shown no capacity for changing her behavior moving forward, which
makes my husband and I uncomfortable having a relationship with her.
We've both taken a lot of effort to explain our
perspective to her and to engage in dialogue about how
our relationship can improve. We've sent her letters over the years,
We've had in person conversations, etc. But we still find
(05:28):
we can't trust her because her actions contradict what she says.
For example, she says she cares and she understands, but
then she won't reach out to continue conversations. Or we
always have to be the one to make efforts in
the relationship.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
You know, as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking what
is the relationship we expect to have with people? Sometimes
we could get so caught up in what the title
of something is, what we've seen other people be able
to do that we may think, Oh, to have a
(06:04):
relationship with my sister in law, it should look like this.
We may need to just have I see you on
the holidays relationship or I, you know, talk to you
through you know, our husband's talking to each other type
of relationship. It may not be that we are friends
(06:25):
or that we have regular contact and communication because it's
not possible with the people who are present. On a
recent trip to New York, I went to see this
play called Appropriate, and the play was about three siblings
who had different relationships with their father and when he died,
(06:49):
they discovered some racist material in his home, and everyone's
interpretation of that was different. You know, like one person
was like, oh, my gosh, I always knew dad was
a racist. The other one is like, what, he could
never be racist. He was, you know, a great person,
and the other person is like, no, I think you know,
(07:10):
I'm gonna go with this other person. So I think
with dynamics of racism, trying to convince someone that this
is a racist thing or this is not it comes
from their own level of understanding. Even when you are
the targeted person. Culturally, they may feel like, oh, this
is appropriate or yes, I said that, and this is
(07:33):
as far as my apology needs to go. I said
I'm sorry, and that's that. You know, they want to
determine how you respond to that, and it just doesn't
work that way.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
There are some things that culturally we deal with in
different ways, but that is you know, based on the
individual and how you respond to it is how you
respond to it. And you know, if you feel like
there needs to be more action on her part, whether
she has a pology or not, there needs to be
more action on her part. There is no way for
(08:04):
her to determine like, hey, I've done enough when you're like,
I don't think you have. Like this needs to be
a lived apology. There needs to be some consistent show
that you are learning from this experience, and not everyone
has the capacity to do that because you know, as
I saw in that play, it can be really hard
(08:25):
to admit that you are a racist or you made
a racist comment, or it was an inappropriate joke, or
it was poor taste, or it was insensitive. It can
be really hard to see ourselves in that way because
we may feel like, oh my gosh, like I'm not
a racist person, and maybe you're not, but you're certainly
racially insensitive as you said, right, So it's not that
(08:48):
you're a terrible person, but what you say it was inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
At this point, it's been several years of little to
no contact between us, and it's now affecting our other
relationships with my husband's family. His parents are heartbroken and
have asked us to repeatedly fix things. When I ask
if they talk to his sister in the same way,
it doesn't seem like they have the same expectations for her.
It's the same with other family members. They're all aware
of the situation and agree his sister was wrong and
(09:18):
can be difficult and can be selfish, but they still
expect us to be the bigger people and make amends.
They've made it clear that we don't have to be
close with her, but they do care a lot about
the family being able to be together, and it seems
like they'd be one hundred percent satisfied if we had
a surface level relationship. I don't know what a relationship
(09:39):
can look like with someone who won't try, and I'm
also resentful of everyone expecting us to make things better
even though I was the one wrong. I feel like
giving into a surface level relationship would mean I'm feeding
into their delusions about us being close.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
If there could be a conversation have where there is
clarity around this is not a close relationship. The intention
of this is to be able to gather You know,
like you know that. It sounds like your in laws
know that just you may not be feeding into it
being a close relationship. If you keep it at the gathering.
(10:21):
You know, we're able to get together for this person's birthday,
We're able to get together for this holiday. There is
no communication between us and between This is all to
you know, be family, to have kids, play with kids,
and adults see adults. It's not for us to be
in this you know, happy circumstance together because we don't
(10:42):
have that type of relationship. So just being in someone's
presence does not mean that you have a close relationship.
It's really the intimacy in the relationship that shows where
the closeness is. So if you show up to a
family gathering, it doesn't mean that you have the same
level of closeness with everyone there. It just means you're
(11:03):
at the family gathering. So I do wonder is it
possible for you to just be cordial in this conversation.
I remembered a book that I read called Rebecca not Becky.
It's a novel and it talks about just racial dynamics
between you know, various cultures and these nuances that may
(11:24):
happen and people don't even realize that that's offensive or
that's some bias that you have, like these things happen,
and if you are predominantly around your culture and you
don't have other exposure, you may not even realize some
of these things you're doing because it's you know, it's
really normal. It's really normal to be, you know, kind
(11:47):
of like in this box of this is how everything is,
and this is what we can say, and this was
what we could do and really buy into that I'm
not doing anything wrong or I don't have to change anything.
When an actuality in the general public, it's not okay,
it is not a norm, it is inappropriate. And so
you know, maybe having some idea that because of this
(12:10):
family culture or because of you know, who she is,
there may be a lack of understanding and you don't
have to shift that for her. But I do wonder,
you know, if you want to be in this family,
how do you provide some clarity around hey and laws.
I understand that you want us to have, you know,
this relationship, and maybe it could be surface level, right.
(12:33):
I think about, you know, people we work with, and
I don't have a super close relationship with everyone that
I work with, but some people I do, and that's
based on who they are, and you know the things
we have in common and our interests in all of
these things, and we can do that. You know, we
choose to turn that that sort of switch on on
and off, like I can be in this sort of
(12:56):
relationship with this person and then on this other way
I choose not to and so you can have that
switch on and off. Now, maybe you say every relationship
I have it needs to be deeply connected. You know
that's not going to be true. There are some surface
level relationships that we have, and maybe the agreement is
to have a surface level relationship with this in law.
(13:19):
You know, you've highlighted what she's done. It sounds like
you've written letters about it. Again, you know, there is
time on your side. You're still in the family, so
you know, who knows what this may look like in
a few years as she has some you know, life
experience under her belt. This may be a situation you
(13:41):
can return to and have an adult, mature conversation around.
Or it might be a situation where, you know, it
sort of stays in this surface level sort of space.
But we'll see. Let's take a break and we'll be back.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I'm torn because on one hand, I want to move
forward and I want this drama out of my life.
We haven't done any holidays in several years with his
family in order to avoid a sister and my husband
and my wedding, which should have been super happy moment
for everyone, wasn't because his parents were cold and upset
about the situation. Seemingly though they are able to have
(14:23):
a warm relationship with his sister even though she's also
responsible for this situation. On the other hand, it feels
really toxic to engage with this ultimatum that it feels
like we're in. I also can't help feeling that if
I give in, everyone will have what they want, but.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Me, what do you want in this situation? I hear
that she apologized, Are you wanting change behavior? How will
you give her space to reflect that her behavior has changed?
(14:59):
Because if you you don't have any interaction with her,
how will you even see the change behavior? If that's
what you're wanting? Do you want maybe nothing to do
with this situation? Has that been stated? I haven't, you know,
necessarily heard that that has been stated, But I think
there are some clarity needed around what do you actually
want in this situation?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You know, if you feel like I'm in the middle
of a family situation where they're like, you know, we
want you to just be in relationship with her. You
get to decide what that relationship looks like. It might
be like, don't let me in a kitchen with her,
But we're fine together at the table with eight other people.
That's that's where we're at. If we're in a kitchen together,
(15:43):
I'm just gonna get my little water and I'm gonna
just smooth walk out of here. I don't want to,
you know, I don't want to be in a space
with her. It is your right to do that. But
you are at the family gathering, you know. So I
wonder in this situation, what could compromise on both sides
look like it sounds like this is a situation. You
do care about it. Hey, you wrote a letter about it.
(16:05):
You want some advice about it. So you do care
about this situation. So could it be to your benefit
to figure out a way to be in it without
giving in a way that would be harmful to you
or that would cost further harm? You know, I think
you know. Racial comments are one of those things where
they hurt deeply and even after the person apologizes, it
(16:28):
does say something about what they think about you overall.
So maybe the apology wasn't enough. Maybe it really didn't
remedy the situation. Maybe you're not ready to forgive her
for this. Maybe you're still processing, and that's okay too.
You don't have to quickly forgive because everybody else is
ready for it. Maybe you still need time. You need
(16:52):
to hear this, forgive people in your own time. I
know some of us us we are on everyone else's timeline.
You know you need to do this by Thanksgiving. You
need to have this talk. You need to get over
it with this person because everyone is, you know, watching
this thing unfold. They're uncomfortable, they don't know how to respond.
(17:15):
They're trying to manage their feelings, and what they think
should happen to help them is that you get over
this thing. But you can take your time forgiving people
being upset with them. Those things take time, and there
is no one person who could say, Okay, now's the
time for you to be over it. You'll know when
you know, and it might not be today, it may
(17:39):
not be at the next gathering. The situations that happens
in our family, we need to give them more time.
We need to process them, and sometimes we have to
ask people, please don't hurry me. I'm still processing. It's
okay to say that, please don't hurry me. You need
(17:59):
to hear this is an iHeart production hosted by me
Nedra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joe l. Bdique.
Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send
us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and
relationships at you need to Hear this at iHeartMedia dot com.
(18:21):
Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen
to it, and share this episode with someone who needs
to hear this. Talk to you next time
Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm Nata Glover Towob and you
need to hear this. Usually I would put this at
the end of the episode, but I want to start here.
If you have a situation with postpartum or parenting challenges,
I'd love to hear from you. Also, if you're having
any work issues, any challenging issues with the boss, like
(00:25):
if Michael Scott from the office is your boss, like
this self centered person, I would love to hear about that.
If you have any challenges around overworking, I would love
to hear about that as well. I'm trying to pull
in some topics we may not have discussed yet, So
if you have some fresh topics, please send them our way.
You can send those messages to you need to hear this.
(00:48):
At iHeartMedia dot com. This week we'll be talking about
fairness and families and it is a letter about in
law relationships. You know, in families we often hear about,
well this person got to do that, or this isn't
the expectation for them, why is it the expectation for me?
And guess what, in all relationships, what we really seek
(01:11):
is fairness, right, like you know, whether it's with our
partners where like, you know, if I took the garbage out,
you should take the recycling out. Or if I did
the dishes, you should cook the meal. Like we're seeking
this like equality in our relationships because it just makes
things feel balanced. And when the expectations are high for
(01:32):
us and there are none for others, or when they're low,
it creates you know, maybe like this inner turmoil. I
don't want to say it creates chaos in a relationship,
but it makes us feel like I'm not being seen.
I am a whole person. I have issues too. Why
isn't anyone seeing this? And to make matters worse, when
(01:59):
someone is telling you to be the bigger person with
someone who is unkind, who is me, who is selfish,
who is not fair, it really challenges our ideas about
these relationships, right, Like I certainly can think of times
(02:22):
where you know, people have come to me in my
life and it's like, you know, you should just talk
to that person, and it's almost like this this other
person who actually committed the offense. They don't have the
capacity to apologize or to accept accountability. And maybe because
I'm a therapist or people think I have some you know,
(02:43):
high level of like tolerance. It's like you should just
call them and reach out to them, reach out to
the person who harmed me. It's like, look, I'm a therapist.
I'm not a nun. Okay, like I have feelings too,
you know I am. I am not a Buddhist monk.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I am not.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I don't have this level of peace that you may think.
I am still hurt. I am still harmed. And I'm
not saying that those people do. But I'm just saying
when I think of those people, I think of, you know,
like the epitome of forgiveness. I'm not that I'm not
there yet. I'm like, I'm still reeling from this thing,
and I think many of us are. I will say,
(03:27):
you know, I have learned to extend compassion to people, right,
that doesn't always mean that I'll go back and I'll
be the bigger person. But it's like, huh, it must
be really tough to even be the sort of person
who can acknowledge that you did something wrong, Like just
acknowledging something will just tear you to pieces, just ruin
(03:49):
your whole life. To say, oh, I did this thing,
I can have compassion for that because I don't feel
that way about things, so I could see how hard
it be to apologize. And I'm willing in some cases
to acknowledge apology related behavior, like when people are nice
(04:09):
but they haven't directly apologized, or when they're trying to
offer a kind just or hey, I cook the you know,
I cook the pound cake. It's like you ain't apologize,
but you know I like your pound cake, right, you know,
like they're trying to do something. And so sometimes you know,
even if people can't say the words, or if they're
not willing to make amends in some big way, you know,
(04:32):
it could be helpful for our relationships or the ability
to be cordial, just to accept their small gesture. Let's
listen to today's letter.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Hi, Nidra, I feel like ultimately I'm having trouble accepting
a lack of fairness and relationships. I've been dealing with
the situation with my in laws for many years now.
My now husband sister has been racially insensitive to me
in the past, and she has a long history of
self centeredness. When she was told about these things, she
chose to ignore them and not apologize at first, which
(05:05):
caused a rift between us. She since apologized, but she's
shown no capacity for changing her behavior moving forward, which
makes my husband and I uncomfortable having a relationship with her.
We've both taken a lot of effort to explain our
perspective to her and to engage in dialogue about how
our relationship can improve. We've sent her letters over the years,
We've had in person conversations, etc. But we still find
(05:28):
we can't trust her because her actions contradict what she says.
For example, she says she cares and she understands, but
then she won't reach out to continue conversations. Or we
always have to be the one to make efforts in
the relationship.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
You know, as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking what
is the relationship we expect to have with people? Sometimes
we could get so caught up in what the title
of something is, what we've seen other people be able
to do that we may think, Oh, to have a
(06:04):
relationship with my sister in law, it should look like this.
We may need to just have I see you on
the holidays relationship or I, you know, talk to you
through you know, our husband's talking to each other type
of relationship. It may not be that we are friends
(06:25):
or that we have regular contact and communication because it's
not possible with the people who are present. On a
recent trip to New York, I went to see this
play called Appropriate, and the play was about three siblings
who had different relationships with their father and when he died,
(06:49):
they discovered some racist material in his home, and everyone's
interpretation of that was different. You know, like one person
was like, oh, my gosh, I always knew dad was
a racist. The other one is like, what, he could
never be racist. He was, you know, a great person,
and the other person is like, no, I think you know,
(07:10):
I'm gonna go with this other person. So I think
with dynamics of racism, trying to convince someone that this
is a racist thing or this is not it comes
from their own level of understanding. Even when you are
the targeted person. Culturally, they may feel like, oh, this
is appropriate or yes, I said that, and this is
(07:33):
as far as my apology needs to go. I said
I'm sorry, and that's that. You know, they want to
determine how you respond to that, and it just doesn't
work that way.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
There are some things that culturally we deal with in
different ways, but that is you know, based on the
individual and how you respond to it is how you
respond to it. And you know, if you feel like
there needs to be more action on her part, whether
she has a pology or not, there needs to be
more action on her part. There is no way for
(08:04):
her to determine like, hey, I've done enough when you're like,
I don't think you have. Like this needs to be
a lived apology. There needs to be some consistent show
that you are learning from this experience, and not everyone
has the capacity to do that because you know, as
I saw in that play, it can be really hard
(08:25):
to admit that you are a racist or you made
a racist comment, or it was an inappropriate joke, or
it was poor taste, or it was insensitive. It can
be really hard to see ourselves in that way because
we may feel like, oh my gosh, like I'm not
a racist person, and maybe you're not, but you're certainly
racially insensitive as you said, right, So it's not that
(08:48):
you're a terrible person, but what you say it was inappropriate.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
At this point, it's been several years of little to
no contact between us, and it's now affecting our other
relationships with my husband's family. His parents are heartbroken and
have asked us to repeatedly fix things. When I ask
if they talk to his sister in the same way,
it doesn't seem like they have the same expectations for her.
It's the same with other family members. They're all aware
of the situation and agree his sister was wrong and
(09:18):
can be difficult and can be selfish, but they still
expect us to be the bigger people and make amends.
They've made it clear that we don't have to be
close with her, but they do care a lot about
the family being able to be together, and it seems
like they'd be one hundred percent satisfied if we had
a surface level relationship. I don't know what a relationship
(09:39):
can look like with someone who won't try, and I'm
also resentful of everyone expecting us to make things better
even though I was the one wrong. I feel like
giving into a surface level relationship would mean I'm feeding
into their delusions about us being close.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
If there could be a conversation have where there is
clarity around this is not a close relationship. The intention
of this is to be able to gather You know,
like you know that. It sounds like your in laws
know that just you may not be feeding into it
being a close relationship. If you keep it at the gathering.
(10:21):
You know, we're able to get together for this person's birthday,
We're able to get together for this holiday. There is
no communication between us and between This is all to
you know, be family, to have kids, play with kids,
and adults see adults. It's not for us to be
in this you know, happy circumstance together because we don't
(10:42):
have that type of relationship. So just being in someone's
presence does not mean that you have a close relationship.
It's really the intimacy in the relationship that shows where
the closeness is. So if you show up to a
family gathering, it doesn't mean that you have the same
level of closeness with everyone there. It just means you're
(11:03):
at the family gathering. So I do wonder is it
possible for you to just be cordial in this conversation.
I remembered a book that I read called Rebecca not Becky.
It's a novel and it talks about just racial dynamics
between you know, various cultures and these nuances that may
(11:24):
happen and people don't even realize that that's offensive or
that's some bias that you have, like these things happen,
and if you are predominantly around your culture and you
don't have other exposure, you may not even realize some
of these things you're doing because it's you know, it's
really normal. It's really normal to be, you know, kind
(11:47):
of like in this box of this is how everything is,
and this is what we can say, and this was
what we could do and really buy into that I'm
not doing anything wrong or I don't have to change anything.
When an actuality in the general public, it's not okay,
it is not a norm, it is inappropriate. And so
you know, maybe having some idea that because of this
(12:10):
family culture or because of you know, who she is,
there may be a lack of understanding and you don't
have to shift that for her. But I do wonder,
you know, if you want to be in this family,
how do you provide some clarity around hey and laws.
I understand that you want us to have, you know,
this relationship, and maybe it could be surface level, right.
(12:33):
I think about, you know, people we work with, and
I don't have a super close relationship with everyone that
I work with, but some people I do, and that's
based on who they are, and you know the things
we have in common and our interests in all of
these things, and we can do that. You know, we
choose to turn that that sort of switch on on
and off, like I can be in this sort of
(12:56):
relationship with this person and then on this other way
I choose not to and so you can have that
switch on and off. Now, maybe you say every relationship
I have it needs to be deeply connected. You know
that's not going to be true. There are some surface
level relationships that we have, and maybe the agreement is
to have a surface level relationship with this in law.
(13:19):
You know, you've highlighted what she's done. It sounds like
you've written letters about it. Again, you know, there is
time on your side. You're still in the family, so
you know, who knows what this may look like in
a few years as she has some you know, life
experience under her belt. This may be a situation you
(13:41):
can return to and have an adult, mature conversation around.
Or it might be a situation where, you know, it
sort of stays in this surface level sort of space.
But we'll see. Let's take a break and we'll be back.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I'm torn because on one hand, I want to move
forward and I want this drama out of my life.
We haven't done any holidays in several years with his
family in order to avoid a sister and my husband
and my wedding, which should have been super happy moment
for everyone, wasn't because his parents were cold and upset
about the situation. Seemingly though they are able to have
(14:23):
a warm relationship with his sister even though she's also
responsible for this situation. On the other hand, it feels
really toxic to engage with this ultimatum that it feels
like we're in. I also can't help feeling that if
I give in, everyone will have what they want, but.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Me, what do you want in this situation? I hear
that she apologized, Are you wanting change behavior? How will
you give her space to reflect that her behavior has changed?
(14:59):
Because if you you don't have any interaction with her,
how will you even see the change behavior? If that's
what you're wanting? Do you want maybe nothing to do
with this situation? Has that been stated? I haven't, you know,
necessarily heard that that has been stated, But I think
there are some clarity needed around what do you actually
want in this situation?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You know, if you feel like I'm in the middle
of a family situation where they're like, you know, we
want you to just be in relationship with her. You
get to decide what that relationship looks like. It might
be like, don't let me in a kitchen with her,
But we're fine together at the table with eight other people.
That's that's where we're at. If we're in a kitchen together,
(15:43):
I'm just gonna get my little water and I'm gonna
just smooth walk out of here. I don't want to,
you know, I don't want to be in a space
with her. It is your right to do that. But
you are at the family gathering, you know. So I
wonder in this situation, what could compromise on both sides
look like it sounds like this is a situation. You
do care about it. Hey, you wrote a letter about it.
(16:05):
You want some advice about it. So you do care
about this situation. So could it be to your benefit
to figure out a way to be in it without
giving in a way that would be harmful to you
or that would cost further harm? You know, I think
you know. Racial comments are one of those things where
they hurt deeply and even after the person apologizes, it
(16:28):
does say something about what they think about you overall.
So maybe the apology wasn't enough. Maybe it really didn't
remedy the situation. Maybe you're not ready to forgive her
for this. Maybe you're still processing, and that's okay too.
You don't have to quickly forgive because everybody else is
ready for it. Maybe you still need time. You need
(16:52):
to hear this, forgive people in your own time. I
know some of us us we are on everyone else's timeline.
You know you need to do this by Thanksgiving. You
need to have this talk. You need to get over
it with this person because everyone is, you know, watching
this thing unfold. They're uncomfortable, they don't know how to respond.
(17:15):
They're trying to manage their feelings, and what they think
should happen to help them is that you get over
this thing. But you can take your time forgiving people
being upset with them. Those things take time, and there
is no one person who could say, Okay, now's the
time for you to be over it. You'll know when
you know, and it might not be today, it may
(17:39):
not be at the next gathering. The situations that happens
in our family, we need to give them more time.
We need to process them, and sometimes we have to
ask people, please don't hurry me. I'm still processing. It's
okay to say that, please don't hurry me. You need
(17:59):
to hear this is an iHeart production hosted by me
Nedra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joe l. Bdique.
Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send
us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and
relationships at you need to Hear this at iHeartMedia dot com.
(18:21):
Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen
to it, and share this episode with someone who needs
to hear this. Talk to you next time
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