Offer opinion when asked

Dear Amy: My younger sister is 54. She has been divorced three times and has a teenage daughter.

Both of our parents are deceased. My sister now has a nice boyfriend she has lived with for a few years.

The issue is that she cannot seem to keep a job for longer than a year. She has been terminated from at least six jobs (that I can count) in the last 10 years.

She blames others for these terminations, but it’s obvious she is the problem.

I am recently comfortably retired and always feel somewhat guilty about her financial problems. I’ve had people tell me not to worry about her, because she always lands on her feet.

One therapist told me: “Not my monkey, not my circus,” which helped for a few years. But every time she loses a job, my heart sinks.

Any suggestions on how to help her realize that she is the common denominator when it comes to losing these good jobs and to figure out what she is doing wrong?

Worried Older Sister

Dear Worried: Often within a family system, the people who might benefit most from therapy are the least likely to seek it.

I would not use the terminology your therapist used, but I do agree with the thinking behind it.

It is natural for you to want to take care of your younger sister. This is both the joy and the burden of your birth order.

However, your sister is not asking to be taken care of. She is not asking to be ”fixed.”

She likely believes that if the rest of the world would only line up and play fair with her, then she would receive the credit and stability she believes she deserves.

However, if she currently enjoys a stable and positive home life, then she is a success along the most important metric by which human beings can be measured. Her partner is a nice guy who presumably loves her, her daughter is growing and she has a caring older sister. She is likely crafty and resourceful in that she lands on her feet after a failure.

If your sister ever asks you for your perspective, you should offer it.

Until that day, you should relax into your big sister role and accept your flawed but scrappy sister just as she is.

Dear Amy: Sometimes, when my husband and I fight, it’s because I’ve been clumsy and done or said something impolite.

He responds in kind, and then insists on an apology, which I give.

When I ask him to apologize for his unkind reaction, he says, “You started it, so I don’t need to apologize.”

All of our fights end with him getting an apology and me getting nothing. Do you agree that the person who “started it” should never get an apology?

One-Sided

Dear One-Sided: None of what you two do would be considered “fighting fair.” This seems more like scoresettling than mature adults offering sincere apologies and receiving forgiveness.

If you two were in kindergarten and you deliberately hit your husband with a ball, and then he picked it up and hit you right back, a teacher would ask you to apologize to one another, because you’ve both done something you shouldn’t have done that has hurt the other.

You two should not only settle scores but actually attempt to reconcile and rebalance. And this man who so values apologies should learn how to offer one.