Sibling has hard time helping sister with issues

do to help. It’s an incredibly common problem, painful to watch and stubborn as hell.

2) Telling people what they want to hear is never the answer unless there’s a gun to your head or they’re on their deathbed. (OK, maybe there are a couple of other exceptions, but I’m near the end of my week and I want to go out in a blaze of hyperbole.) Telling people what they want to hear is at its core an act of disrespect. It’s: “You can’t handle the truth!”

3) With jerk-dating patterns, it’s never about the jerks or any given jerk – so if you’re talking about a particular guy, you’ve already lost the battle and are losing the war. The problem is your sister, full stop.

4) The problem isn’t that your sister isn’t lovable. It’s that her picker is broken: What attracts her to someone is out of alignment with what is healthy for her.

5) I can’t identify the emotional problem behind that problem because I don’t know her – but she can, if she has the courage. Big if. The one thing I know for sure is that she seeks out what feels comfortable and familiar to her emotionally, even though in her case what is familiar is not healthy.

6) A good therapist could help her identify what feelings are familiar, what part of that familiarity backfires on her, and why.

So – what does this mean for you? Not much that feels productive or satisfying, alas, but it’s worth a try: Call her back to say, “You’re not unlovable, boring or ugly, as you know. But I think you also knowthat you’re repeatedly choosing people who aren’t healthy for you.”