As it turns out, sometimes you need to handle people

This is a lesson I recently re-learned when I refused to add additional guests to my mother’s birthday party because a close relative had invited other people without me knowing. I refused over the phone in response to her email, and used a condescending, non-negotiable tone. Basically I put the smack down.

Instead of realizing she had overstepped and apologized, she did what came naturally. She turned the entire thing back on me, and then she turned the rest of her family against me, too. Every one of them backed out of the event.

Its fixable, of course, almost everything is, but its been blown way out of proportion and is now causing some of my nearest and dearest a fair amount of pain and vacation obnoxiousness as the self-declared aggrieved parties are refusing to participate in previously planned joint events.

I did the only thing that could be done, I took the high road and called everyone personally to apologize. I did so without any mention of anyone else’s behavior but mine. I just said I was sorry and I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.

While true, this apology overlooks the fact that there were a lot of people that were all a little bit out of line. And everyone sort of owes everyone else an apology, or at the very least a belated Happy Birthday.

What I should have done, though, back at the beginning, was HANDLE HER. It takes significantly more skill, tact, and humility to handle someone but in the greater scheme of things it’s the only way we can all get along.

Reason being, relationships are ongoing. The longer they go one, the more rigid behavior patterns become. When you’re faced with a situation where someone is out of line you need to do a little analysis before determining the tone of your response. In this case, I should have realized that this relative wouldn’t ever realize that she played a part in creating the bad situation. She’s also the kind of person who believes others can be invited to any kind of event, no matter who is hosting it, how close the event is, or how formal it is. She’s behaved like this with our family for the past forty some years.

I should have known better. You have to weigh the grievance of the moment against the duration of your relationship past and future. Saying “no” to this relative was gratifying but it only escalated a situation that I could have just as easily diffused.

You can’t expect to change someone’s behavior overnight, but you can avoid putting yourself in situations where the behavior of others is unacceptable to you. When it can’t be avoided, dig deep and be the bigger person.

When you do, you can have your cake and people to eat it with, too.