What if there is a person in your life who is a negative or a toxic presence and who constantly gets away with being hurtful to others (spreading rumours, spiteful and exclusionary behaviour) because no one calls them out on their actions.
Do you confront the person, tell them their faults and then sever the relationship or just practice avoidance? To my way of thinking “bad” people get away with “bad” behaviour because everyone else is too shareef to be as mean and nasty as they are which further enables the bad behaviour. By not saying anything are the rest of us enablers?
^agree.....especially if you are in a situation to influence that person......by confronting that person (hopefully not in argumentative manner) you are only helping that person get better...besides making life of others little easy.
I start with avoidance as long as their behavior is not interfering with mine or my family's life. I usually (no longer) come between other people's relationships with such person unless someone asks me to.
If their behavior is causing problem in our life, I find a right time and place to share my concern about their behavior.
I used to think that if somebody was behaving inappropriately or if they upset you, you should confront them, and if need be let them have it, interms of tell them how they are making you feel. But from my experience, it never works out, if the person is that bad, they will either just completely ignore you, or make out you are in the wrong. So from my opinion it seems as though you are just wasting your energy if you say anything, so I now just don't bother, and instead ignore them completely. That seems to get the message across, although if it is someone you care about, that feels pretty bad too!
The specific person I'm thinking of is a relative of a relative and what a piece of work this lady is!
Let's take for example a simple situation. She won't come down and visit her ILs unless her husband buys her an expensive present - he has to bribe her, and she won't invite his family to their home unless it's "convenient" for her (she never invites them to stay over even though it's a 4 hour drive although her siblings get an invite to stay over).
Yet, despite the fact that she practices exclusionary tactics, his family is expected to jump when she invites them because they don't want to be seen as the "rude" or argumentative relatives. At what point should she be called out on her behaviour?
The husband is definitely encouraging her behaviour - he's rewarding or succumbing to her blackmail. But what about the ILs - by accepting the invitation are they "enabling" her behaviour?
The specific person I'm thinking of is a relative of a relative and what a piece of work this lady is!
Let's take for example a simple situation. She won't come down and visit her ILs unless her husband buys her an expensive present - he has to bribe her, and she won't invite his family to their home unless it's "convenient" for her (she never invites them to stay over even though it's a 4 hour drive although her siblings get an invite to stay over).
Yet, despite the fact that she practices exclusionary tactics, his family is expected to jump when she invites them because they don't want to be seen as the "rude" or argumentative relatives. At what point should she be called out on her behaviour?
Where do you fit in this picture ? It is between her ILs and her . Her husband and her. Why do you want to fix something which is not broken for her ILs and her husband.
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because they don't want to be seen as the "rude" or argumentative relatives
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this bit. that is self inflicted social blackmailing, I think. She knows that they cannot say no so off course she will prefer her convenience than theirs when sending an invitation.
@ Mirch - Not everything we write about is always about ourselves :) The question is more general about enabling bad behaviour.
Also, the example given is just a way to demonstrate this specific lady's choti soch and how she manipulates everyone around her and continues to get away with bad behavior because no one wants to stoop to her level of pettiness and bad behaviour.
this bit. that is self inflicted social blackmailing, I think. She knows that they cannot say no so off course she will prefer her convenience than theirs when sending an invitation.
So does that mean the rest of the family should call her out on her baheviour?
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So does that mean the rest of the family should call her out on her baheviour?
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without ganging up on her, someone needs to talk to her about this. Maybe her hubby should.
You know what, maybe she is doing a lot for hubby already and hubby might be asking her for this extra favor and she is doing naaz nukhray (something that she deserves to do as a loving wife) and hubby is just buying her out of love. I just realized that if my wife takes care of my mother for few weeks and at the end I buy my wife something as a token of appreciation and my mom goes out and tell everyone that oh my son has to buy my bahu something expensive everytime she takes care of me; dont you think that sound like my wife is a horrific bahu where in reality that is not the case.
@ TLK : She got an expensive piece of jewellery for agreeing to attend a family wedding - she refused to attend otherwise.
She's a specific example, but to further illustrate her nastiness, she invited her MIL and other ILs to a party for her kid, the ILs drove 4 plus hours each way and she didn't invite her MIL to stay overnight so she could rest before going back on the return trip - the same MIL who had major surgery just months before, while her own side of the family was invited to stay over at the house. Her husband is also to blame for not putting his foot down or booting her arse, but if he doesn't speak up should the rest of the family stay silent as well?
The specific person I'm thinking of is a relative of a relative and what a piece of work this lady is!
Let's take for example a simple situation. She won't come down and visit her ILs unless her husband buys her an expensive present - he has to bribe her, and she won't invite his family to their home unless it's "convenient" for her (she never invites them to stay over even though it's a 4 hour drive although her siblings get an invite to stay over).
Yet, despite the fact that she practices exclusionary tactics, his family is expected to jump when she invites them because they don't want to be seen as the "rude" or argumentative relatives. At what point should she be called out on her behaviour?
ASA,
Sister, I believe the responsibility lays in the hands of her husband and her parents. As someone previously mentioned, if her actions are not directly interfering with your life or your family's, then you should just avoid it.
On the other hand, if you find that her actions are interfering with your's and your family's lives, then you should try speaking with her husband and if he is incapable of listening, I would recommend competely shutting them all out from your lives. If they create some kinda drama about that, then Allah (swt) will sort that out His way and you can relax knowing you did the right thing.
When in doubt, I always ask people. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) and try to think what would someone as perfect as him do in your case?
