The Rules of Love, 3rd Edition

RULE 76

Nothing is worth falling out over

My mother and my grandmother didn’t speak to each other for the last 15 years of their lives. Some families are like that – strained relationships all over the shop, siblings who don’t speak, cousins who everyone has lost track of and no one even has their addresses.

It runs in families. We learn by example, and if you grow up in a family where people have long-term feuds with relatives, that tends to become the norm. That means that if you stop speaking to your own mother or father, one of your kids may spend 20 years not speaking to you. It’s a very childish form of behaviour to demonstrate to our children, but some people do it.

It’s such a shame, too. Not only is it a bit pathetic that we’d rather ...