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We all make deals with ourselves when it comes to the difficult people in our lives.

Carolyn Hax

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Carolyn Hax
Age: 57
Born: 1966
Born: December 5
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Bridgeport
Connecticut
Carolyn Hanley Hax
Deals
Lives
Difficult
Comes
Make
People

More quotes by Carolyn Hax

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Separating is not divorcing. Please keep that in mind. It is, instead, the second step in seeing if there's a better way to manage your family.
Carolyn Hax
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There's nothing wrong with being happy somewhere, even if it's the little pond you grew up in, as long as you are in fact comfortable vs. bored.
Carolyn Hax
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No matter what else comes, your courage will be your companion for life.
Carolyn Hax
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First group impressions can mask a lot of individual variations in the members.
Carolyn Hax
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Being negative is easy. There will always be a downside to everything good, a hurdle to everything desirable, a con to every pro. The real courage is in finding the good in what you have, the opportunities in every hurdle, the pros in every con.
Carolyn Hax
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It's okay to forgive yourself immediately and for good.
Carolyn Hax
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One helpful thing to keep in mind as a retort-stopper is that you won't win, you won't change anyone's mind, you won't change any votes, you won't make the atmosphere in the room any better, YOU won't feel any better.
Carolyn Hax
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I have no quarrel with people who lack the skill or temperament to care for small children.
Carolyn Hax
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Plan your own vacations when you want to, and plan a suitable combined vacation with this other family when you want to. If they freak out at your planning your own vacations as you see fit, then let them. Bowing to unreasonable demands because someone will make you pay emotionally if you don't is not a healthy option.
Carolyn Hax
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Your parents' views are, by current standards, out there. Getting in their faces about it would be needlessly disrespectful, but there's no reason for you to tiptoe through their delusional little terrarium as if you can't bend even one blade of grass.
Carolyn Hax
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Make sure you have legal cover for what you're doing.
Carolyn Hax
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Your job is to be you, which includes being the chief beneficiary of all things you do right, the chief victim of all you do wrong, and the one person on Earth who has to live with every choice you make. As gatekeeper to your life, you’re it.
Carolyn Hax
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Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.
Carolyn Hax
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When you are stuck in a group of people who merely trade turns at talking about themselves instead of actually conversing, it could be a matter of their not really knowing how to converse as opposed to being too small-minded or excessively Facebooked.
Carolyn Hax
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It takes awareness that it's not only not a bad thing to let others do things their own way, it is in fact an improvement. It makes life richer and more interesting.
Carolyn Hax
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I believe in innocence until there's proof of guilt and all that.
Carolyn Hax
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A lot of support gets withheld out of fear of awkwardness and misspeaking.
Carolyn Hax
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Instead of talking at each other about the non-business-related contact, talk to each other about your concerns about marriage. Listen a lot, too.
Carolyn Hax
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Bodies and minds need breaks or the work suffers, this has been proven and reproven to the point where we don't even need to post links to support it.
Carolyn Hax
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I think a person who arranges the event and orders the food also picks up the check - even the birthday person, even when people at the table insist on paying for the birthday person.
Carolyn Hax