Family Ties
Siblings remember the same childhood differently, and both are right
Two people raised in the same house often describe it as two houses. The reasons are structural rather than a sign that one of them…
Rehan Siddiqui
Contributing writer, Grab My Heart
Rehan writes about conflict and repair, and thinks apologies are a skill.
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17 articles
Family Ties
Going home puts you back in an older version of yourself
Competent adults become teenagers within an hour of arriving at their parents' house. The mechanism is environmental, and knowing…
Family Ties
Care for a parent lands on whoever lives nearest
Families rarely decide who will do the caring. Geography decides it, and the sibling twenty minutes away ends up with a job nobody…
Family Ties
Family money arguments are usually two conversations wearing one coat
A row about a will, a loan or a shared bill is rarely about the amount. Identifying the second conversation is what makes the first…
Repair & Conflict
The argument on the surface is rarely the argument underneath
People fall out about a lift to the airport and stop speaking for a year. What the surface dispute is standing in for, and how to…
Repair & Conflict
Raising something late is harder, and still better than never
Most people say nothing at the time and then find the moment has passed. It has not, and the delayed conversation has a specific…
Repair & Conflict
Forgiveness is not something you can schedule
People decide to forgive and then find they have not. What the word actually covers, and why the decision and the feeling arrive at…
Repair & Conflict
Deciding a friendship is not worth repairing
Not every rupture should be mended, and the writing about friendship rarely says so. How to make the decision deliberately rather…
Repair & Conflict
When a group takes sides after two members fall out
A dispute between two people rearranges everybody around them. What actually happens to a friendship group, and what the other…
Family Ties
Adult siblings drift unless one of them keeps arranging things
Childhood put you in the same building every day and a parent kept the calendar. Remove both and most sibling relationships fall…
Family Ties
Parents are different people to each of their children
Two siblings can describe the same mother and produce two incompatible portraits. Usually both are accurate, because the parent…
Repair & Conflict
Receiving an apology is a skill and most people fumble it
Whole repairs collapse at the moment of acceptance, when the wronged person says it is fine, brings up something else, or accepts…
Repair & Conflict
Some conversations go better in writing and some are ruined by it
The channel is not a detail. Writing gives you precision and no tone; speaking gives you tone and no editing, and picking the wrong…
Repair & Conflict
When you cannot undo the harm, what repair can still offer
Some things cannot be given back: a missed funeral, a broken confidence, years of absence. Repair in those cases is not…
Repair & Conflict
One of you wants to talk it out and the other wants it dropped
The argument about how to handle the argument is usually worse than the original disagreement. Neither approach is wrong, and the…
Repair & Conflict
An argument with an audience is a different argument
The same disagreement conducted in front of other people follows different rules. Positions harden, concessions become expensive…
Repair & Conflict
When you cannot repair it and still have to see them every week
Colleagues, relatives and members of the same small group do not get to walk away from each other. Coexistence is a skill with its…