Forced to Be Family: A Guide for Living with Sinister Sisters, Drama Mamas, and Infuriating In-Laws

Introduction.

PART ONE: FEMALES IN THE FAMILY WAY.

1: A Tale of Two Sisters.

2: The Kitchen Wars: Relational Aggression between Female Relatives.

3: The Female Family Clique.

4: Hardwired to Care: The Kin-Keepers.

5: Men Are Like Bricks, Women Are Like Mortar.

6: Competition: A Help or Hurt?

7: How True, and for Who?

8: Friend vs. Female Family Feuds.

PART TWO: MOTHERS, SISTERS, AND DAUGHTERS.

9: Motherhood Revisited.

10: Distressing Daughters.

11: Sweetly Sinister Sisters.

PART THREE: IN LAWS AND OTHERS.

12: Mothers and Sisters, By Law.

13: Daughtering, The In-Law Way.

PART FOUR: NOT QUITE FAMILY, DEFINITELY RA.

14: Family, More or Less: Extended, Extra, or Estranged.

15: Carebearing and Carewearing.

16: Really Forced to be Family: Divorced.

PART FIVE: CONNECTED, CARING, OR COPING.

17: The Female Family Maintenance Plan.

18: The Transformation Treatment Plan.

19: A Time to Act.

20: Special Strategies for Mother or Sister RA.

21: Special Strategies for In-Laws or Exes.

22: Relative RA: What a Therapist Has to Say.

23: Turning Relative Aggression into Relational Affection.

References.

Index.