Keeping something sensitve away from your girlfriend.?

What would you do if you find yourself in the middle of a family disagreement that involves your girlfriend and her sister? They love each other and family is very important to them. However, the sister is sharing with you how she feels about her sister, calling her a liar and badmouthing her. She鈥檚 angry and ranting because of family sensitive issues. You are there listening because she is requesting your opinion, but you are there listening and to help her to think about decisions that are sensitive, so that there would not be any family conflict. You are pretty much enduring the bad things she is saying about your love of your life. But you don鈥檛 say anything or interrupt because you know she is ranting and angry. You are afraid that if you respond and question her behavior it may backfire causing more conflict. Would you tell your girlfriend about the incident? How would you handle it? What about if she finds out and hurt by that fact you never told her? Is that a betrayal?

The one thing that kills relationships is secrets because secrets block communication and it's communication that makes a relationship work.

How you talk to her about it is the key thing.

A good way to start is to ask for her help about something that is awkward. Asking for help gets her "on your side". When you say what's happened don't go into detail about what the sister said because that's just hurtful. You're right she was ranting, which means she wasn't really thinking, so she'll have said a lot of stuff that isn't even slightly true (angry people *always* lie).

You need to emphasise the fact that it's put you in a really awkward position and that you really didn't want to talk about it but (as you said) to keep it a secret is a betrayal and you don't want to have secrets.

Having said all that, there is a more basic situation here.

Where there is a conflict between people that can't be sorted out, it means that there is someone else causing the trouble behind the scenes, secretly. Someone is whispering lies into the sister's ear about your g/f.

And that's what you should be looking for if the problem won't resolve.