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A couple days ago I made a fake Reddit post. One of the details I included was about a father who was estranged from his son, because the son had sided with the mother in a divorce. The mother was awarded sole custody and the father and son never repaired that relationship. In the post, the son was now an adult and the father had passed away. I made the post as a writing exercise. The main content of the post was about other stuff, but that doesn't really matter.

One of the interesting things about the responses I got was how people viewed responsibility for repairing the relationship. Some people said it was the father's job to reach out to the son and try to fix that relationship. After all, the son was a kid when the divorce happened, the father should understand that there's a lot of emotions and manipulation that can happen.

Other people thought it was the son's responsibility to reach out. After all, the son was an adult now. He had all the time in the world to reach out to his dad and he didn't.

I found myself agreeing with both arguments. I mean, the only thing you can do to change something is to do it yourself. Like, maybe each one was waiting on the other to reach out, but why? If you want to have a relationship with person, just do it yourself.

It reminds me of a small conversation I had with Elaine's father. He hasn't talked to his sister in months because they got in an argument. In my opinion, she overreacted, and he feels that way too. But I told him, at the end of the day, if he ever wants to talk to her again, he's going to have to apologize. He paused, and then said "Screw that!" jokingly.

But the thing about it is it doesn't matter who was right. He might wait the rest of his life waiting on her to apologize to him, because he was "right" or whatever. But why bother being stubborn like that? At a certain point, it doesn't matter who was right or wrong. It's about fixing the relationship. They both think they are owed an apology. But he doesn't control her actions, only his own. So "be the better man" or whatever. He can never make her apologize, but he can apologize himself, and start building up that relationship again.

And you can bet that I would give her the same advice.

People always get hung up on waiting on the other person.
"I always make plans with Nancy. I'm not calling her until she calls me."
"I shouldn't have to apologize. I was right. I'm not talking to him until he apologizes to me."

Get over it.