Dear Maggie,
My brother sells used cars, and when I went looking for a new-to-me vehicle, his feelings were very hurt, because I was looking elsewhere, not at the dealership where he works.
My reasons were not personal. I just had a preference for a different make than the ones sold where he works.
Anyway, he was so put out about it, that I figured I might as well keep peace in a family, and went and looked, and finally bought a car from his dealership. And he was happy, and I thought I was too.
But I’m not. The car’s had one problem after another, and it’s been back there five times in as many months for various repairs. My brother seems to think that as long as the repairs are done, I shouldn’t complain. He doesn’t seem to understand the inconvenience to me to have to keep going back there, spending time waiting, making and keeping appointments, and phone calls and so on. And now, when yet one more thing goes wrong, he seems angry with me. He acts as if I’m being too demanding, as if I’m putting him in a bad light by making the dealership live up to its end of the bargain, no matter how many visits it takes. He accused me of expecting special treatment because he’s my brother.
I didn’t even want this car. And now all I want is for it to run the way it should. What should I do?
Driven to Madness

Dear Driven,
We have to do what feels best to us. When we put aside what feels best to us in order to make someone else happy, it pretty much always fails. We can’t make anyone else happy. It’s our job to do what makes US happy, and then we are in the best possible place to give to others. You just can’t buck your own current, and expect it to work out. And when others say, “I’d be happy if YOU would only do X,” we need to remember that it’s never true. They’re not happy because of them, it has nothing to do with us. So that’s first. Never make yourself unhappy to make someone else happy, because then you’ll both end up unhappy, which is what has happened here.
And another less spiritually deep but equally accurate rule is this: never do business with family.
Now that we’ve got that straight, you need to put the car on the market immediately. Have them fix what’s wrong, and then sell it before anything else goes bad, and then go out and buy the car you wanted to begin with.
Tell your brother when he asks why (and he will,) “Look, you weren’t happy when I wasn’t going to buy the car from you, so I did, and you’re still not happy. It’s apparent to me that nothing I do really has anything to do with your happiness. That’s your job. My job, right now, is to correct the mistake I made in thinking otherwise, and to go get the car I want so that I can be happy.”
Good luck!
Maggie