Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. When we're born, we don't get to choose who our parents are. And of course we can't choose our siblings or our relatives. These are ones that we were born with that are given to us.

Sometimes our relatives, our family members can be beautiful, incredibly supportive,

the people that we turn to in hard times,

and the ones that we just really enjoy being with. But this isn't always a case for all of us.

Some people are born into abusive families, families that are cruel, that are not kind or supportive, and it almost

seems like they want to tear us down more than build us up.

But thankfully, as we age, we get choices. We get to choose who we hang out with and who

we call our friends. Sometimes our friends end up being people that we've fallen love with, get married to and spend our

lives with, but not always.

We may have fallen in love when we were younger, started a family, and now as time has gone forward,

we find that our partner isn't necessarily our best friend anymore, but because of a myriad of obligations or choices that we make in life,

we may choose to stay in this relationship, even though it isn't based on friendship anymore.

And then in regards to our children, though we deeply love them, sometimes there's periods

of time for long extended periods where that friendship isn't there anymore.

They don't want to have much to do with us, and sometimes we don't really want to necessarily hang out with them either.

There's just so many differences and sometimes a lot of animosity

even with her own children.

And I apologize if this story I'm creating sounds bleak because it's not meant to be.

Some of us are blessed with parents that are our best friends.

Some of us have incredibly supportive relatives. Some of us have incredibly supportive relatives.

Some of us find our soulmate, and we are so excited to get to spend our lives with them.

Some of us have children where there's never bumps and everything goes so well with them.

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