deepbluesea I’ve been using that approach for over 20 years, but nothing fazes SIL. The whole issue is really academic to me, I’d just been hoping to get a better look inside the head of someone who feels they can change others. I’m a firm believer myself that I’m powerless over other people’s characters (I won’t bring up the issue of raising kids, that’s even more complex), and can only control how I respond to others. And some days I’m content just to be able to control my own bladder.
I hear this often. I also hear any number of counter-examples dismissed as out of bounds for one reason or another: it caused psychological damage, it only changed behavior (as if we had any other means of interpreting what someone thinks/feels/perceives), I meant core values not evryday ordinary values, the change was not absolutely controlled in effect and intention, etc.
So what.
People change. Sometimes other people inspire, influence, direct and even force that change. But if you want to believe that a certain very particular (but not precisely defined) change in one person cannot be caused by another person (without a concommitant side-effect/characteristic from column B) go ahead. I am sure nothing I say will be able to change your mind. 
Short of a controlled time-travel experiment in which your brother if freed from 2 decades of SIL nagging, I cannot imagine how we might be certain whether her harping had an effect on his weight. Perhaps she did create a greater awareness/increased valuation for diet/exercise/appearance than he would have otherwise. Aversion therapy is often effective for such things.
Are you (or SIL) pointing to weight loss as a “core value”? Or would your objection to this stand whether or not SIL had actually effected a change in your brother’s behavior/attitudes/habits?
I don’t think you change the person. You just change how the person interacts with you.
it’s entirely possible for one person to change another. unfortunately, it’s often done unintentionally or otherwise requires much tact and skill. the shouted phrase “change…now!” doesn’t work as well as one might expect.
)?#-ay!
I can make a person change. If a person gave me a dollar, I could give a person 4 quarters; or I could give that person 3 quarters, 2 dimes and 5 pennies.
Once, a person gave me a dollar and I had a bunch of change: 3 quarters, 3 dimes, and 4 pennies, which is $1.09 but couldn’t make that person change. Not exactly anyway. That revelation changed me.
Next question?
It is MY opinion and experience that nagging is worse than useless, it’s detrimental. Particularly with regards to topics as “touchy” in some respects as weight control. If your SIL cooked (or helped cook) healthy meals at home and suggested a brisk walk with her hubby after dinner every night while keeping her mouth shut, he probably would have lost 20 pounds in that time period.
Depending on how much you value your relationship with her, you can either keep YOUR mouth shut to keep things running smoothly, or ask her how much she thinks he would have lost if she hadn’t driven him to eating for comfort during that time. Or just tell her to shut the hell up.
I have family members who nag me continuously about why I’m not married. As much as I love them and value their opinions, the only way this changes me is by making me avoid them. It SERIOUSLY pisses me off. If I eventually get married, will it be because THEY suggested it? Duh.
I don’t think the type of insistent irritation you’re talking about has anything to do with the ways we influence and change one another. I’ve changed because of, and even FOR people I cared about. But not because they rode me like Amtrak from NY to LA.
-L
Yeah, but it changes the way people feel about each other