Families are all about individuals who are there for each other. They might be blood or marital relations, but they prove by their actions rather than their associations what the family unit means. If you have someone who acts selflessly to help their family members before themselves, that’s noble, and it’s a good way to be.
However, you might also encounter someone who acts contrary to a family’s happiness. Because of their actions or inactions, they make it harder for their family to function. They might cause strife and misery if they don’t mend their ways.
Let’s look at some things you might do that can hurt your family. These are activities that you want to avoid if you want your family to love and accept you.
Lying
Sometimes, things happen that can harm your family over which you have no control. A car hitting one of your children could be one example. Pedestrian accidents caused 245 child deaths in 2016, so these instances are not uncommon.
You can’t usually decide when an outside influence might damage your family’s happiness. Your actions are all you can control.
For instance, you can hurt your family by lying to them. You might lie about all kinds of things. You could lie about why your boss passed you over for a promotion. You might lie to your spouse and tell them you want another child, when in actuality, you do not.
Some people tell untruths as a matter of course because they’ve always done it. These habitual liars often gain nothing from the lie. They’re just used to doing it, so they see no reason to deviate from the behavior.
If you lie to your family members, though, and they catch you in that lie, that will make it tougher for them to trust you in the future. It’s almost always better to tell your family members the truth, even if that’s the harder thing to do.
You have to trust that they will continue loving you even if you’ve disappointed them in some way. Lying more often than not comes back to bite you, and if you want a happy, long-lasting family unit, it’s almost always counterproductive.
Cheating
Infidelity is something else that harms your family. If you have children, and your spouse or partner finds out that you cheated on them, they may request a separation or divorce. If that happens, then you’ve torpedoed the relationship, and your actions have hurt your children as well as the partner who trusted you.
Your selfishness in these situations hurts multiple people. Maybe you used to cheat when you were younger, but once you’re older, if you find a partner with whom you can be happy, you need to change your ways. If you can’t, then it’s likely that your contentment will not last.
Theft
You might also have the habit of stealing things. Maybe you take things from your job if you find that the security system isn’t the best. Perhaps it could be something as innocuous as office supplies, or maybe it’s something more serious, like money.
You could also shoplift. You may even rob people or stores at gunpoint. That’s dangerous, criminal, and antisocial behavior.
Any of these activities can easily prove to be disastrous. If your boss discovers you, they might fire you from your job. If the police catch you shoplifting or robbing people, you could face jail time.
That’s going to hurt your family since you will either be out of work, or else you’ll have to spend some time in jail and away from them. You need to get out of that habit and stop taking things that don’t belong to you, even if you have noble intentions.
Drug or Alcohol Use
You might also use drugs or alcohol habitually. Either of these habits can harm your family in a variety of ways.
If you overindulge at a bar and try to drive, the police might catch you, and you’ll get a DUI. If that happens, they might suspend your license. That means it will be harder for you to get to work, and you won’t be able to pick your children up after school.
If the cops catch you with illegal drugs, they might put you in jail for that as well. For your family’s sake, these are habits that you have to change. If you can’t do so on your own, you might look into AA or NA.