Dear Hillary,
My girlfriend and I live in an apartment in town. We have a good relationship except for the fact she keeps losing the keys and mobile phone. This is very annoying, how can I stop her doing this?
Annoyed
Dear Annoyed
Have you ever considered the fact that your girlfriend is losing keys and telephones as a subconscious way of expressing her lack of satisfaction with the relationship or simply as a device to annoy you? It is very difficult, if not impossible to change someone else’s behavior, unless you change your own behavior first. I suggest you change the way you respond to her. One quick fix is to either don’t let her see that it annoys you or simply don’t speak to her for days every time she loses things. The best way though is to “Give her the monkey and let her feed it.” This is a Thai expression for allowing her to take the consequence of her own actions. It might work.
