The new year is an important moment to contemplate how to navigate difficult relationships. Now trending on social media is a catchphrase that comes from Mel Robbins, podcaster and author of The Let Them Theory. This idea encourages those struggling in toxic relationships to simply allow their nemesis to behave as they will.

Here’s a sample of how Robbins summarizes her theory, from a blog post on the subject.

"Let them judge you.
Let them misunderstand you.
Let them gossip about you.
Let them be 'right.'
Let them not like you.
Let them not speak to you…
Kindly step aside and 'LET THEM.…'
Let them go."

Robbins has certainly come up with a catchy (if reductive) phrase that offers some prospect of comfort to the hurt and rejected. It coincides with another current trend: familial estrangement.

Though “there is relatively little data on the subject,” Anna Russell reports in The New Yorker, anecdotal evidence indicates that “an increasing number of young people are

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