Do you create or feed the monster you know?

My brother-in-law is always complaining about his mom and even though he lives countries apart from her he is always giving in to her demands and wants.
My husband manages to talk to her every week without much incident because he knows how to say no and mean it. He knows if you feed a mouse a cookie it will come back as a super sized rat. So every once in a while she will test him out and find no cookie.

Then you have the creators of monsters that don’t exist. The ones that twist everything you say. You say; “drive safely”, and they come back with, why do you always think I’m a horrible driver? They ask,“do these two things look good together”, and you answer honestly and they say you are always critical.