This one needs serious help.

Was that the original work or the rewrite? I think you've got the ideas down and there is a general flow to your work. You've also clearly stated your thoughts and opinions on this. Great work putting more personal views on the matter but its up to you to put details on what family members do not deserve respect and what friends, acquaintances do. If you at least gave one example of each it would give the reader a picture of what you are thinking and what you've experienced this subject matter. Another thing to note, consider counterarguments and differing views in some of your writing. You may not get them all or you might not have the time for a good amount of them, but you could cover a few basic ones (or at the very least a couple of them). Differing view: You mentioned a choice between relatives and the spouse. I would say from my own experience that the blood-water paradox does not apply to a spouse. In fact I've gone further, my spouse would come first, before family, before obligations, even before country. Its possible some people have different interpretations of the blood-water paradox and they'll see things slightly different from you, that it applies to family-friends and exceptions like spouse can occur. Well now that I've gotten my brain running at beyond 120% I can see this helping your own argument (you can claim this or at least consider it). Different view (another): You also mentioned a lack of choice when it comes to family, very true. And there are plenty of instances where blood(family) is very thin. Examples include: abusive parents, incompetent parents, horrific family members, completely selfish family members. None of these people deserves the automatic respect due to their being blood family. Instead, they should be condemned for their offensive acts. One counterargument: Even though family can be disgusting, there are those who still need their just respect, mother and father for instance for creating you. For this, note that there is a minimum respect for your creation, but then bring the point back to how horrible family might be. Its worthless to fully respect someone who created you yet abused you horribly for almost a quarter of your natural life. It makes no sense to completely respect a parent who's real bottom line is themselves and not their child. Its foolish to fully respect family that constantly insults you, ignores you or uses you. Second counterargument: Yes friends and family can be like family and very dependable, but they can also betray you For this point, note that we are talking about people here (people make up BOTH friends and family). People can change and some can fall out of favor with you in many ways. However this can apply to both friends and family. This point shouldn't even matter and does nothing to advocate for why family should be respected more than friends and other unrelated loved ones. Third counterargument: But if family and friends are all amiable in a person's view, family should get precedence over friends and other people. In a case like this it might be better to accept the point for what its worth overall. Remember though that this case seems to imply more of a dire situation context (like choosing who to save from a ledge). Its your choice to either acknowledge this point and try to mitigate or clarify your stance on the subject matter overall, or you can dismiss this point on the grounds that many life situations can happen but conciding problems are much rarer. Even in less serious cases, you can raincheck either friends or family at your discretion. No real harm comes from it, the relationship remains, and you can resume your social links with the other people as you wish. In more common but serious cases, a person has to make choices about which people to help, and in plenty of cases a person can help a couple or multiple people with their problems (one family member having a relationship problem, another friend having a family problem). People will vary on how to handle each one, but people have the choice to do what they will with each situation. For instance, the friend having a family problem maybe more comfortable for a person to deal with than the family member with a dating/relationship problem. Also in this case, individuals have the choice to not interfere at all and let the loved ones sort their problems out on their own. I know that might have been a lot, and it might not be exactly what you are looking for, but these ideas did come to mind and hopefully you'll find some help with these.

You are writing this from the heart which can sometimes make it more difficult to express yourself. Some suggestions I hope might help, change ie, improve the grammar particularly in the first and third paragraphs. Pare down your writing, in other words, tighten it. For instance, leave out the remark, I don't believe this, the next sentence is self-explanatory and makes that remark redundant. Take two or three sentences and make them into one, combine the thoughts together slightly more particularly in the second and third last paragraphs. You have strong, compelling feelings on this subject, keep trying if you would like me to proof some of your work and assist you more, contact me.

I can see why you are stumped on tis one. It is quite a good article. I read number one and was horrified! While well written (to a point)it was just a personal story with no real content relating to the topic. Your article had a common thread which it followed through till the end. This is a rather difficult topic to write on, I admire your decision to tackle it. I have considered doing the same but I can not even decide which side I would want to write on. A problem I face often in the debates, which is ironic really as in high school I made the state debating team for the national championships. ( a prime example can be seen here http:helium.com/tm/583467/) Anyway.... Back to the matter at hand You are right in that as choosing your husband and not your family you should feel a stronger obligation to towards your husband. You have stood before God and the law to declare your commitment to him. He is not your blood, but with him you will create new blood, in the form of children. While brother and sister do not choose one another they can choose what to make of each other and their relationship. Parents have a responsibility to create unbreakable bonds between siblings, which means blood should be thicker than water as it is a bond from birth were as friends are generally after this event. Of course if this bond is not made due to ill treatment then water will become thicker. Having said that though I think that blood bonds should have lower forgiveness levels. Blood should be able gain forgiveness easier than water. There is a lifetime of examples where siblings can pull rank over each other based on previous encounters. I guess maybe the first step in writing on this topic would be a clear definition of what blood equates to, including the exact make up of what family is and how water differs despite similarities that may be found. All these terms mean many different things to many different people. You have to define what they mean to you and how you can relate this to others. After all this writing about it I am getting closer to writing my own version, just for experience sake, plus I haven't written anything new for a while, making my weekly goal harder to attain! Good luck , hope this helps. Let me know where and when I can find a reprint