First of all- I apologize if this has been posted before, I looked everywhere for someone who had similar issues to me and I couldn't find anything similar. Second of all- I have autism, I'm sorry if my responses are blunt or seemingly rude. This program is insanely confusing to me.

The actual point of the post: I've been trying to use SimPE to edit Ophelia Nigmos and Nervous Subject (I'm trying to make them recognize each other as cousins so they DON'T keep flirting) but every tutorial seems to show and describe things I can't find. One example is the plugins view- for me, its entirely blank, and no information shows up. I would insert an image here but I'm new to MTS so I'm not fully sure how to do that. Even the UI doesn't match what others seem to see, even if they use the same version of SimPE as I do (which, on the top of the tab, says "SimPE 0.27")

I also can't open things like the sim browser or neighborhood browser without them quickly crashing. A small grey rectangular box will show up for about 3 seconds and then the entire program will close out, needing me to reopen it. Its really upsetting since almost all tutorials I see can use the program easily without fuss, and never even mention these things and how you can fix them. I'm really not sure if this is on my end or if its something else, like my laptop or my game.

Any advice? I sincerely apologize if this is redundant or is a super easy fix.

EDIT: After finding out I was using the dinosaur version of SimPE, turns out editing family ties is insanely easy. Now Nervous and Ophelia ACTUALLY are cousins!

I'm an experienced, not an expert, Sims2 player and have been using SimPE since I discovered it (via a magazine CD in Germany, in about 2004!).

To your problem: if you really are using SimPE 0.27, then the first step is to get a more recent version (the very early versions were only useful for Recolors). I use SimPE 0.72 - which does practically everything I want it to (including editing family ties). I don't use the later version (SimPE 0.75) unless I really have to because it takes for ever to load.

The next step is to make sure your game is backed up (I use the SimPE function for this, but you could just copy the whole Neighborhood to your Desktop for security).

There are two main steps to creating a family relationship. First, using Family Ties, you have to amend the family trees of both Sims; second, using Sim Description/Relationships, marking them as "cousin", "sibling", etc. SimPE doesn't do any of it for you.
If you want to turn non-related Sims into cousins, you might have to provide them with a common ancestor (e.g. grandparent) - which means even more family trees/sim descriptions to be altered. Set aside several hours for this so that you can keep swapping between SimPE and The Sims 2 (I don't think it's possible to have a Neighborhood open in both at the same time). And keep track of what you've done - paper and pencil, in my case!

I haven't provided screenshots of any of this: half the fun of SimPE is looking at all the options to see what they do. And for newcomers to it all, overcoming the fear that you're going to lose everything you've already achieved - because, of course, you've made a backup copy - haven't you?
Good luck!

Thank you!! I've already got backing up down so now I just need to get an actually up-to-date version of SimPE. this really helped.