How Therapy Can Help You Navigate Complicated Family Relationships During the Holidays

Although the holidays can be a time for joy and celebration, your family relationships might make things challenging. Difficult interactions with family can take the fun out of the happiest time of the year. You might be nervous about family get-togethers. Maybe you struggle to avoid conflict when you are with your family. Or maybe you receive invasive questions or critical comments that you aren’t sure how to confront.

Thankfully, there is hope for your difficult holiday relationships this holiday season. Today, you will read about ways to improve your interactions with family members this holiday. Then, you will learn how therapy can help you prepare, and how you can get started. 

Families Take Work

If you feel alone in your struggles and stresses when it comes to holiday family time, know you are not alone. In fact, a recent study showed that half of participants admitted to lying about having other plans to avoid seeing family members over the holiday season (Source). Struggling to get along with your family can be exhausting and can take the joy out of this time of the year. (Related Article: Principles of Emotional Health). 

Family conflict can be discouraging no matter the time of the year or the upcoming holidays. Your family struggles might have you wondering if the conflict your family is experiencing is normal. Is it normal to have disagreements with your parents? Do family dinners always need to involve arguing? Will you ever be able to get along with your in-laws?

While these family challenges can be frustrating and upsetting, it might help to know that all relationships require work and effort. And oftentimes, developing healthy family communication involves some discomfort. As you work through these problems and make an effort to change, you will be reevaluating your familys’ patterns, rules, and expectations. Those changes are meant to be a stretch! If things feel different and you are making an effort to improve things in your family, you are probably on the right track.

Families and the Holidays

Your reasons for being nervous about your family interactions this holiday season might be based on a number of complicated factors. Maybe you have a difficult past with a specific challenging family member. Or maybe you are part of a large, contentious family. Whatever your reason for the family struggles, here are a few strategies you can try to be ready to navigate your challenging holiday family interactions this year:

Keep It Realistic

Of course you want things to get better when it comes to your family relationships. In a dream world, you would snap your fingers and things would be solved. You might catch yourself daydreaming about the perfect outcome this holiday season. And having hopes and dreams about bettering your family ties is great! But, when it comes to especially challenging relationships, it can be beneficial to take time to set realistic expectations for the holiday season and your family. If you are struggling with a difficult relative, instead of hoping that they will act completely differently this year, look for smaller positive outcomes that might be more possible. (Related Article: Holiday Season Stress). 

For example, do you and your uncle always fight about politics at Christmas Eve? Hoping for him to not only agree with you this time, but to approach you proactively and apologize for your past interactions is probably not going to happen overnight. Instead, look for smaller steps and goals that can be realistically met in your short term holiday timeline. Instead of expecting a miracle with your Uncle over one Christmas Eve, instead maybe expect that you can try to find at least one thing you have in common. You might still disagree, and you might still argue. Sometimes setting small, reasonable goals can lead to more hopeful, positive outcomes with difficult relatives. 

Choose Your Battles

If you have a pattern of bad interactions with a specific relative during the holidays, you might start to notice the same patterns happening year after year. Maybe one specific topic always leads to fights with Grandma. Or perhaps your aunt tends to get competitive and contentious once the present exchange begins. 

The ability to spot these patterns in your interactions with relatives won’t just magically fix things. But, if you can see the trends before they happen, you can use that information to choose your battles wisely. For example, maybe you decide ahead of time that you will set a boundary with your grandma about those topics that tend to lead to conflict. Or maybe you will make a decision to leave before the presents are exchanged instead of fighting with your aunt again this year. Choosing your battles wisely can help to preserve your energy and create openings for more positive interactions with your family members without sacrificing your sanity. 

You Are Allowed to Leave

There is a chance that you may strategize and plan to be ready for your holiday celebrations with family… and things still don’t go well. Healing and progress is not linear, especially when it comes to complicated family conflict. 

If you find yourself in this position, just remember that you are allowed to leave! There is no mandate saying you must spend all of your time   with family during the holidays. You are not forced to stay for the entire Christmas celebration if you know things are going south. Sometimes deciding to call it early instead of pushing through for the entire Holiday event can preserve your sanity and also give you and your family members a chance to end on a good note. (Related Article: Holiday Family Boundaries). 

Holiday Family Drama? Therapy Can Help

If you are struggling to find joy this holiday season thanks to strained family ties, therapy can help. A therapist can help you work through your family stress and create a plan to help you get the most out of the holidays and your interactions with your family. 

Ready to get started? Schedule an appointment with one of our therapists today in Orem, South Jordan, Spanish Fork, or via Telehealth.

Written by Lauren Adkins