“I don’t know what to do about my mother. I’ve really benefitted from taking some space from her, but I need a plan for what to do about her during the holidays.”
My clients often struggle with how to handle a difficult family member when it comes to the holidays and family expectations. They don’t enjoy spending time with that person—which even takes courage to simply admit—but it doesn’t feel “right” somehow to avoid them at a time we are “supposed” to spend with family.
It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. You can either feel crappy being around that person or feel guilty and like a bad offspring if you don’t.
How festive and joyful! 😵💫 🤮
No wonder so many people low-key dread the holidays
Credit: @Linkski101
How do we get out of a double bind with a difficult family member?!
Assuming you’ve already made attempts to improve the relationship and those didn’t work, you’re left with two choices: keep putting yourself last or confront your experience of guilt.
By that, I do not mean just “deal with it.” Instead, consider why you feel guilty. What unspoken contract are you violating in your family? For example, is that unspoken contract something commonly held like “we all have to spend time together on the holidays in order to show we are a good family”?
Do you want to stay in that contract, or would you like to change it?
You, and only you, get to ultimately choose what you believe makes you a “good person.”
When you’ve given up on the idea of that difficult person changing, when you no longer have hope that they will be kind to you, validate your experience or even apologize for their behavior, then YOU get to decide what you want to contribute (if anything) to their life. Because you no longer have the expectation that they will contribute to yours.
It can be sad to realize a difficult family member really isn’t ever going to change, but it’s also freeing. It allows you to see their behavior as it truly is, not as what you wish it were or could be.
From this place of self-honesty, you get to reset your contracts and do what gives you peace.