Minimizing Relational Stress During the Holidays
Holidays can be a fun and festive time of the year! However, for some, the challenges of navigating difficult relationships can significantly increase stress over the holidays. One of the most difficult transitions for many new couples is successfully navigating their favorite holiday traditions. Dinner at Aunt Mary’s, every Christmas Eve, now falls at the exact same time as your new or soon to be mother-in-law’s special holiday dinner. Your Aunt Mary’s is the only time you get to see your whole family and you look forward to it every year! However, your partner will be devastated if you miss dinner at her mom’s. You each think but it’s my family’s tradition, and I don’t want to give this up. Some couples stressfully scramble between both events, while others alternate years, and yet others always find themselves guilt tripped, faced with angry relatives, or even threats of disownment. The more adult children in a family with their own respective partners, the greater the potential for time conflicts! So how can we navigate these challenges and minimize our stress?
Relationship researchers, couples’ therapists, and therapist trainers Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman recognize this transition as a difficult stage in a relationship when the new couple navigates loosening ties with their family of origin while they build new ties with their chosen partner in their book The Science of Couples and Family Therapy. When your primary ties or responsibilities remain with your family of origin over your partner, this can cause problems with trust, a sense of safety, or generally feeling like your partner is not there for you. In some cultures, the woman was often expected to leave her family, and make her partner’s family a priority. If prioritizing one family over another becomes expected, it is bound to create tension with the other family and strain those relationships. However, this is a belief that is rarely discussed prior to marriage and if one partner still feels this way, it can become an area of significant stress for the other partner and their family.
Creating your own new family unit where you openly discuss your values and beliefs, are free and safe to express your wants and needs, creates a sense of safety. In What Makes Love Last? by Gottman and Silver, when partners feel heard, respected, and important to their partner, it helps build trust and a sense that your partner has your back. This creates security in the relationship. One of the more common communication styles that leads to further conflict is the inability to really listen to what something means to your partner, because you are too focused on your rebuttal or proving your own point. Learning how to listen effectively, with empathy, is a big part of both The Gottman Method and Imago Therapy approaches in couple’s therapy. This can become even more difficult if we consider some of the more difficult people we may have in our families and how we try to placate them to minimize our own frustration. This can quickly backfire if we do not take our spouse/partner’s feelings into consideration. Sometimes we just must accept that we cannot appease everyone and make the best choice for the new couple.
What if Auntie Mary or Mom lays on the guilt trip or major drama? Maybe she starts telling younger members of the family that you don’t love them anymore now that you are with your partner?! Or they start to blame your partner for taking you away from or turning you against your family. Dr. Alan Godwin in How to Solve Your People Problems: Dealing with your Difficult Relationships notes that “bad conflicts” start from a sense that there is something wrong with me, or my values/beliefs are wrong (ie. the person I chose as a partner). It doesn’t allow for growth, which is the hallmark of good conflict. Unhealthy dynamics include tactics of control, manipulation, guilt/shame, gaslighting, to name a few. Control may be a lack of flexibility in terms of time or dates when trying to coordinate events – they only have a short 2-hour window available – take it or leave it – with no consideration for plans you may already have. Then you are blamed if you do not change your plans to accommodate them because they were “available” and you not accommodating them makes you “difficult.” Manipulation may be having dinner run late to prevent you from leaving, when they know you were planning on going to another event. Guilt and shame can be used as destructive tools when you do not do what others want. Gaslighting can include “forgetting” you were with them last holiday and this time is the other family’s turn. Time stamped photos at the events with dates and times can help but may not be good enough for the worst gaslighters who only see what they want!
Navigating the difficult people in our families is often learned from an early age. Some of us chose to go along to get along, while others may be more vocal about asserting their own wants/needs. These are often coping styles that are unconscious and can lead to problems when our partner’s style is different from our own. If our partner would prefer to stay out of it or expects you to deal with the difficult family members on their side while they stay out of it – this is often a precarious position. Unless you go along, you can be labelled, difficult, entitled, spoiled, selfish, etc. Healthy boundaries need to be set between the partners of new couple, between the individuals and their respective families, and between partners and in-laws. Cloud & Townsend’s book, Boundaries is an excellent guide for healthy boundaries. As mentioned earlier, when the primary loyalty is to the family and not the partner, this will cause problems within the couple. If one of the partners refuses to address issues within their own family, or allows their partner to be blamed, targeted, abused, or treated poorly by their family, this can cause significant issues in the couple relationship and has been a factor in couples separating. That being said, an individual who has always tried to go along to get along may need professional help to learn how to exercise their assertiveness in a healthy manner and set realistic and healthy boundaries.
Parents often struggle with the transition of their children from late adolescence into adulthood, when adult children move from still accepting/wanting parent’s input, to wanting to make their own choices and be respected as an adult. Learning how to respect our children’s choices without sharing our advice/opinions is difficult for many parents. Accepting their choices, even if parents do not agree with them, is an important part of encouraging competence and confidence in our adult children. They will make good and bad choices as they grow and mature, we all did at that age! Respecting their choices is an important part of allowing them to move into adulthood and independence. Respecting their choices means not questioning or making small comments to indicate your difference of opinion. Your adult child will appreciate it more if you quietly accept and respect their choices. If some choices eventually have negative consequences, it’s important to allow them to learn from their own choices, adjust and grow as individuals. Support them by validating their feelings and loving them. Try not to fix things or give your opinion after the fact. This is especially important when it comes to their choice of partner. Many parents risk alienating adult children over this issue and may cause tension in the relationship with their child or between their child and partner. This is an important healthy boundary for a good relationship with your adult child.
When it comes to dealing with the difficult people in our lives, holidays can become even more stressful on top of the typical holiday stresses! Setting firm, healthy boundaries can help to minimize some of this stress. Place the priority on the newly evolving family with your spouse/partner, treating them how you would like to be treated by them. When meeting conflict, respond with assertive, calm communication, and firm boundaries, rather than reactive emotion. Each partner should address conflicts or concerns with their own family members, to prevent your partner/spouse from being triangulated. If attending multiple events, stick to your pre-arranged times for each location, regardless of others’ actions, or objections. If alternating years, take photos with time and date stamps so you can remember which event you attended which year, to ensure you balance events fairly. Finally, try to keep yourself removed from any potential family conflicts with other members if they occur at events. Stay neutral, do not pick sides, as this is simply another form of triangulation. Make every effort to minimize or remove yourself from family drama at every turn to minimize your holiday stress. Wishing you all Happy Holidays and minimal stress in this busy and sometimes challenging time of the year!