Managing Family Boundaries During the Holidays
By a relationship therapist in Denver, colorado
Holiday Pressure on Family Dynamics
It’s that time of year again; all the holiday movies and songs are playing, temperatures are falling, and family gatherings are upon us. For many of us, things don’t play out as smoothly as they do in most holiday films. Whether there’s family trauma, abuse, conflict, or unhealthy family members, maintaining boundaries this time of year is really difficult. Thankfully a healthy set of boundaries and some forethought can decrease, but certainly not eliminate, stress and conflict this time of year.
Boundaries are important year round. They help ease the tension of certain family relationships and maintain our sense of self. The nostalgia and obligation of the holiday season can make it tempting to relax or even eliminate certain boundaries. Here are some ways to maintain boundaries, even in the face of guilt or gaslighting about family holiday celebrations.
Maintaining Boundaries with Unhealthy Family Members
Whether you’re just setting boundaries or trying to maintain them, the most important thing to be clear on are your priorities. Other people, especially toxic family members, love to try to set our priorities for us, and when we refuse to give in to them it can cause a lot of anger and guilt.
Being clear on our own priorities helps us stay focused on a few things:
1. The initial reason for setting the boundary.
Boundaries are set for a particular reason. Whether it was lack of respect for our personal resources, abusive behavior, or constant nagging, that reason still exists. Unless the family member has demonstrated a significant change in their behavior across multiple interactions, it is wise to maintain your boundaries with them. Relaxing your boundaries for the sake of family peace puts you at risk of experiencing the same unhealthy dynamics, further damaging your family relationships.
2. The behaviors we are trying to avoid.
Sometimes we set boundaries with unhealthy family members because of their behaviors, but sometimes we set boundaries because of our own behaviors when we’re with that person or group of people. Family relationships can bring out the best (and worst) in all of us, and sometimes avoiding the situation altogether really is the best option. Getting pulled into a decades old conflict isn’t good for our relationships and usually doesn’t accomplish anything. Whether you set the boundary to avoid your own behaviors or the behavior of others the boundary is valid and worth maintaining.
3. The healthy, balanced life we have built for ourselves.
The healthy boundaries we have set with toxic family members are partially what allows us to build a healthy, balanced, happy life. Boundaries not only help remove the fear of specific interactions, but they allow us to plan responses when the other person violates the boundary. Family relationships can be contentious, but they don’t have to rule our entire lives. Maintaining the boundaries you set year round means you can focus on how you want to spend your holiday season, whether that’s with your family or not.
4. Relationships that support and uplift us.
Giving in to the pressure or obligation to see unhealthy family members during the holiday season takes time away from the healthy, positive relationships we are building. Spending time with people who lift us up and fill our lives with encouragement is good for our mental health. Sacrificing that experience to spend time in family relationships that re-traumatize us or subject us to unhealthy behaviors cheats us out of happy holiday memories with those who are able to respect our boundaries.
5. Your needs, energy, mental health, and other resources.
Toxic family dynamics trick us into invalidating our own needs, which in turn convinces us to violate our own boundaries. Then, when the argument breaks out, or so-and-so gets drunk, or whatever unhealthy dynamic happens, we gaslight ourselves for violating the boundary we originally set. This causes resentment towards those who manipulated us into coming to the event and towards ourselves for relaxing our hard won boundaries. That resentment can cause a feeling of hopelessness, futility, or self-blame that can set us back in our trauma therapy.
Seeing Unhealthy Family Members During the Holidays
It’s not always practical or even desirable to completely avoid family relationships year round. Chances are you like and enjoy seeing some of your family and want to catch up with them during the holidays. Sometimes, the only way to do this is at family holiday gatherings, and there are ways to do this in a relatively healthy way. Taking a few short and simple steps before agreeing to or attending any family functions can ease the stress of these situations.
Stage one - Take time in the weeks and days before the holiday events to decide how you want to engage people can make it easier to respond when the unhealthy dynamics surface.
Some questions to ask yourself:
How long do you want to stay?
Setting a maximum time limit for family functions can help decrease your stress about the event.
Do you want to decide based on how things are going?
How will you check in with your energy throughout the event.
What time do you want to arrive?
Coordinate your arrival/departure with relatives you feel comfortable around.
What topics are off limits for you?
Politics, religion, child rearing, and many other topics can cause a lot of conflict. While you can’t control whether others engage in these topics, you can decide whether you engage in these conversations.
What responses do you need to prepare?
Having some canned responses to prying questions can decrease the stress of responding in the moment.
Example: Aunt Sandra is constantly asking you when you’re going to get married or have babies. This year you decide you’re going to have a rehearsed response of : “Nothing on the horizon! I heard you made the (tasty dish), can I get the recipe?”
Practice some deep breathing or other ways to decrease reactivity to your family. Try some of the exercises in this blog post: Polyvagal Theory - tips for nervous system regulation.
How will you debrief, relax, or do self care after the event is over?
Stage 2 - The day of the event, text or call some friends to remind them you’re going to see unhealthy family members. Making your support system aware of stressful events you’re going to decreases the feeling of isolation that often comes with toxic family relationships.
Stage 3 - During the event, maintain your boundaries and use those canned responses! Remember that no one is entitled to your energy, time, resources, or personal information. Leave when you said you will, or ensure you’re checking in on your emotions and energy. Follow the plan!
Stage 4 - After the event practice the self-care you planned! You decided to sit on your couch and binge watch your favorite TV show? Great! Having drinks with friends? Awesome! Whatever helps you recover from stressful situations, do it, and do it with intention.
Intentional self-care will help restore the balance you’ve been building in your life. Making sure it’s planned and deliberate is essential. It might be tempting to plan something intense after, but it could be more helpful to plan something soothing and calming. Check in with your energy and have a couple options so you don’t feel like you’re failing if you need something low energy. Having something to look forward to after the party can help you stick to time boundaries too, so it’s a win-win!
If, after the gathering, you feel overwhelmed with negativity, or you need to recenter, try a meditation and some deep breathing.
Stage 5 - Reassess. With your friends, mentor, or trauma therapist, recap how the plan went. Debrief with someone trusted if you need to. Celebrate your victories and forgive yourself for anything you didn’t foresee/plan for.
Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships After the Holidays
After the holidays, it may be tempting to re-evaluate your boundaries with family members. This is natural, especially if the holiday events went really well. Discussing this with a therapist, mentor, or trusted friend could be helpful. If a family member reaches out or indicates they want more time or energy from you, you don’t have to readily agree and can absolutely decline.
Your boundaries are your decision, so if you decide to loosen your boundaries a little bit, that’s okay. Remember, you can always change back to the more firm boundaries if you need to. The important thing to remember when dealing with unhealthy family relationships is that your needs and desires are important. Setting and maintaining boundaries, whatever they look like, is essential to good health, a balanced life, and a less stressful holiday season. Read more about boundaries from one of our CTZG relationship therapists, Jordan Kurtz.
If you’d like more support with boundary setting or processing through painful and complex family dynamics, reach out to a relationship therapist on our team! We specialize in supporting couples, families, and individuals with creating healthy relationship dynamics and healing from relationship trauma — we’d love to connect with you.