The Stress of Family

With the holidays coming, some of us will be spending time with our family, which can be challenging at times. Some of us will be dealing with parents who don’t support our decisions, or siblings who can be jealous, partners who would rather be anywhere but around family, people who don’t follow the routines we’ve established for our children, and many other obstacles.

So how do we deal with the challenges and still enjoy our time together?

The most important thing to remember is that your feelings of enjoyment, or frustration, or anger, all stem from your own thoughts about what is going on, and not actually from what is going on. That is good news because it puts you in control. However, I don’t want to dismiss the challenges you might face.

It’s important for us to realize that we do have expectations we really want other people in our life to fulfill, and we often want them to do things even if they don’t want to do them. It’s important to acknowledge your desire for people to do things you want them to do, and know that there is nothing wrong with that. Where it becomes a problem is when you change the way you feel or change the way you show up based on how your family decides to show up.

So here’s what I mean. You can say to your partner, “I would love for you to come and spend time with my family at this event.” The expectation is valid and the asking is valid. But if he chooses to do something different instead, that’s where it becomes tricky to be able to stay who you want to be and not let that define how you act towards him or towards your family at the event.

If the circumstance is he’s not going to come, then you get to decide how you want to feel about that. If you want to feel upset and discouraged, that’s valid, but you need to own that you’re causing your own discouragement, not him.

Your expectation of how he should behave is what’s causing that. Not his decision not to come. It’s really important that you recognize that and make that distinction because if you don’t, then you will blame him for how you feel. Whenever you blame someone else for how you’re feeling, you give them the power, and you take it away from yourself. You make them a villain, and you a victim. Then you try to manipulate and change their behavior so you can feel better, which of course is the long way around.

Now imagine a scenario where he gets to do exactly what he wants to do and you are happy with how you show up, and how you live your life, and how you act towards him. This is something that a lot of people have a hard time with because they feel like if you love someone, you should do things for them that you don’t want to do.

This is where we get into trouble because in a lot of relationships, people are doing things they don’t want to do in order to please the other person. I’m doing stuff to please you, and that is at my own “expense,” and you’re doing things to please me at your own expense, so we’re unhappy because we’re doing things that we don’t want to do, and then we’re blaming each other when we don’t feel the way that we want to feel.

It builds a lot of resentment and frustration, and we end up feeling like the other person is causing us to deny our own emotional life and what we want to do at our own expense to please them. 

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you take two people that take care of their own needs and two people that tell the truth and honor their own desires, that’s a really good time.

There are many times when you choose to do something that you normally wouldn’t do because your partner wants you to do it. That is not the same as doing something you don’t want to do with resentment. That’s doing something for your partner that feels good to you because it is for your partner.

There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s when we start expecting our partner to show up that way that we create a lot of tension in our relationships. 

You have to let go of the expectation that his behavior determines how you feel, and it will be the most freeing thing that you do. What causes your feelings is your thinking and it’s much easier to change your thinking than it is to change another person. I promise you that.

Now keep that in mind when your mother criticizes your cooking, your sister brings up every embarrassing story in existence about you, your children misbehave, and the turkey burns.  While you might want all those things to go differently, and you can ask your family to stop, you can’t control what they do or say. However, how you feel and show up in these situations is within your control. Focus on that.