How to navigate family estrangement over Christmas

This clinician shares her top tips on making your holiday period as stress free as possible when it comes to navigating difficult family relationships.

[Family estrangement – Getty Images] Source: [Family estrangement – Getty Images]

Preview above: Insight hears what it’s like to be estranged from a family member, and under what circumstances reconciliation might be possible. Full ep. on SBS On Demand.

One in 25 Australian adults will be estranged from their family at some point. It can be a difficult, often hidden experience.

In her research, Dr Kylie Agllias, from the University of Newcastle, found that estrangement was not an uncommon experience in families and was not always resolvable.

The University of Newcastle researcher found that when unresolved, estrangement could affect the entire family system – across generations.

Estrangement, conflict, or hostility can be made more difficult to navigate around the Christmas period according to Jayne Ferguson, senior clinician and assistant manager at Relationships Australia Victoria.

“At other times throughout the year you can avoid the people that you don’t like so much,” Ferguson said.

“That’s the issue with Christmas, sometimes you can’t avoid the people that you least like in the family and certainly those ones that you have estrangement with.”

But she said there are steps you can take to help manage the holiday period.

1. It’s your choice whether to attend or not

It might seem obvious, but you don’t have to go to a Christmas event if you don’t want to.

“If it’s highly conflictual and is going to cause a great deal of anxiety and stress then sometimes people should feel free not to attend a Christmas function,” Ferguson said.

Unlike the movies, which often portray happy families coming together to celebrate and have a wonderful time, that is not the case for everybody Ferguson explained.

Not everyone is going to be a ‘festive Netflix film-esque family’ – and that’s okay.

“It’s really important that people feel like they can choose, that it’s not about sabotaging other people’s Christmas, it’s about saying this is a decision we make so conflict doesn’t extend to a time and a place where it can become even more volatile or dangerous for the family members.”

2. Make your feelings known

If you do decide to attend an event it’s important to tell other family members how you may be feeling before going. It’s about finding a support person, an ally, that you can spend time with on the day.

“Run through some of your anxieties around who you’re seeing and why that might make you anxious and how you might manage yourself,” Ferguson said.

“Find somebody who can look out for you on the day, you’re not asking them to go into battle for you, because you’re not going to do battle on the day, it’s not appropriate to do battle on that day, but talk to people.”

3. Don’t drink

Conflict and alcohol usually aren’t a good mix, Ferguson warned.

“If you’re really anxious about being around somebody or concerned about how you’re going to relate to them or how you’re going to respond to them, or communicate with them … be really sensible about how much alcohol is consumed.”

“The introduction of alcohol in that situation can really make people lose their inhibitions and then they’re more likely to say things they might regret and therefore conflict is likely to increase.”

4. Have boundaries

Ferguson suggested having ideas and boundaries on what you may or may not do on the day if you decide to go. Will you talk to them, or will you avoid conversation?

“It’s actually OK to avoid that family member as long as it’s not obvious or it’s not malicious,” Ferguson said.

“You should always shut down any conversation that’s conflictual in nature and you would do that by saying something like ‘today is not the day to discuss this, I’m happy to do that at another time and perhaps we could have some communication after today to arrange a time to talk this through’.”

Ferguson said setting a time limit of how long you will stay can also help manage the stress of the event.

At the end of the day Ferguson said it’s important to remember that we’re only responsible for our own behaviour - we can’t control someone else’s - so it is important to focus on our own actions.

Put simply, if you’re at a family event, understand it’s about managing behaviour – your own. After all, we can’t control someone else’s.