Holiday instruction: How to survive a meeting with relatives
New Year is traditionally considered a family holiday and in a few days the stations and airports will be filled with people who go to celebrate holidays with their families. But for many, the New Year's Eve or a trip to their relatives on a vacation becomes a real challenge. We tell how to overcome it with minimal losses and, perhaps, even get a little pleasure.
Take care of your physical comfort and well-being.
The beauty of adulthood is that now you are fully responsible for your comfort and safety. Unfortunately, many people forget about it and do it the way it is “accepted” and customary, and not the way it is convenient and good. But almost always you can break established rules and create a comfortable environment. This is important to remember.
When you travel for a few days to another city or country to visit your relatives, you have a choice: live with them or stay in a hotel or a rented apartment. Many for some reason do not consider the second option, but in vain. If you know in advance that it will be uncomfortable with relatives under one roof (for example, their apartment does not have a separate room for spending the night; or there is, but there is a bad bed that blows through it; your relatives are used to getting up at seven in the morning and talking loudly owl), or foresee any other serious inconvenience, you have every right to stay in a hotel. Yes, by this you surprise someone and, perhaps, offend. But the right is yours.
Another sore subject is nutrition. If you know for sure that there will not be suitable dishes on the table - you are a vegetarian, and relatives eat everything with meat; they love fat, and you have cholecystitis and a strict diet; grandmother just can’t remember that you are allergic to eggs, and you can put mayonnaise everywhere - buy and bring your own food. You should not expect that for your sake, relatives will suddenly reconsider their eating habits or the mode of the day if they have been living for half a century already. Perhaps the first time you are shocking someone brought food, but keep healthy and feel normal.
Calculate how much you will be visiting
In your family, it is customary to visit the whole New Year's week, but you know exactly what you stand without quarrels for exactly three days? Leave in three days. Refer to urgent duty at work, to a partner who is bored, to the need to feed the cat and water the cactus - anything. This is an elementary regulation of emotional security: at some point we all get tired of tight contact, begin to feel tension, break down and quarrel. Do not bring up to this point.
In some families, it is customary to express love through emotional pressure. When you pack your bags before leaving, your mom starts crying, and dad goes dark to smoke on the balcony - and both will not fail to remind you that you come too rarely, live too far, call irregularly and in general they forget what you look like.
What should be done in this situation? Hug relatives, say you miss too. You can mark the date of your next arrival - if you are comfortable, and not chosen under pressure, and you can really plan a trip now. What you shouldn’t do: feel scared guilty or guilty, make excuses, get angry, promise to come when you feel uncomfortable under the influence of loved ones. It is worth remembering that the relatives, apparently, have such a “language of love”: they express affection by making you feel guilty, and behave like victims. By the way, this does not mean at all that they really dream to live with you in the same apartment again.
Decide how to handle taboo topics.
Another difficulty for those who have difficult relationships with their relatives is repeated unpleasant conversations from time to time. For someone, politics becomes a stumbling block, for someone - grandchildren or relationships ("Well, do you have someone? And are you going to pull with children for a long time?"), For someone, raising children ("You're completely they don't do it! "), and so on.
You can deal with this in different ways, but it is important to remember: you are an adult, and only you decide where to let other people, even the most dear ones, not to let. Think in advance where the boundary for you is valid. Perhaps you are ready to tell your mom that you have a boyfriend or that you and your husband decided not to have children, because both of them do not want that too. Or maybe you don’t want to discuss personal life, the principles of upbringing or the way you dress.
To designate the limit of permissible, you need to come up with the most neutral phrase, for example: "Forgive, I do not want to talk about it", "Nothing new on this issue", "Sorry, I am not interested in discussing this". You may have to show perseverance and repeat it five times. Or ten. This is the most effective tactic: it is impossible to talk with a person who does not support the conversation. Try to suggest a different, neutral topic. If you are strong enough, sooner or later unpleasant conversations will disappear. Provided that you comply with the following clause.
Remember that borders are mutual
I usually tell clients about the metaphorical fence that stands between their territory and that of their parents. It can be strengthened: for example, to designate that you will not speak on uncomfortable and too personal topics, that you have your own opinion and your own plan for life, which is not being discussed, and so on.
But there is a nuance. If you yourself begin to teach parents how to live - to explain to them which party to vote for, how to cook borscht or spend money - you also violate their boundaries. Everything, the fence is broken. Now mom will also feel the full right to go to your territory and try to restore order there, telling you that it's time to sign a boyfriend, have children and change jobs, and dad will say something about your hair and body shape.
Respect the right of relatives to their vision of the world. It can be very different from yours, and this is normal - after all, the new generation should be different from the older. If you want to respect your right to borders, you have to do the same.
Look for points of peaceful interaction
In order to communicate well with each other, joint activities are needed. As long as we live side by side with our relatives, life, solving common problems, joint lunches and dinners help us. When we grow up and begin to live separately, the lifestyle changes, and it becomes more difficult to find points of contact at the meeting. Conversations, as we know from the preceding paragraph, are a dangerous thing: from pleasant ones, they can quickly turn into a quarrel.
Come up with a common cause, albeit a small one, which will help to interact peacefully and pleasantly. Go with your parents to the theater or to the park for a walk, make homemade dumplings, ask them to teach you how to make family pies or explain how to change the faucet in the bathroom. If you are only supposed to sit around the table and talk, feel for a peaceful topic of conversation based on the activities. Tell us about the journey, see the parental photo album, discuss the recently released film or a read book. Such conversations create a sense of unity and help keep yourself away from explosive topics.
Remember that you have the right to leave
Unfortunately, not with all families it turns out to establish communication. Insults are taken somewhere, alcohol addiction is stuck somewhere, it is considered normal somewhere to raise a hand on another family member. You do not have to put up with anything that puts your safety and life at risk.
There are several situations that you have every right to avoid - including the price of a quarrel or a complete breakdown of relations. First, violence, beatings or sexual harassment. You can not contact with relatives who have ever demonstrated this behavior, not to go to them and not to bring their children to them. If the meeting did happen, in no case do not leave the children unattended.
Secondly, dangerous, life-threatening behavior - with or without alcohol. If you know that your dad drives aggressively, gets behind the wheel drunk, got into accidents more than once - don't get in the car with him. Just refuse, with or without any pretext. In the country house in the living room are the cylinders for the stove, and last year Aunt Lena's family was already poisoned by leaking gas? You have the right not to believe any assurances that this time "everything will be fine." Do not sleep in this room. In the autumn of your grandmother's "mushroom rolls" was it bad for the whole family? Do not eat the mushrooms that she collects - and other homemade canned food just in case, too.
Third, verbal abuse. It is enough to say once that the phrase “fat cow” has nothing to do with constructive criticism, and “muzzle” is an inappropriate description for your face. And be firmly warned that once you hear something like this, you will no longer appear on the threshold.
Fourthly, all of the above - if this applies not to you, but to your partner or children. Relatives are not obliged to love your companion or life partner, but must exercise minimal politeness. You can not accept the invitation if you are told: "Come, only without this your / this one." In the same way, they are not obliged to come to the delight of your children, but they have no right to raise their voice or show hostility. If this happens, you can leave with a clear conscience.
Photo:PerfectLazybones - stock.adobe.com, Dmitry Erashov - stock.adobe.com
