Holidays: 7 Tips for Getting Along with Your Difficult Relatives Over Thanksgiving.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Seven tips for getting along with your difficult relatives over Thanksgiving.

For many people, Thanksgiving is a joyous holiday; for many people, Thanksgiving is a dreaded holiday. One factor that can make it tough is spending time with difficult relatives. Here are some strategies for keeping Thanksgiving dinner pleasant:

1. Before you join the group, spend a few minutes thinking about how you want to behave. Don’t just react in the moment; consider how you want to act. If you’ve had unpleasant experiences in the past, think about WHY they were unpleasant and what YOU could do to change the dynamics of the situation. You may tell yourself that you want everyone to get along – but if so, you need to do your part to contribute to a harmonious atmosphere. In particular…

2. Think about how topics that seem innocuous to you might upset someone else. You may think you’re showing a polite interest, but some questions will rub a person the wrong way: “So do you have a boyfriend yet?” “When are you two going to get married/start a family?” “Didn’t you give up smoking?” “Can you afford that?” “When are you going to get a real job?” Show an interest with more open-ended questions, like “What are you up to these days?” or “What’s keeping you busy?” Also…

3. Avoid strife. Some families enjoy arguing passionately amongst themselves; however, most don’t handle arguments very well. If you know Uncle Bob’s views on Sarah Palin are going to drive you crazy, don’t bring it up! And if he brings it up, you don’t have to engage. Try to make a joke of it, and say something like, “Let’s agree to disagree,” “Let’s not talk about that, and give the rest of the family something to be thankful for,” etc. There is a time and a place for everything.

4. Don’t drink much alcohol. It can seem festive and fun to fill up your glass, but it’s easy to lose track of how much you’re drinking. Alcohol makes some people feel merry, but it also makes some people feel combative, or self-pitying, or lowers their inhibitions in a destructive way. I basically had to give up drinking because alcohol makes me so belligerent.

5. Play your part in the tradition. For some people, traditions are very, very important; for others, no. You may feel irritated by your brother’s insistence on having exactly the same food every Thanksgiving, or by your mother’s extreme reaction to the possibility that you might not come home for the day. Try to be patient and play your part. In the long run, traditions and rituals tend to help sustain happiness and family bonds. If you’re the one who wants everything to be perfect, try to ease up on yourself and everyone else, so that you can enjoy the day, whatever happens.

6. Don’t stuff yourself. Research shows that in fact, most people add just one pound during the holidays – but then they never lose it. You’ll have more fun if you’re not feeling uncomfortably full and then guilty about having eaten too much. Think about strategies for staying in control of holiday eating; feeling bad about having eaten too much can make you feel irritable and angry, which spills over into your interactions with other people.

7. Remember it’s THANKSGIVING. Be thankful that you get to cook, or that you don’t have to cook. Be thankful that you get to travel, or that you don’t have to travel. Be thankful for your family or your friends. Find something. Studes show that gratitude is a major happiness booster.

Wait, you might be thinking, these strategies don't tell you how to deal with your difficult relatives -- they tell you how to behave yourself. Well, guess what! You can't do anything to change what your difficult relatives are going to do; you can only change yourself. Also, in many situations, people behave a difficult way in reaction to something else. So you may think your niece flies off the handle without any reason, but she's furious because she thinks you're needling her about her appearance. If you behave differently, she will too.

Have you found any helpful strategies for dealing with a difficult Thanksgiving situation? What more would you add?

*
I was astonished to see that the New York Times decided to stop running my friend Marci Alboher’s blog, Shifting Careers. If there’s ever been a time when a lot of people were facing the issue of how to shift careers, it’s now!

Marci decided to tackle the issue head-on in her blog, and her discussion of Laid Off From My Non-Job, about how she’s dealing with this career shift, herself, is fascinating. Her reactions, her thought processes, her analysis -- all this is helpful to her readers. Marci’s ability to be generous and thoughtful at a difficult time is a reminder that even when we can’t control what happens, we can control how we behave.

*
I’ve started sending out short monthly newsletters that will highlight the best of the previous month’s posts. If you’d like to sign up, click on the link in the upper-right-hand corner of my blog. Or just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line. I’ll add your name to the list.

Comments

[Mark W.]

The holidays can be stressful for any number of reasons ranging from deadlines that need to be met to expectations associated with them. I would add to your list - offer your help - which may include things such as bringing a dish to the dinner, chatting to the host who may be working in the kitchen alone, setting the table, or cleaning up after the meal. The offer to help may be declined but that's OK because at least you've made it known you want to share the work and lighten the load.

[Gretchen Rubin]

What a great suggestion! One of the most helpful lessons I've learned from my happiness project is to "Act the way you want to feel." If you're feeling angry or resentful toward a difficult relative, by acting thoughtful and loving, you will help yourself change your feelings toward that person.

Also, the "mere exposure effect" holds that we tend to like people more the more we see them. So although you might feel tempted to avoid a difficult relative (and sometimes this is probably the right course), you might like that person better if you spent a little more time with him or her.

And you will boost your sense of self-esteem if you act estimably -- and certainly helping out with the work is an estimable way to behave.

Excellent tip.

[EscapeVelocity]

One of the main things I'm thankful for is that my relatives aren't difficult :).

[FupDuckTV]

Happy Thanksgiving to all of Gretchen's readers....

[Denise Fontaine]

How do I stay happy I am alone and isolated?

[Elizabeth]

I'm thankful for you and your great columns, Gretchen. Happy Thanksgiving!
I would add that lowering your expectations of your relatives can help make them less difficult and disappointing. If you know your brother will laugh at your latest idea instead of being supportive, don't give him the chance to rain on your parade. Talk about something else. You wouldn't go to the hardware store for a loaf of bread, so don't expect to get warm fuzzies from people who aren't. Enjoy them for what they are!

[Jessica]

Laid Off From My Non-Job? This sounds so familiar! It happened with me too! I was working on commissions only making practically no money, and management decided... to lay me off!
This is when I realized that I need to get a real job. And I did. So, it all was for the better.

[Jessica]

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone on this blog!

[Baba Yaga]

Denise - How do I stay happy I am alone and isolated?

My, typically opinionated, answer to this: you probably don't, and probably shouldn't.

Depending how long and how deep the isolation, you can probably take a stance of being as happy as you can be while isolated (for instance, I think I'd be happier with a spouse, but I can honestly be very grateful not to have a spouse who is abusive or negligent, and even not to have to fulfil some of the tiresome obligations of accommodating another person when I'm weary and want to be self-absorbed; I can recognise how much I enjoy my privacy; I have in years past been devoutly grateful to be able to spend holidays curled up with a book, ignoring all the hoo-hah), and that will work fairly well for a while. It'll work all the better if you find the small, quiet sources of pleasure and peace in your day, and learn to appreciate them in the moment.

You can also look for things to put your own isolation into perspective, if it isn't excessively deep - in the UK, there are Christmas projects for homeless people, for example, where I think the benefit has always gone both ways. Sometimes it isn't loneliness which hurts as much as the meta-isolation of thinking that other people aren't so lonely; or of not quite daring to connect, lest others see one's isolation and withdraw from it.

But long term, if isolation's deep enough to wear away at your soul, and if you haven't expressly chosen it (as few of us do), you can't stay happy with it, and shouldn't try to! Sometimes just recognising one's unhappiness as real and legitimate makes it more bearable than trying to coat it with a fragile and unconvincing happiness.

Quite as much to the point, sometimes one needs to feel unhappy in order to become happy: to feel the corrosiveness of the status quo, in order to change it so that one can be happier. Unhappiness can wear one down, and expunge motivation: it can also be a great motivator. The trick is to use it as a motivator when you can, and (despite the myriad of self-help books which will tell you that you should be able to think things better) to forgive yourself when you can't. One can, incidentally, think things better - but much of the time, the reason thinking makes things better is that it's followed by action!

For those of us who aren't highly endowed with the social graces, and probably for everyone, real connections take time to forge. In some ways, recognising that is a liberation: it allows room for serendipity to play a part (as it will), and means that one can gently nudge the process along, rather than having to try to achieve it all at once.

[Reese]

It would be great if your blog had a link for a printable version of posts.

[robinv]

What a great post! I am must say that I read it after going to the "difficult relatives" (inlaws). I must be reading your blog more than I think, I spent most of Thursday morning thinking of the things I needed to do to make Thanksgiving better for everyone, including not drinking too much and paying attention to my behavior! Ha!, it kinda worked. The father in law was still a cranky old s.o.b. but I was in a better place.
:}

[Anne Holmes]

This is a great post, Gretchen,

I especially resonate with your last two comments: that studies show that gratitude is a major happiness booster and that we can't do anything to change what our difficult relatives are going to do; we can only change ourselves.

I have embarked on a 30-day plan to consciously recognize something positive about everyone I come in contact with.

I wrote about this in my own Thanksgiving post, and I find that it is working really well.

Since you asked if any of us readers had suggestions of our own to add to your list, that would be mine: greet everyone you meet with a positive attitude and give them a compliment.

You'll be amazed at how it puts you in control - and how people react to this!

Try it!

[:::::::::::: wife mom maniac ::::::::::::]

and then there's always Dysfunctional Family Bingo, there's Oprah's pal\s version, this was the original I read http://www.playfulparenting.com/articles/resources-art-021219.htm

[adam curren]

Excellent tips for avoiding a Holiday disaster, Thank you for posting! Conflict is certainly a part of spending the holidays with relatives.

http://charactergrowth.com/2008/12/22/how-to-benefit-from-conflict

[Online poker]

Oh, its great!

[Anne Packer]

I asked my daughter in law to make Thanksgiving dinner this year as she and my son have come every year for 15 years and they have never once offered to return the favor. Nor do they show any interest in the rest of the family: no gifts at Christmas, no time with the nieces and nephews etc. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this. This daughter in law is furious with me now and feels she is being victimized. There is so much bad feeling I fear we won't see either my son or her at family dinners in the future. I feel bad about it, but on the other hand think they really have to reciprocate. Any ideas on how to get this to happen?