Navigating Difficult Family Dynamics
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When tensions flare within families, some people go all in and fight, others resort to emotional distance, and others settle into an isolation that grows aside a canyon of unresolved and unhealed issues, sometimes indefinitely. Many families have a combination of all three. Facing difficult family dynamics can be really challenging. To do it well requires confronting factors at play within ourselves, the family unit, and the intersection of both across the whole system. If you’re dealing with tension within your family, here are some things that might help bring resolution.
Identify the core issues.
Some common dysfunctions among families include:
codependency (overly close, enmeshed relationships)
lack of clear boundaries (struggling to asserting personal needs and wants)
avoidance of conflict (staying quiet to keep the peace)
scapegoating (blaming the issues on one person)
neglect (failing to give emotional support)
Bringing awareness to the core issues may bring up defensiveness from those who aren’t ready to address them, but any understanding you can gain will be helpful to you in how to handle them going forward.
Be curious.
“In order to empathize with someone’s experience, you must be willing to believe them as they see it, and not how you imagine their experience to be.” - Brene Brown
Be willing to see things in a new way, even if that could shatter your assumptions or beliefs about why and how things ended up the way they did. Ask the hard questions, not in order to have a good rebuttal, but for the goal of truly understanding and knowing your loved ones better. Try active listening, which requires us to suspend our intentions and motives purely for the sake of seeing and hearing the other person. In addition to gaining understanding, this helps others feel seen, heard, and understood, which creates safety for anyone who feels hurt, forgotten, or embittered.
Consider the past.
If you think about your family as a system of interconnected relationships, what things influenced it early on? What stressors or major events happened that had an impact on you as a unit and as individuals? This could be a death, divorce, serious illness, even financial stress. It’s easy to say, “My sister has always been needy. That’s just who she is.” But looking deeper into how experiences shaped each of you can help you gain understanding (and maybe even some empathy) for each other.
Children may live through the same event but still have vastly different experiences due to factors such as birth order, age, and what support was available at the time. Imagine living the experience again, but as a different family member. Try to hear their experience exactly as they lived it, and consider the way it would make you feel and behave if it were you in their position. Unresolved issues between families don’t just go away as children grow up and establish their lives independently. A lot of the drama unfolding today may be from childhood experiences that never got resolved, keeping you all stuck in the past.
Own your part.
In a perfect world, we would all be slow to anger and quick to apologize and forgive. In reality, we often gather up evidence against our offender, waiting for a trial that may never come. We wait on the other person to come to their senses, realize how wrong they’ve been, and apologize first. Then, we think, we could finally make things right. But unless someone makes the first move, this puts everyone at a standstill. It may be time to get real with yourself, to reflect on how you might have sinned against your loved ones or acted on assumptions instead of loving them well. Some of owning your part includes being honest about your feelings, your behaviors, your motives, and your desires. One way to go about this is to focus on “I” statements, such as “I felt really hurt and betrayed when you went behind my back and told dad about such and such….” This steers the conversation away from blaming, attacking or condemning and leaves room for the other person to own their part as well.
Lead with love.
At the heart of family counseling is the goal of strengthening relationships and gaining common ground. If we’re carrying offense and pain, we don’t usually see it this way. When families get to the point where it’s every man for himself, attempts to bring resolution are often self-focused, like aiming to settle the score, pinning the blame on someone, or proving our own innocence. Going into it with a posture of forgiveness and love changes the process and the interactions within it. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is not proud, boastful, or self-seeking, and it does not dishonor others. Leading with love is not easy because it is humbling, repentant, and others-focused, but it is the healthiest and most effective way to heal and move forward.
“As much as it depends on you, be at peace with everyone,” Romans 12:18 says. Healing family issues is not something that one person can accomplish on their own, no matter how self aware and emotionally intelligent they may be, but you can always take the first step. The family unit is made up of unique individuals who all bring something to the table. Some may be resistant to change, so being realistic about what influence you have and what’s within your control is key to going about this in a healthy way. And remember, a trusted outsider such as a family friend, pastor, or therapist can help you through the resolution process.