We all want to love our families, and for the most part, we do. However, there can be some family members who can be a little challenging to deal with. This can make birthdays, weddings, Christmases, or family reunions a bit awkward at the very best of times.
You want to have a pleasant experience with your family, though, so it’s essential to know how you can cope and deal with difficult family members. It might be they are notoriously difficult, or it could be that they are only difficult on the day. Whatever the situation, understanding the best action to take can ensure happy families for everybody.
Keep Conversation Simple
The whole point of parties and events is so you can reconnect and discuss life with your family members. However, some people are always looking to start a debate, usually about politics, maybe about religion, and this can throw the whole day off course.
Instead of succumbing to these conversation topics, do what you can to keep the chatter simple. Ask about their day, their life, and anything else that comes to mind as long as it’s not too complicated or could cause potential drama.
Don’t Engage
Even if you try to keep conversation simple, though, you might find that some people cannot help themselves and will try to drag the conversation towards controversial topics that they want to discuss.
You could get involved, but that risks ruining the day for you and everyone around you. Instead of this, do everything you can not to engage. You can do this by ignoring any topics you don’t want to discuss or, on a more extreme level, walk away if you can feel something terrible about to happen.
Offer Support
Offering support is another way to deal with difficult family members. Still, you should only consider it if you are sure it won’t cause more significant problems on the day, and if it does, it might be worth waiting a week to offer such support.
Depending on what makes them difficult, you can suggest they enroll in an inpatient drug rehab program or speak to a therapist to deal with anger management. It may not work, but by offering such support, you can feel like you are doing something.
It’s On Them, Not You
People who need to cope with difficult family members will often feel like it’s their fault and not the responsibility of whoever is causing the problems. Understanding that it is not you, but them will help you deal with rudeness and nastiness from the family member causing the issues.
Realizing this will be better for your mental health, and as this should come first over anything else, you will be able to avoid issues that could exacerbate greater problems for you and the rest of the family.
Happy Families?
No one can get on with everyone all of the time, but rather than make a combustible situation even worse; it’s useful to understand how to minimize drama and confrontation so that everyone has the best time they can, whatever the occasion.
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