How to Deal with Difficult Family Members During the Holidays

Caleb Birkhoff, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and co-owner of Golden Gate Counseling Services in San Francisco. He counsels people from various backgrounds, focusing on couples and family relationships. 

We spoke to him about dealing with difficult family members during the holidays. (We’ve all been there, right?) 

Here are his tips for making family situations a little less stressful this season.

Q: What kinds of challenging family encounters do you typically see this time of year?

Birkhoff: A lot of people have anticipatory anxiety or anticipated discomfort about the holidays. It’s not usually a specific person (although occasionally it is).

It’s more about re-entering the family of origin — the family system and the patterns and the roles you used to play. As in, “How weird is that going to be?”

I think most people don’t have a truly toxic family member where they’re about to have an altercation. But the majority of people think, “Oh, my mom’s going to say I’m fat,” or “Ugh, I’m going to get asked about my relationship or why I don’t have kids.” Things like that. 

There are also expectations about what we’re “supposed” to be doing or what our family is “supposed” to look like. And then we have this discrepancy we have to reconcile. 

Plus, this time of year is so busy. It just feels really compressed, and you don’t have enough time for yourself.

Then you sprinkle in negotiating an airport, a train ride, a long car ride, or a lot of people in your space. And all of a sudden, people are just vibrating with the discomfort of what might happen. 

Q: What can people do when they have that sense of negative anticipation? Is there a way to minimize it?

Birkhoff: Well, as a therapist, I’m gonna plug therapy.

Just having the space where your feelings don’t go unsaid, I think, can make an enormous difference. It also provides you with the opportunity to do a sort of post-mortem about how it went.

Maybe you can see what you can do better next time or see how well it went because you were ready for it.

Being prepared also involves boundaries.

Really, a boundary is something you do for yourself. It’s being able to set and maintain an appropriate boundary — but most importantly, what is the consequence if that boundary is not respected, and then how do you execute said consequence?

Q: What are some good ways to set boundaries with difficult family members during the holidays?

Birkhoff: It’s all about having a game plan.

For example, if your family are people you enjoy staying with, stay with them. But if by the second or third day, you’re like, “We shouldn’t be here,” you should probably stay elsewhere.

Find a place close by, craft a great reason why that’s important to you, and tell them.

You could say, “Hey, we’re super excited to come for Christmas or New Year’s. But, you know, we have a routine, and so do you, and in order not to interrupt that, we’re going to stay at our own place.” 

Or approach your family with an ally. You can show up with a partner or bring a friend along, making sure you’re relying on them and communicating with them. 

You can also take a break. If it’s too much, go find a quiet room, sit for 10-15 minutes, and do some deep breathing or meditation.

Or find a role for yourself within a family gathering.

For example, I married into a very musical family, and I can barely clap to a beat. So I make sure people have snacks, and I wrangle the kids during that time. Or I wash dishes. I don’t love washing dishes, but I like washing dishes in the context of family gatherings. I’m useful, and people appreciate me. They see me, but I don’t actually have to talk to that many people. 

Q: What should people do when family members push back on the boundaries that we’ve set?

Birkhoff: I think we reset them, and actually, one of the most effective ways to set boundaries is with anticipation of follow-up questions.

For example, if you don’t feel like talking about something personal, like time spent in rehab, have a statement ready, like “I took some time off to take care of myself. I’m back, and I’m fine. I have a team that I can rely on, and if I need anything from you, I will let you know.” 

And if they’re like, “Hey, but really, what’s been going on?” you can say, “As I told you before, I had to take care of myself. I have a lot of support, and if I need anything from you, I’ll let you know.” Just reset the boundary, reset the boundary, reset the boundary.

From there, if you need to, you can outline a consequence.

Like, “If you don’t stop asking about this, I’m going to leave.” And then follow through on that consequence. Remember, if somebody really tests your boundary, it’s more about them than it is about you.

Q: Why do some people fall back into unhealthy patterns when spending time with family?

Birkhoff: Our family of origin (the original family system we’re a part of) is super powerful. It’s the most formative part of our life. It’s the rubric in which we negotiate and conceptualize relationships until we’re confronted with an alternative reality.

But family systems pull on one another to maintain stasis. Our roles sort of keep our family system balanced.

If you’re the family hero, you’re probably going to do something hero-ish. If you’re the court jester, you’re going to make sure everybody’s laughing. Or if you’re the identified patient, you’re probably going to show up with the latest crisis we’re ready to rally around.

Our relationships, despite being co-created, are often very interdependent, and in families, there’s a tendency for them to end up being really co-dependent. 

But how often do you truly see your whole family of origin? For most people, three to four times a year tops.

Three weeks out of the year, you try to be somebody you aren’t the rest of the year. So it’s like gravity. You get pulled back into that role. 

Q: Is it possible to change your role within your family of origin?

Birkhoff: Yes! We can grow, change, and evolve.

But the truth of that is we’re going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations.

Like, “I don’t like that this is the way our family is. I don’t like that we don’t talk about how we feel. I don’t like that I feel like I have to take care of everyone. Why do we do this?”

One way to do that is to start with curiosity. Curiosity is a game changer, and it’s different than skepticism. We’re asking questions genuinely wanting to know the answer, as opposed to being suspicious of why that is the answer.

We can approach our family with curiosity, like, “Why does it function this way?” That allows us to then consider other ways in which it can function. The energy with which we approach it is really helpful. 

We can also model behaviors we want others to adopt.

If you’re changing for the better, people may ask you, “Wow, how did that happen?” And you can be honest and say, “I worked really hard on this. I examined patterns in my life that weren’t working. I found resources. I read some books. I went to an AA meeting. I went to therapy.”

If you find somebody who has what you want, you ask them how they got it. It’s a little bit like a charcuterie board. You lay it out there, and then people get to pick what they want from it. 

Q: Any final words of wisdom to share about dealing with difficult family members?

Birkhoff: It’s not weird if you find being around your family challenging. I think most people have a family dynamic that’s hard. It doesn’t make your family a disaster. But it does make it a thing we can work on. 

Where we grow and change the most is when we’re a little bit uncomfortable.

If things aren’t uncomfortable, why would you change, right? Being a little bit uncomfortable is really the building block to a new behavior, a new pattern, or a new way to deal with an emotion.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.