Handling difficult relationships during the holidays

Before you read this post, I would recommend reading the first one on how to handle difficult conversations.

Broken relationships can be a real challenge and sometimes for good reason. Working with clients in psychotherapy, some people have presented some truly difficult circumstances. For example, I’ve spoken to different young women from collectivistic cultures who have experienced sexual abuse from a relative who has shown no remorse and still attends family gatherings. In some of these cases, the parents are aware of it and have done nothing or they do not believe their daughter. In other cases, family members have told her to “get over it” or made her talk to the relative when she didn’t want to. These are heart-breaking stories that I’ll save you the details for another post. But as you can imagine it can be truly painful and isolating dealing with such situations during the holidays.

In such cases, you have every right to create a strong boundary including not attending family gatherings when this relative is around and not speaking to the individual even when they are around.

I hear you saying but isn’t that harsh? Didn’t Jesus say forgive an forget?

Well, for violations such as sexual abuse, domestic violence, and other forms of abuse especially when nothing was done about the offense, there hasn’t been any repentance or attempts to make amends from the perpetrator, it will be unwise not to create reasonable boundaries with the individual. Here are a few reasons why:

Reasons to create boundaries with perpetrators

Any form of abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual) can have lasting effects on the victims even if it happened just once. Telling someone to “get over it” never helps and is insensitive. Each person is impacted in a different way and we can’t put a time on how long the person’s healing process would take.
Seeing the perpetrator can be re-traumatizing for the victim reminding that person each time of how they were violated. This can be extremely painful particularly if there were no consequences toward the perpetrator.
In most cases of abuse, the victim was left powerless without control. Setting boundaries are beneficial in regaining their sense of control while recognizing their value and worth.
Yes, multiple passages in the Bible say to forgive others just as God our Father in heaven forgives us (Colossians 3:13, Matthew 6:14-15, Luke 17:3-4 to name a few). Forgiveness doesn’t immediately take away the pain so it is okay to have forgiven and still experience pain from what happened. Neither does forgiveness relieve the effects of what happened. Forgiveness is a decision but can be a process. In other words, I decide to forgive you but it takes sometime for my heart to completely forgive. This article does a great job explaining the process of forgiveness and reconciliation.
And lastly, forgiveness does NOT mean reconciliation. So, forgiving the perpetrator doesn’t mean you need to have a relationship with the person. It takes two people to reconcile because it is a relationship and if the other person has not done any of their internal work to change in order for you to have a healthy relationship with them, you will be foolish to expect a healthy dynamic between you two. Think about this, while God has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:19), not everyone has a relationship with God because not everyone wants to repent and follow His ways. Therefore, He will not force Himself on anyone. In the same way, if you do your internal work of healing from the hurt caused by the perpetrator and he/she hasn’t admitted to the crime nor shown any remorse and actions toward change, you do not need to have a relationship with them. It takes two for reconciliation to occur successfully.

Sometimes even when the perpetrator has done their time and is remorseful, it can still be difficult for the victim. That is okay! Any form of abuse can be extremely challenging to overcome. Don’t force yourself to be in a position that causes you a lot of distress. Take a break during family gatherings, attend and leave early, decide not to go at all, you choose what will be best. Not everyone would understand, and you don’t have to explain to everyone, share with someone you feel close to. You might feel very uncomfortable with whatever decision you make, that is normal. Do it anyways. Love your family and friends AND love yourself by taking care of your needs.

If case this post triggered highly distressing emotions, check my resource and self-care pages for helpful resources including dealing with sexual assault, domestic violence, and having emotional support.