WRITTEN BY: SARAH RIVERA, LPC-S For many of us, the end of the year comes in a wave of holidays and family gatherings. Whether you’re an avid supporter of the holiday season or simply someone who is exposed to it, family is often in your face. Whether that’s through commercials, invitations to events, or constant reminders of family traditions, it’s almost impossible to escape.
For those who have a fully intact, loving, and healthy family, this is probably a time of longing and anticipation, full of excitement, gratitude, and joy. But for many others, this is a time that showcases family hurt, grief over missing loved ones, and anxiety about managing multiple family member personalities. Many would describe this time as pressured and overwhelming.
Unfortunately, family gatherings tend to trigger unwanted emotional reactions. Think about it. You’re bringing together multiple individuals, each with their own personalities, experiences, and expectations, all into one room. Add years of family history, unresolved hurt, and memories that can resurface, and it’s no wonder family gatherings can become emotionally exhausting.
Interestingly, there are several psychological reasons why spending time with family can bring out emotional reactions we don’t necessarily experience in our everyday lives.
1. Returning to Our Original Family Roles
Interestingly, we know through family systems theory that family members tend to fall back into familiar roles when they’re together. Mom and Dad return to being Mom and Dad, sometimes feeling like they’re still the ones in charge. You’re suddenly surrounded by your siblings, and before you know it, everyone has returned to their original place in the family.
There’s the oldest sibling who’s responsible for everyone, the silly one who never takes anything seriously, the baby of the family, the princess who gets all the attention, the entitled one, the peacemaker, and the list goes on and on.
What’s interesting is that these roles don’t necessarily reflect who we’ve become as adults. You may have spent years growing, developing independence, establishing healthy boundaries, and learning how to communicate differently. Yet somehow, one afternoon around the dinner table can bring you right back to responding like you did when you were 15 years old.
These familiar family dynamics can trigger frustration, resentment, or even feelings of inadequacy, especially when family members continue treating us according to who we used to be rather than who we’ve become.
2. The Weight of Unresolved Family History
Unfortunately, unresolved issues are likely to surface during family gatherings, sometimes without anyone consciously recognizing what’s happening. Families have a history together, and that history isn’t always pleasant.
Childhood experiences, favoritism, disappointments, broken trust, painful conversations, and unresolved conflict don’t simply disappear because everyone has agreed to get together for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Sometimes it’s a comment, a facial expression, or a familiar tone of voice that brings back an old emotional response. What might seem like a harmless statement to one family member can carry an entirely different meaning to another because of their shared history.
And let’s be realistic, people don’t often want to talk about these issues, especially during the holidays. Instead, avoidance tends to take place. We tell ourselves it’s not worth bringing up, we don’t want to ruin the gathering, or we simply accept that “that’s just how they are.”
The problem is that avoiding conflict doesn’t necessarily mean the hurt has been resolved. Sometimes it simply means everyone has learned how to coexist without addressing what’s really going on.
3. Grief That Doesn’t Always Look Like Grief
For many, the holidays are also a painful reminder of who’s missing. Perhaps it’s the first holiday without a loved one, or maybe it’s been years, but their absence is still deeply felt. Family traditions, familiar recipes, empty chairs, and even certain conversations can bring back memories and emotions we thought we had already worked through.
But grief isn’t always about someone who has passed away.
Sometimes we’re grieving relationships that have changed, family members we’re no longer connected to, a divorce that has altered family traditions, or even the family experience we always wished we had.
There’s a psychological concept known as ambiguous loss, which can describe the grief experienced when someone is physically absent but remains psychologically present, or physically present but emotionally unavailable.
Imagine sitting in a room full of family members and still feeling incredibly lonely. Or watching other families celebrate together while being reminded of the relationships you wish were different.
These experiences can bring feelings of sadness, disappointment, resentment, or longing, even when the occasion itself is meant to be joyful.
4. Family Members Know Exactly How to Push Our Buttons
Have you ever wondered why a comment from a family member can bother you so much more than the exact same comment coming from someone else?
Our families have known us through some of our most vulnerable and developmental years. They’ve witnessed our mistakes, insecurities, struggles, and experiences that have shaped who we are. Unfortunately, some family members continue interacting with us through an outdated understanding of who we used to be.
Maybe it’s the parent who continues offering unsolicited advice, the sibling who makes jokes at your expense, or the relative who seems to have an opinion about every decision you’ve made.
What’s particularly interesting is that we can be confident, successful, emotionally mature adults in our everyday lives, yet find ourselves becoming defensive, frustrated, or overwhelmed in these familiar interactions.
Family systems theory introduces a concept called differentiation of self, which refers to our ability to maintain our own sense of identity and emotional stability while remaining connected to others.
In other words, can you remain the person you’ve worked hard to become, even when the people around you continue interacting with you as though nothing has changed?
That’s often easier said than done, particularly when there’s a long history of emotional reactions and familiar relationship patterns.
So, What Can We Do About It?
The reality is that we can’t control how our family members behave, what they say, or whether they’ve done the emotional work necessary to develop healthier relationships. What we can begin to recognize, however, is how these interactions affect us and what we’re willing to participate in.
Sometimes that means recognizing our emotional triggers before attending a gathering. Other times it means establishing boundaries, adjusting our expectations, or giving ourselves permission to participate differently than we have in previous years.
It’s also worth considering that while we’ve spent years growing and changing, our family members may not have witnessed that growth. And just as we hope they’ll recognize the people we’ve become, we may also need to recognize that they haven’t necessarily changed in the ways we’d hoped.
Family gatherings can be complicated because family relationships are complicated. And while we may not be able to rewrite our family history, we can become more aware of how that history continues to influence our emotional reactions today.
The goal isn’t necessarily to have the perfect family gathering. Sometimes it’s simply learning how to remain emotionally healthy while navigating the family we have.
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