CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: Navigating Estrangement During Family Events and Holidays

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

This week our listener questions deal with navigating difficult family dynamics during holidays and events. The first caller struggles with an estranged family and feels isolated during celebrations. The second caller cut off their alcoholic mother for safety reasons, but struggles with her presence at family gatherings.  Have a question for Whitney? Call Home at 866-225-5466.  Click here to get “Toxic Positivity” on paperback.  Join Whitney’s Family Cycle Breakers Club for further support and discussion on family dynamics at CallingHome.co. Follow the Calling Home community on Instagram or TikTok.  Follow Whitney Goodman on Instagram or TikTok.  The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice or other medical advice or services, is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider, and does not create any therapist-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Home’s Terms of Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The new outlander bring out your adventurous side. Mitsubishi Motors drive your ambition. Hey, everyone, happy Thursday, and welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. This is our Q&A episode where I answer real caller questions and tell them what I think about the issue that they are having with their family. As a reminder, if you have any questions for me, you can always leave me a voicemail at 866-225-5-4-66. All right, let's hear from our first caller. Hi. So I'm calling because events, holidays are so difficult. My mom is estranged from my siblings. I'm trying to have a relationship with both my mom and my siblings. But this is especially hard during events and holidays when it's expected that people will sort of be in the same room and be together. I don't know how to navigate the situation. It's super awkward. It essentially means that. I don't get to celebrate anything because we're either can't invite people over or, you know,

everyone kind of goes and does their own thing. And it's just kind of sad. And just feeling left in the middle, like, very isolated. How can I navigate the situation where I feel like I can't invite people over and I'm just kind of left behind? Thanks. This is really sad and really difficult. And I think that's the part that we should start with for anyone that's going through this, that you're right, that holidays and events when you are estranged are so challenging

because it sounds like you're trying to please so many people, right? And also enjoy things yourself. And so I think when you validate that just like this event, this holiday is not going to look the way that I thought it would or the way that I think that it should, that's usually where you can find some flexibility, right? And it's probably still not going to be the way that you want it to be or the way that you thought it should be, but it can still be good and it can still be something new. And so I always advise that people who are in this position of kind of like recreating their family after estrangement or someone like yourself who's caught in the

middle of thinking about like what are our traditions and events and holidays going to look like while our family is in this position, whether that lasts forever or it changes later on. And inside calling home on the Family Cycle Breakers Club, we have like a whole section on traditions. And there's some questions that we go through in there about like what traditions in your family are supportive and fun and enjoyable and include the people that need to be there. And I think that's a good place to start is maybe to stop trying to make your family be what it was or what you wish it would be and instead find a way to cope with and enjoy what you can in this moment. And I know that's way easier said than done, but sometimes abandoning that fantasy.

is really necessary to get to this good place. And I think with the piece where you said, I can't invite anyone over is like there's a little bit of reflection that can happen there where it's like you can, you can have people over and people can choose whether to attend or not. And I think that's your choice, how accommodating you'd like to be, right? And to who. And if you want to prioritize your own needs.

and so are you going to invite everyone and let the people who don't wish to be around each other decide how they want to handle that and you kind of leave that up to them and don't take on that burden? Are you going to have separate events with separate people? Do you want to ask each of those people what would be best for them or do you want to just opt out of inviting the entire family altogether and keep it smaller? That I think this comes back to that acceptance piece that you might not be able to have an event right now where everyone comes and joyfully co-exist and gets along. So what is the next best option?

And I do think some of our workbooks and articles and stuff on traditions on the website could be really helpful for you in this situation. We also do have another podcast episode that is about events and tradition. So go back and listen to that as well. But I hope this helps and thank you so much for calling in. Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life

turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca.orgia slash YMex. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next

adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit Best Western for complete terms and conditions. Hey, Witt. I wanted to call and leave a voicemail because I'm a big fan. It's been helping me a lot, listening to you.

I am one of five. I have four siblings, and both of our parents are pretty dysfunctional, but our mother is an alcoholic on and off. There was an instance where she was at my home and my child was present, and she snuck alcohol, and it was fairly true. traumatic. So ever since the breach of trust I've had to essentially cut her off to a degree. My biggest issue is my sibling, they understand my actions, but they don't repeat the actions. So every time we have some kind of celebration, whatever, my mother is there,

and she is invited and she interacts with everybody as if nothing is ever wrong. So I struggle with that a lot just because I am probably the only one in my family that would be very much on board with just kind of excluding her all together just for safety reasons, emotionally and physically. But anyway, so wondering what you thought about that. Thank you so much. Hope you have a good day. Bye. Thank you so much for listening and I'm glad that the show has been helpful to you. You know, I think for anybody in this situation, the pretending is so hard. Like pretending that everything is fine when it isn't pretending that your trust or your boundaries or your safety wasn't violated is really difficult, especially when you see a lot of family members participating in this

pretending. And it's like everyone knows what happened. They're aware of it, but they don't want to acknowledge it because that would be really painful and that would require them to do something different, right? And so when people aren't ready to do that, especially in a family system, like to maintain the status quo, they will often just continue pretending that everything is okay and that nothing needs to change. And when you are the person that is saying, I've woken up to this, I see the dysfunction for what it is, I see what's going on, and I'm not capable of participating in this dance anymore, you're not left with a lot of options, right?

It's either like keep pretending or opt out because you can't force people to meet you where you're at. And so I think that's where you get to this place of acceptance that right now, when there's a holiday or an event or something that my family is doing, my mother is going to be there. And the other people in my family probably are not going to react to her and her actions in the same way that I have. And so if that's going to be the case, am I able to be there? Is it worth it for me to be there? Do I get as much out of it as I'm putting in? Like, is it something that I want my children to be around? Do I think they're getting a benefit from it?

And really walking yourself kind of through these questions that don't require anybody else in your family to do anything different, but only reflect on what you can do and the boundaries that you can set in this situation because your family members might come around. They might realize what you've realized or they might not. and you cannot force them. And so thinking about how you want to respond to the current level of dysfunction and the way that the dysfunction is playing out is really important.

And I think every event or holiday or situation is probably going to elicit a different response from you or maybe you'll have a different way of interacting with the people in that situation. You could go for a little bit. You could not go at all. And you could put certain parameters around your attendance if your mom's drinking. Maybe that's when you decide not to be there or it needs to be a sober event or whatever it is. I think that, again, bringing it back to you and saying like what decision do I want to make

in this situation, whether anybody joins me on that or not, that I can feel solid in is the most important thing. But this feeling is incredibly isolating, lonely, and so confusing and maddening when you know that people have, like, witnessed something, but they are not responding to it in the way that you think they should. Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me

a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail. I do these episodes every Thursday and I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the Calling Home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more. And those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to www.callinghome.com and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club. Thanks. And I will see you. all on Tuesday for another episode. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create

any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Calling Home or Whitney Goodman. on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.