Surviving the holidays while in a toxic relationship with a partner with controlling behaviors is difficult.
With everything that happens during the holidays, your toxic relationship adds stress and prevents you from enjoying the wonderful things of the season.
Everyday life is hard enough in a toxic and unhealthy relationship. How will you spend the holiday this year without losing your mind?
Related: 10 types of people in life you simply cannot trust, according to psychology
5 Ways to Survive the Holidays While in a Toxic Relationship.
- Avoid triggers.
Be honest with yourself. There must be triggers that can turn your relationship from good to bad, perhaps even at any moment. These triggers are very consistent and you know exactly what they are.
Evaluate those triggers and do everything you can to avoid them during the holiday season and stop walking on eggshells.
If you’re always fighting over the Christmas lights, maybe let your partner do it this year. If you are always fighting about your relationship with your parents, try to find a way to avoid this from happening.
If you’re always fighting because the house is messy, you might put in extra effort to keep it tidy.
A toxic relationship is a minefield of triggers, things that usually make things go wrong. If you can avoid them, and maybe talk to your partner about avoiding them too, you’ll be more likely to survive the holidays.
- Don’t expect things to be different.
Every year, many people in toxic relationships go to the holidays, hoping that things will be different this year, that the disaster that happened last Christmas won’t happen again, or that the toxicity that pervades your daily life will dissipate over the holiday. Holiday season.
Unfortunately, unless you and your partner have been able to work on your toxic relationship over the past year, things will likely be no different.
For me and my ex-husband, whenever a birthday or holiday approached, there was an issue about spending time with family. The way I spent my birthdays and holidays was completely different from the way he spent his.
I wanted to be home with just our immediate family and he wanted to travel to see his extended family. Every vacation we would fight about what we were going to do.
And every vacation, once it was over, we would ignore what happened and move on. Until the next holiday and the issue – and the fight – came up again.
This was a big point of contention with my ex as Christmas approached. We suffered a lot from the day after Thanksgiving and into Christmas, which made the holidays significantly less fun.
Because we had never dealt with this issue before, the monster reared its ugly head again every year.
I think if we had made the effort to deal with this issue over the years, rather than just ignoring it, things might have had a chance to be different.
But we didn’t do that, and it stayed the same.
- Control your emotions and reactions.
You can’t change another person and you can’t change another person’s emotional reactions. But you can change the way you react.
Toxic encounters you have with your partner trigger a range of negative emotions. Anger, contempt, unhappiness, and frustration are some things that come to mind. These feelings can become overwhelming and make encounters worse.
This holiday season, try to keep those emotions in check. Don’t let them make bigger issues.
If your partner does something that typically turns you on, pause and take a deep breath before responding. Notice the emotions you feel.
If you can, take a few deep breaths and try to calm your nervous system so you don’t react destructively.
If you can control your emotions and reactions to your partner’s behaviors, you may be able to reduce toxicity to some extent.
Related: 10 behaviors that make people resent you almost instantly, according to psychology
- Ask for help from family and friends.
Your family and friends know that you are in toxic relationships and many of them go out of their way to support you throughout the year. However, for some reason, during the holiday season, things can be different.
People get busy with their things and forget about yours.
If your friends or family are in any way contributing to your holiday poisoning, ask them for help.
My mother was helping me spend the holiday. how? By accepting the fact that I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with her because I had to spend time with my ex’s family.
You made an extra special effort to bring us all together at another time of the year that wasn’t filled with holiday craziness.
Not only did this help her not feel disappointed at Christmas, but it also helped ease the conflict between my ex and me. This made Christmas a little more bearable.
It’s difficult to manage a toxic relationship on your own. If you can ask for support from those who love you, it may help you survive the holidays.
- Know that the vacation will end.
Many are dreading this holiday season because of everything that’s going on. All the current shopping, baking, and pressure to see family puts an enormous amount of stress on any relationship.
The stress of a toxic relationship is even more extreme.
What I always tell people to keep in mind is that on January 2nd, the holiday season will end. All the stress they are experiencing will disappear. With the holiday over, things can return to normal.
If you’re in a toxic relationship, normal isn’t necessarily great but it’s probably better than it is during the holiday season. When you get to January 2nd, you’ll have already survived another holiday.
It can be very difficult to survive the holidays while in a toxic relationship.
I know you don’t think you have to make all the compromises to keep your relationship on the ground during the holidays, but if you want to survive, making compromises may be key.
Again, you can’t change someone else’s reactions and behaviors, but you can change your own. And that’s the key to surviving this season – your reactions.
All of this being said January is the time of year when a lot of people file for divorce. Many people, after a terrible holiday season, think they can’t do it for another year.
As a result, they move away. This may be a suitable option for you. If you can keep your head down and get through the holiday season, you may be able to make changes on the other side.
In the meantime, knowing ways to survive the holidays while in a toxic relationship is vital to keeping yourself together and enjoying the holidays the best you can.
