Managing Family Relationships

Dr. Purushothaman
October 16, 2013

There is absolutely nothing quite like the worry that can come from strained and even broken family relationships. Our family members can easily be our best allies and greatest sources of comfort; nonetheless, they can additionally be the ones who hurt us the most as well as leave us with the deepest scars.

Working to resolve family conflicts and, in the process, fix the damaged bonds of family relationships, can easily be an enormous part of lowering your overall stress.

Who Said What!

Everyone enjoys a bit of gossip. Unfortunately, in family situations gossip can be extremely detrimental so it is always best for you to take the high road and avoid listening to or sharing gossip about one family member to another.

When it comes to working on your relationships with those whom you've had a bunch of tension with, it is important that you are able to let go of past gossip and additionally let go of harboring grudges of those who could have actually spread the tales in the first place. If you can't let go of such a simple thing, it will be next to impossible to fix the other feelings of ill-will amongst the family members.

Letting Go And Moving On

Do you bear in mind what created the rifts and tension within your family? Was it a little something you did? Or didn't do? Did a family member make poor life choices and you can no longer see them in any other light? In some cases an addiction or even a lifestyle can easily induce huge stress and tension in a family.

Nonetheless, if you wish to rescue the relationships you are going to want to learn just how to let go. You are going to need to learn|study just how to forgive and just how to move on.

Here are a few tips so that you can achieve these targets.

• Consider joint counseling sessions that can put you in front of a neutral mediator that can help to get to the source of your fractured family relationships

• Sit down to discuss the situation with the family members you wish to reconnect with; be certain to use non-confrontational phrases as well as emotions

• Keep in mind these three keys to overhauling relationships: honesty, open communication, and a motivation to accept that you might not always be right

• Apologize if you have actually been in the wrong! Often saying that you are sorry can easily suggest a world of difference to the other party. Even if you feel strongly that you were not in the wrong for the initial argument, your apology can be heartfelt as you apologize for the rift that the argument caused

• Do not bring it up again! When you say sorry and you forgive someone-- you make a commitment to leave that issue in the past where it belongs. Do not bring the arguments or incidents up again-- let them go!

Mending those broken family relationships can oftentimes be hugely challenging. If the other parties are extremely resistant to changing or to the process of moving on, then it might be time for you to face the fact that not every relationship is salvageable. Do your part, make the effort to extend the olive branch, and leave it at that. Family relationships can only be successful if all involved parties make the effort.

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