As we continue the holiday season, many of us will be steeling ourselves for potential tension and argument.
While family strife may be a source of entertainment in dramas like Succession, the real-life consequences are no joke.
A family argument during Christmas/SCREENGRAB
Christmas is a time of love, warmth – and often, huge family arguments.
Here's how to decode the primal forces that can cause painful rows, and enjoy a more peaceful season.
"A happy family," sothe saying goes, "is but an earlier heaven" – which must surely make an unhappy family a living hell.
As we continue the holiday season, many of us will be steeling ourselves for potential tension and argument.
Whether it's quiet disapproval over the quality of the cooking, a simmering resentment over alleged favouritism, or a fierce argument about our political and social values, family gatherings often bring out the worst in us.
That's if we choose to see our families at all – for many, there is no choice but to spend the holidays apart.
While family strife may be a source of entertainment in dramas like Succession, the real-life consequences are no joke.
"A really common consequence of estrangement is feeling isolated," in addition to feelings of shame and being judged, says Lucy Blake, a developmental psychologist at the University of the West of England and author of the forthcoming book No Family Is Perfect: A Guide to Embracing the Messy Reality.
There is no easy cure to heal fractured relationships. But a better understanding of our family dynamics can help prepare us for the inevitable flashpoints and reveal ways to cope with the stress.
People are often reluctant to talk about unhappy gatherings and family estrangement – which can make those of us who experience it feel like we are somehow unusual.
We may even assume that there is something wrong with us to have such poor relations. Social media networks can contribute to our sense of isolation, says Blake.
"We often see a 'performance' of family, which can then make you feel more and more alone."
Few people are going to post a picture of a bust-up – you're much more likely to see the gurning faces before a meal than the tears after a row.
Data from anonymous surveys suggests thatfractious family relationships are astonishingly common, however. Blake points to one study, from the US, that questioned 633 middle-aged adults about their relationships with their own parents and their own children.
In almost a third of the relationships studied, there was little ongoing contact, though most of these people felt some emotional ties – reporting both good and bad feelings about their kin. Of those who were more regularly in touch, many considered their relationships "conflicted" or "ambivalent". Only 28% of the parent-child ties were engagedandharmonious.
Another paper, published earlier this year, examined data from ahuge longitudinal studyin Germany to try to identifythe prevalence of estrangement.
The researchers considered a parent and child to be estranged if they either had no contact, or if they had less-than-monthly contact combined with low emotional closeness.
According to these criteria, around 20 per cent of people experienced estrangement from their fathers, and 9 per cent experienced estrangement from their mothers.
Not all clashes lead to such deep rifts, but even mild family rows can be very wounding – and tend to share some common causes.
A shared history
While any relationship has the potential for tension, family arguments often arise from clashing interpretations of the past, which even the slightest off-hand comment can then bring to the fore. And unlike friendships outside the clan, the emotional stakes are extraordinarily high.
"In families, there's an almost primal sense that my most important loyalties are being challenged – that my love is being challenged," says Terri Apter, a psychologist based in the UK and the author of numerous books about strained familial relationships, including Difficult Mothers and The Sister Knot.
"There's always the threat of a loss of status in the family, and a loss of connection."
The triggers of those frustrations, and the ways they are expressed, will of course depend on your relative positions within the family tree.
A parent may still believe that they have the authority to give guidance to an adult child – whether it's about their appearance, career decisions, or romantic relationships.
Their well-meaning comments may, however, remind their child of constant unfair criticisms from their adolescence.
A family argument during Christmas/SCREENGRAB
