Why some families fight more than laugh
By: E.B. Johnson
Tags: Psychology, Family, Self, Nonfiction, Parenting

by: E.B. Johnson

Our families form the foundation on which we build and launch the rest of our lives. The first pictures of who we are get painted by the hands of our parents and siblings, who guide us, encourage us, and teach us what it means to be human by their standards. Unfortunately, though, the bonds we share with our families are not always peaceful. We don’t always become who our family expected us to be, and they don’t always support us as they should.

Is your family plagued by conflict? Are holiday get-togethers filled with fights and raised voices? Some families fight together more than they laugh together, and the reasons aren’t necessarily straightforward. While these relationships can be repaired, it often takes a hearty dose of space, compassion, and boundaries from all involved to make that happen. Want to build memories together, rather than scorecards? Open up to change together.

Not all families hold happy memories.

There’s this notion out there the family unit is something happy, joyful, or otherwise soul-affirming. While this is certainly the case for some, it’s not the case for everyone. Not all families hold happy memories. Actually, there are some families out there who fight with one another more than they engage in happy or connected experiences. In these families, judgement runs high and acceptance runs low. There’re regular battles for control and resentment becomes common.

Do your parents use comparisons to “motivate” you or your siblings? Do they encourage what they consider to be a healthy sibling rivalry? Do they make their love for you an achievement that must be attained through hard work? These are all toxic behaviors which can lead to conflict within the family unit.

They’re not effective ways to open up to one another, and they’re not effective ways to build fulfilling relationships with one another. Family dynamics can be tricky, and they can include a lot of moving parts. Although we may all come from the same cloth, we are not the same characters. We all come into this world wanting different things for ourselves. We have a right to this happiness and its our role as family members to accept and support that.

Why some families fight more than they laugh.

Not every family can mimic the nuclear model that’s come to be expected of the modern family. Life isn’t about 2.5 kids and a house in the suburbs anymore. Things are far more complicated than that. Instead of family dinners, there are some out there who are more accustomed to family brawls — and these are only a few of the reasons that may be the case.

Encouraging comparisons

We tend to make comparisons naturally as humans, but this can turn into a toxic pattern when it’s encouraged by friends and family. Sometimes, parents use comparisons to motivate their children. In the long-run, though, this generally only ends in resentful relationships between both the siblings and the parents. Rather than comparing our children, we should encourage them to pursue their authenticity.

Using judgement over respect

Humans can be incredibly judgemental, and this is never more true than when it applies to our families. Because we know one another so well, we tend to judge our loved ones on a much harsher scale than we would a casual friend or acquaintance. Rather than respecting the choices we each make, we can find that it’s easier to turn and point fingers or offer unwarranted advice. True love doesn’t judge. It embraces for the sake of happiness.

Avoiding resolutions

Unfortunately — to some family members — ego is more important than affection and connection. Rather than avoiding a fight, they will go to any lengths to prove they are right. Including kicking off conflict that they refuse to dissolve in any favor but their own. When fights do break out, they usually don’t try to fix issues. Instead, they prefer to bury things under the rug and pretend as though they don’t exist. Over time, though, this same issues compound beneath new ones, and implosion becomes inevitable. They may also dismiss or downplay your feelings or perspective.

Exerting total control

It’s not uncommon for families to run into conflict over control and power issues. Parents often prefer a dominant relationship with their children, which can become more problematic with age. It’s a relationship that starts out of necessity, but it’s one that has to change in order to reflect greater equality and balance. We can’t exert total control over one another in a family, because we are each responsible for controlling ourselves, our beliefs, and the way we interact with others.

Discouraging any real abundance

In some families, there is a discouragement of abundance. This isn’t just about material wealthy or financial abundance. It includes an abundance of love, and abundance of enjoyment in life — thriving becomes discouraged at every turn. There are a lot of reasons behind this, and it’s more common than you might think. Unresolved trauma is a common factor that feeds this type of fear of abundance, and it’s a toxic pattern that leads to greater upset later on.

Making it an achievement

Do your parents or loved ones make their love an achievement which must be earned? Does it feel like you are always trying to prove yourself to them, or always trying to prove yourself worthy of their affection and appreciation? Our family should love us for who we are. We shouldn’t have to change ourselves or hide who we are for them to love. We shouldn’t have to push ourselves beyond the breaking point just to earn a little admiration from them. It breeds resentment and fear alike.

How to minimize the conflict and the drama in your family.

Believe it or not, you and your family can work your way back to a more civil relationship. While things may never be perfect, or you may never see eye-to-eye, you can get to a place of mutual respect and civility. Get out of your feelings and take space when you need to. Open up to an expert and set boundaries together as a team. There are so many ways we can improve things with the parents and siblings we love. We just have to find the courage to try.

1. Figure out your true feelings

The feelings that surround our relationships with our various family members are nuanced and dynamic. Naturally, we are close to some of our family members than others, and can more easily open up and explain ourselves in their presence. It’s not like that with everyone, though, and we can find ourselves facing conflict and complicated feelings that make it hard to connect and find resolution with one another. Putting the fights to an end requires that we get out of these feelings and get honest with one another.

Before you allow the fighting to spin out of control, analyze how you’re really feeling and where its roots stem from. We often overreact to little aggravations because of complex emotions that are attached to other memories with the person who has aggravated us. Question your feelings. Are you really reacting to a disagreement in the moment? Or something else?

The more time we spend processing the way we truly feel and why, the easier it becomes to either avoid conflict or manage it in a healthier way. This touches on our emotional awareness. The more aware we are of ourselves and the way we feel, the more aware we become of those emotions in other people. When that happens we become better equipped to connect, because we can build a basis of compassion and empathy to launch from.

2. Give yourselves space to process

There is not enough that can be said about the power of space when it touches on family conflict. Our families are some of the people that many of us spend the most time with. You grow up in home with those people and live intimately among the happiness, the sadness, and every other feeling in-between. We get to know our family members inside out, but this closeness can come with irritations, which can only be resolved with time and space.

If you and your family are butting heads, or you can see a major disagreement on the rise — get some space. Walk out of the room. Walk out of the house. Take yourself on a temporary hiatus for a month or two. Space allows us to decompress, and it allows us to get a better perspective on the people around us too.

You and your family members will appreciate one another more when you’ve got a little distance between you. You’ll see not only your emotions differently, but the way you relate to one another differently too. Space isn’t a bad thing. It’s a powerful thing, and powerful things scare us because they inherently come with a change of dynamic. Learning to walk away (rather than fight) will change dynamics in your family. But maybe that’s exactly what needs to happen.

3. Open up to a third party

Family conflicts can be really complex, especially because there’s a lot of ideals involved and a lot of personal expectations. These complexities can be too much for us to process, considering how far outside of our egos and emotions we have to be. For this reason, it’s often a more productive avenue to reach out to a third party who can provide some type of stable mediation.

Get online and find yourself a family relationships expert that can help you begin this massive task of unraveling the drama and the chaos. Often, these professionals can identify weaknesses and blind spots that we don’t have the perspective to see. They provide an unbiased sounding board and a wealth of resources.

There are an array of options out there for those who want to get involved with a family relationships pro. From digital resources to traditional counseling, there is no longer a taboo when it comes to repairing our families with the help of an expert. Every family has issues. The ones who stand out are the ones who face those issues bravely and work through them — stepping out into the light of day together.

4. Decide if it’s worthwhile

Like it or not, there are some arguments in this world which are just not worth the work they require. That includes the fights that begin in our family’s relationships, even if we still feed into the old ideas that the family unit is sacred and beyond reproach. It’s not. Some disagreements aren’t worth the pain they cause us, or the conflict which they bring into our private and personal lives. We have to pick our battles and know that it makes us stronger — not weaker.

When you feel the conflict brewing, take a step back and weight to pros and cons before jumping into the fray. We spend a lot of time with our families, and when you spend a lot of time with someone you can find small irritations become even bigger.

Are you really upset enough to confront them? Is it worth all the energy you will have to exert? Is it worth disturbing your peace, your holidays, or even the relationships as they stand now? Some fights are good for our connections. Some disrupt them entirely. All of them tend to be a waste of time when you think about how much more effective it is to simply talk things out. Weigh the pros and cons and decide if a fight is really worthwhile.

5. Set boundaries together

There can be no truly happy and equal relationship in this world without the setting (and enforcing) of concrete boundaries which protect both your expectations and your wellbeing. Our boundaries communicate to those around us what we want from their behavior. It also helps us to make our expectations explicitly clear, so there’s no room for chaos and misunderstandings in the future.

You and your family need to sit down and form some boundaries together. Look at the way you fight now. What’s the root cause of all this fighting? What do you need in order to feel as though you don’t need to fight?

Be candid with one another and figure out where the lines need to be drawn. If you want to minimize the weekly time, you spend together — go for it. If you want to commit to talking to one another in softer voices — try that. There’s no right or wrong way to set boundaries. You just need to make clear what works for you and what doesn’t, then escort anyone who disrespects you out of the picture.

Putting it all together…

Although we tend to think of the family unit as a happy one, that’s not always the case. Some families fight with one another more than they comfort one another. It’s an easy pattern to fall into (and a toxic one, too). When you don’t confront things like control problems, or the use of sibling rivalry — you end up with increased conflict and divisions throughout the family.

You have to get out of your feelings and work through what’s going on. Where are your feelings really coming from? Is the reaction you’re experiencing now due to separate, deeper-rooted issues? Once you’ve had a time to think about how you really feel, give yourselves some space. When we’re jumbled up together, it’s too hard to think clearly about what we want. Find a family relationship expert you can open to when things get hard and use their knowledge to find a place of calm and compassion you can work from. We have to drop our judgements in order to build families that can thrive. Decide if saving your family relationship is worthwhile, then set boundaries and take action to get there.