Happy (Difficult) Holidays.
The holidays can be no bed of poinsettias for people who are separated or divorced. Celebrating without the kids can bring on loneliness and a lot of anxiety. A difficult ex-spouse can multiply the bad feelings. Manhattan-based psychologist, Kristin Davin, offers a few tips on how to make it through the worst with your spirit intact. You can read it here on Divorce Circus.
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Norman Rockwell created the image of the American holidays as a time when the mother, father, kids and grandparents all gather around a single table and enjoy an abundance of food, family and gifts. But for many American families in the 21st Century that vision is painfully outdated.
Separation and divorce, far from uncommon in our culture, cuts that canvas to shreds. In those families, father may be in one home and mother in another. And the kids, well, there is no traditional place for them to be anymore.
Of course some divorced parents have this figured out better than others. In less contentious situations, where the focus was and continues to be on establishing a happy holidays for the kids, Custody Agreements can feature several different compromises that leave everyone feeling satisfied and no one left out.
For example, some couples split up Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Others simply split up Christmas Day itself. These kinds of arrangements help adults and children alike cope with the fractured family situation. No one feels down because no one is left out.
However, in other families where children may spend the entire holiday with one parent to the exclusion of the other, loneliness, depression, and anxiety can all be on the calendar.
It’s hard but not impossible to minimize the sting of that pain.
If you are going to be alone for the holidays it’s never a bad idea to keep busy with productive activities. The idea is to minimize bad feelings that can’t be eliminated.
Altruism can help with that. Volunteering to deliver meals to feed the hungry helps to pass the time and reduce the negative feelings of missing loved ones.
Another way to accomplish the same goal is to merely occupy your time. Go to a friend’s house and celebrate with their family. Go to the movies and see the best shows Hollywood releases all year. Go out to the rare restaurant that may be open even on Christmas. Get together with a new love interest, if you’ve got one.
You might use the time to plan a “Make Up Christmas Day” with your kids. It may not be on the 25th, but it can still be fun and festive and create a new memory for you and your children, something they will look forward to in the years that follow.
Yet despite good intentions and doing all of those things, one situation that is rarely mentioned in articles like this is coping with the pain of a co-parent who will simply not live up to the legal custody Agreement.
Unfortunately, many parents get ‘short changed’ out of holiday time they negotiated by the other parent who simply prolongs a trip or never delivers the children as they should.
The legal system offers its remedies, but those are often retroactive and costly.
Sometimes you are left with terrible feelings of anger, despair, and resentment due to the actions of the co-parent who simply isn’t thinking of the kids (just him or herself) and is acting extremely unfair. There is simply nothing you can do to control that other person. Instead, the best you can hope for in that situation is to turn your focus inward and deal with your strong emotions.
During those times of extreme stress do the very things we know we should do to take care of ourselves – going to the gym and running, lifting weights, doing yoga, or taking a spinning class. Those are all healthy ways to feel good about yourself while taking out a little of the aggression you might be feeling.
Getting a massage, focusing on your diet and overall health and well–being, getting adequate sleep, reaching out to family and friends – these are things that may fall by the wayside all year, but that should find their way to make to the top of your list at the holidays. Especially if you are alone. They help you focus on you and limit the amount of time and energy you give away by staying angry.
There is no doubt that you are justified in feeling angry, but it doesn’t mean you should give in to it. The holidays are hard enough to endure without letting someone else goad you into negative emotion that ruins the spirit of the season and affects your health.
Letting go of those things that you simply cannot control, coming up with a plan not only for the present (taking care of yourself) but for the future (what needs to be done to prevent this from happening again) will give you a sense of control. It allows you to decide how happy or sad you are, what you are going to do and how you are going to enjoy yourself. It takes the power out of the hands of your vindictive ex-spouse and puts it back where it belongs — with you.
The most important thing to remember is happiness (in varying degrees) can be created around the holidays. You are the one to make that decision.
Christmas and Hanukkah, for adults dealing with harsh life realities, do not always come wrapped in a pretty bow. But the beauty of the season is there for the taking, if you so choose.