How to reconnect with a family member after a long break
Miscellaneous / / September 13, 2023
It doesn't matter how much time has passed; Focus on your feelings in the present - and it will be easier to take the first step.
No matter how much time has passed since a breakup or how far people close to each other have grown apart, family always introduces a person to themselves. Even when we don’t talk to one of our relatives, especially if they are brothers or sisters, they still remain a part of our life.
The desire to renew relationships with family especially intensifies with age. As children grow up and leave home, careers wind down, and friends move or leave our lives, we think about the past much more often. We want to reconnect with the people who knew us before we got married or started working. We strive to communicate with those who understand the “code” of our parental family.
However, it is often impossible to start communicating again, despite all efforts. Most fail because they use the same behavior patterns that led to alienation in the first place. Change is difficult. And very few are able to admit they were wrong, apologize and take responsibility for the pain they caused and the years that were lost.
If you want to reconnect with your loved one after a long break, try the following steps.
1. Understand your feelings
This is necessary in order, on the one hand, to protect yourself and your feelings, and on the other, to approach rapprochement rationally and openly. The following questions will help assess your emotional state:
- Why is this relationship important to you? Not for your family or anyone else, but for you.
- On what basis will you restore and maintain relationships? Like brothers or sisters, friends, distant relatives?
- Do you have enough in common? Does your loved one share your desire to reunite? Is he willing to put in the same effort as you?
- You can get rid of anger, pain or grievanceswhich caused the breakup?
- Could your relationship with your loved one improve after reuniting?
- Will you still be determined to continue communication if it turns out that neither of you has changed?
- Do you have the resources - time, energy, emotional stability, support of other loved ones - to reconcile and restore relationships?
- If you are going to reconnect with someone who has a difficult character, will you have to compromise with yourself to do so?
2. Prepare for the meeting
In his book Psychotherapist Karen Gail Lewis suggests the following procedure:
- Choose a quiet, neutral place to calmly discuss how you can improve your relationship. Take time to have a serious conversation first, and then have fun together.
- Decide in advance what topics you will cover and start with the least stressful ones.
- Set a specific time period for the conversation, such as 1-3 hours, and do not try to cover everything at once in one meeting.
- Communicate in private, without allowing friends or other relatives to be present.
- Repeat one after another: as soon as one expresses his point of view, the other retells it in his own words. This will ensure that you can hear and you understand each other.
- Use humor and agree on a funny code word to say when someone breaks the rules.
3. Get ready to work on relationships
Here are some tips to help you do this:
- Leave misunderstandings in the past and focus on the present and future.
- Start the conversation gently.
- Stay honest, but try not to hurt other people's feelings.
- Talk about disagreements honestly. Use sentences with the pronoun “I” rather than “you” so that your loved one does not have to defend himself. For example, “I feel offended” instead of “You offend me.”
- Accept your relative for who he is now. Throw away childhood grievances, ideas and labels. There were reasons for his behavior in the past. Perhaps this was not a conscious decision, but a consequence of upbringing or family situation.
- Refrain from being judgmental when explaining your feelings. To build a new relationship, it is necessary to give a relative a certain amount of trust.
- Control your ego and give up desperate attempts to prove that the truth is always on your side.
- Stay in the present moment rather than drawing anger from long-past events.
- Use a simple “do you remember when…” prompt to establish a connection to a unique relationship you once had.
- Develop friendship and try to communicate with a relative as with a friend. Look for common interests and common ground, even if there are not many of them.
- Learn about the triggers that may cause your loved one to experience unpleasant experiences and avoid them.
- Don't expect much. A few conversations will not immediately smooth over mutual hostility that has lasted for years.
- Appreciate small victories and slow progress.
- Listen to the stories your loved one tells you.
4. Coping with anger
When a relationship breaks down, we may experience a variety of emotions, but the main driving force is usually anger. It masks many other feelings: resentment, stress, self-doubt, sadness, guilt, shame. But whatever is behind anger, it leads to hostility, which destroys everything.
It will take effort to let go of anger before reconciliation. The answers to several questions will indicate where exactly to send them:
- Can I eliminate anger from my attempts to reconnect with my relative?
- What benefit will I get if I control my anger? At what cost will I be able to do this?
- If I'm constantly angry, what exactly fuels this feeling? How does this prevent me from establishing a relationship with a loved one?
- Can I admit that I'm angry and still try to get back in touch with the relative?
- Does anger give me strength? If so, can I find another source?
- I can install personal boundarieswithout getting angry or defensive?
- How would I feel if someone took out all the anger I feel on me?
- How will I feel about myself, remembering this situation and realizing that I allowed anger to get the better of me?
We cannot be responsible for the behavior of our loved ones, but we can choose our role in interacting with them and how we approach restoring contacts. Therefore, in order to resume a relationship with someone after a long break and change it qualitatively, first of all you will have to work on yourself.
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