Today is Thanksgiving. It’s my hopes that you and your family have a good Thanksgiving.
Although it’s a time when family gets together, for many families, it’s a time filled with stress and conflicts. When you’re recovering from an affair, those holidays that should be enjoyable become something that’s endured rather than enjoyed.
When family members get together, you see and experience many old family patterns. Those old patterns show up when there is tension or unresolved family issues.
Even Thanksgiving becomes a tension filled dinner. Rather than family talking to each other, they merely meet in the same room in fulfilling a required ceremony.
If your family spends more time on the phone than interacting with each other, it’s a sign of trouble. Such behavior amounts to family members avoiding what’s really going on. It’s safer on the phone than dealing with real people.
Somehow crawling into their phones is preferred to real conversation and interactions with each other. If more time is spent on the phone than talking with each other, there’s something bigger going on than the Thanksgiving dinner.
Although I would typically suggest that you issue a ‘no phones for dinner’ imperative for Thanksgiving, when there are affair recovery issues going on, you want to rethink that. Removing the phones means that those issues that have been avoided will be brought to the surface.
Both the issues and the defensiveness surrounding them show up. Thanksgiving becomes a two-edged sword. It gives you a chance for healing some old hurts, but also the chance of creating new wounds as well.
One way of reducing the likelihood of creating new wounds is by making your home emotionally safe. There are steps you can take in making that happen. Your home needs safety BEFORE tackling any old issues or demanding honesty.
If you demand honesty or attempt confronting issues out of order, you may find yourself being served up for dinner.
Get the sequence that improves communication and reduces fireworks for the holiday season. [arw]
Best Regards,
Jeff
One Response
I’m thankful for you and for the way the Bible reveals itself to those who believe it has been preserved as the God breathed Word for our knowledge of the salvation completion in and by Jesus Christ
Hopein your day was filled with the warmth of family and great memories that this time of year can bring to mind
In Christ we have reason to be thankful despite the way this present evil world works to disappoint and discourage for in Christ we are given all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
Continue in your working to bring about this encouraging truth day by day to light
I appreciate your work here Jeff 📖ðŸ”ðŸ†