Hello, everyone,

I have found this article, one in a series on the NY Times website, invaluable.
It does not deal with step-families per se, but its lessons apply across the board. This is probably the best piece on family dysfunction i have read this year; it does not address the Whys but only the Hows. If you are considering reconnecting with estranged family members, or even if you are not, this is probably the best framework that can be given for undestanding what to do, what not to do: the advice is practical, hands-on, very clear-eyed but positive.

From the frozen, wind-swept, suffocating in pre-Xmas traffic jams Manhattan comes this little insightful gem of a story for those who would like to revive the old family ties...
'tis the season.

The comments are also worth a read, so i included the link to them at the bottom.
Enjoy!

December 11, 2013

Negotiating Conflicts, Part 1: Family Grudges

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sheila Heen, an expert in negotiation and difficult conversations, is answering reader questions about how to resolve disputes within families and in other parts of life.

Ms. Heen is a founding partner at Triad Consulting Group and a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught negotiation since 1995. She wrote “Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” (Penguin, 2000), with Douglas Stone and Bruce Patton. Ms. Heen and Mr. Stone have a book coming out in March called “Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood)” (Viking, 2014). Her answers draw on insights and strategies from both books.

Here is the first set of responses from Ms. Heen; more will be posted next Wednesday.

Introduction

At the heart of many reader questions is this: “How do I get my family member(s) to do ‘X’ or stop doing ‘Y’?” Among the most painful of these cases (especially during the holidays) are family members who have curtailed or cut off contact. This week we take a look at how it happens that those we were closest to can have stories about us — and what has happened between us — that are so bewilderingly different from our own. And we have three strategies that just might let the healing begin.

Siblings With Grudges

Q. Any suggestions for how to approach a sibling with a grudge who has cut off all contact, moved and told his children not to share his location or phone number? Or how to approach those children about securing the basic info to be able to reach out? (They are in contact). — Cheryl

Q. Cheryl, I have a similar situation, though my sister did not move, she does not speak to me or my husband because of some silly argument she had with my husband (fiancé at the time). She is the queen of grudge holding. It has been three years. We were married two years ago and did not invite her to the wedding because she was not speaking to us, then we heard she was upset because she was not invited. My parents hate that it has split our family in two (one of my other four sisters does things with her and my parents on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. She went to dinner and a movie with her on Thanksgiving). I sent her an email last year saying that she was welcome at our house and that it would mean a lot to our parents, and her reply was “No thanks.” It is unbelievable to me that she holds on to every single thing and will not hesitate to throw it in our faces. I’m tired of trying to reach out to her and getting my hand bit off. She needs serious psychological help, but how do you make someone? You can’t. Many years ago it was one of my other sisters that she did not speak to for two years, because she asked her to vacuum under the dining room table after a holiday dinner. — Melissa

Q: Similar situation for me: I have a sister (seven years younger) who I have not seen in five years though we live a few miles from each other. Apparently this “conflict” is based on casual comments here and there over the years, and small incidents I don’t even remember (from when we were children?). Also that I divorced about that time (though she had discussed divorcing her husband with me a few years before). She converted to Catholicism some time back and has become extremely judgmental, though she does enjoy the rules and history of her religion and I do not begrudge her for that. I have tried various things: apology (though I’m not sure for what); a surprise visit (she left the room); gifts; invitations; suggesting to meet at a neutral location; a few rather direct phone messages from me (she never picks up); talking with her husband (he does not understand the separation either but is afraid to cross her). Does one just give up on an only sister? Parents are gone, and we have one brother who doesn’t understand why she is like this either.

— CWinters

Q. My dad and mom were separated before I was born in the 1950s. I was raised an only child. Dad remarried two years after the divorce. Dad and stepmom moved out of state when I was 2 and had almost no contact with me growing up. They have three kids together. I got married in the mid-1970s. When we had our first child, my stepmom contacted us and asked for an opportunity to reconnect. I accepted despite negative feelings toward my dad. I reconnected and all went fairly well for about 30 years. Then, my half sibs and I decided to get together for my stepmom’s 75th birthday. This required me to incur expense and travel out of state. I asked to participate in the planning. One half brother is an event planner in the city we were to meet. He said that he wanted to take over the planning, but that we would all be involved. He made plans, discussed them with my stepmom, and got her all excited. I knew the event was not something that I wanted to do and tried to be diplomatic about it. My other half brother just said, " No.” The event did not go as my stepbrother had planned. My stepmom admitted to all she was disappointed and almost didn’t come to the event. Both my event planner half brother and my half sister have become estranged from me and somewhat from my other half brother. My dad and stepmom refuse to get involved. How do we reconnect? Wait till a funeral? I don’t want to have regrets even if the future relationship is not as friendly. — 3Rs

Q. Forty years ago, my parents divorced, and our brother became estranged in many ways from his two sisters ... he did not feel that we treated our mother the way she deserved to be treated .. .he has always had her on a pedestal. Fast forward to now, and Mom is 94, and another generation has been affected by the shunning behavior of my brother ... he has cut me off (I am the younger sister) so many times that I have lost track ... our kids (the cousins) do not really get along with one another, and it is all really sad. At one time, he was angry at me over politics, when I was a Republican, but I am back to being a Democrat. Now he maligns me for eating meat, but I think that no matter what, he would shun me. I have tried writing to my brother, but it never works out ... he sends angry emails in purple ink, with equally purple prose. He and I were close as children, so our long rift has filled me with regret.

— Catherine

A. Few things are as emotionally upsetting as having a family member who has severed ties with you (or with the whole family). Most of us work especially hard not to cut off ties with family, precisely because they are family. And so when someone does, it is often experienced by those cut off as being cavalier, petty, or the result of a failure to try hard enough.

In short, he or she is holding a grudge. A grudge, by definition, is a thing that should not be held. It’s not a legitimate or healthy reaction and the resulting choices are bad ones. A more stable person would not have taken offense in the first place and a bigger person would surely have let go of it by now.

But that’s not how it’s experienced by the people holding the grudge. They know that what they are doing is protecting themselves, drawing essential boundaries, doing the only thing left to them to do. When we cut ties with others it’s not because we don’t care; it’s because the friction or pain or dysfunction have finally overpowered even the special pull of family.

None of this tells us whether those who withdraw from families are right or wrong, justified or not. It only says that that their reasons make sense to them, even if they don’t make sense to us.

Why we have such different versions of history

Before thinking about what to do, it’s useful to understand a few reasons why people on each side of a conflict can experience it so differently.

1. Emotional math. Everyone gets frustrated, resentful, disappointed, or even enraged with others on occasion. It may come out as shouting, sarcasm, snippiness, or simply a put-upon silence. In those moments, we don’t see our emotional behavior as a big deal. They’re the ones who were being unusually annoying, it was a tense situation, you were tired. You know that your anger in that moment is not who you “really are.”

But to the other person, your anger is exactly who you are. Your emotional display is not incidental – it’s at the heart of the story they tell of what happened between you. From their point of view, your anger is the threat – the very thing they were coping with in that moment.

So you will tend to subtract your own emotions from the story, while the other person counts your emotions, say, double. And the same is true in reverse: You count their emotional reactions double, while they subtract them.

2. Emotions influence what sticks in memory. Now factor in that memories that have emotions involved have a big red tag on them, so that we locate and recall those memories easily, even years later (and even when we would rather not recall them). This is why a sister remembers something that happened in childhood as a central moment in a conflict with her brother, while the brother literally has no memory of the event. If it had little emotional resonance for him at the time, he didn’t tag it. And so it didn’t “stick.”

Furthermore, there is evidence that each time we recall a memory, or retell it, we overwrite the memory itself. We think we still have the master file — that we remember exactly what happened accurately — but in fact we’re on version seven (or 77). And so is the other person. Over time each of our stories about what really happened grow farther and farther apart.

Simply recalling (your version of) an upsetting incident between you and a sibling — or experiencing the same kind of behavior from them now — can retrigger those feelings of hurt, confusion, disappointment, betrayal, or fear all over again. The original events were long ago — 10 or even 40 years past. But the feelings are happening (again) now.

Taken together, emotional math and emotional memories partly explain why our family stories of past and present can be so disturbingly different, or even why we have no idea what their grudge-holding story might be.

Here’s what not to do.

Don’t write them a long letter or email explaining your perspective. Even if you do a beautiful and skillful job of it, even if you apologize, it is unlikely to achieve your purposes. Why? Because inevitably some aspect of what you describe will feel “off” to them (“That’s not what happened!”) or will leave out parts that they feel are most important. And their interpretation of your motives for writing the letter is colored by emotion. Your desire to reconnect is seen as a desire to absolve yourself of guilt, to manipulate, or to appear to be righteously taking the high road.

So they finish reading your lovely letter and feel even more upset with you. Now they have even less incentive to reach out and talk because they’ve heard what you wanted to say (and it was wrong). Remember that email and letters aren’t dialogue. They’re monologue. And they’re the channel of communication that can escalate conflict most quickly.

If you need to send a note because, like Cheryl, 3Rs or Catherine, you have no other way of contacting them, make it short and focused on the invitation and your feelings about what you miss in the relationship. Don’t explain your point of view. Don’t even apologize for specific things because they can argue with the specifics, or react to the fact that you’re not apologizing for other specific things. Just say something along these lines:

“Dear (Bob/Sally/Rufus),

I’ve really missed you. I know that the last few years have been hard, and I’m sure I’ve done things to exacerbate that. On my end, I feel hurt too. I would like to start the process of trying to heal our relationship, whatever that means for each of us. I miss my brother/sister, and I’d like to find a way to be closer ... “

If needed, this note can be given, in a sealed envelope, to a family member who can pass it along. The fact that you sealed it means the messenger isn’t in league with you on the message, and they don’t get put in the middle.

Now you have a few different directions you can go, depending on which strategy you want to try first. Some of the folks who wrote in have tried one or another of these, so they might choose to try a different one and see if you get a different reaction.

Three Reconnection Strategies

Strategy 1: Don’t talk, just do. Often family members cut off contact not because they like conflict, but because they hate conflict. Avoiding the stress seems most easily done by avoiding the people who produce the stress.

The problem is that this feeds on itself, making the conflict bigger, making it even more anxiety-producing. The last thing they want is to have to have a big conversation about it. That’s why they are avoiding you to begin with.

Sometimes, depending on the personalities involved, the best approach is to avoid the “big conversation” altogether, and just to start acting “normal” again. Melissa mentions that another sister was cut off for two years, which made me wonder, what eventually broke that dynamic? Send them a Christmas card. Send birthday gifts to their kids. Email them the recipe you found for those cookies grandma used to bake for you guys as kids. Small acts of kindness can start to get traction on re-establishing normalcy.

Strategy 2: Propose a conversation just about the future. Sometimes it’s not worth sorting through the details of who did what and reacted to what. It may simply be that you want to propose talking about how to move on: “I’d love to get together, not to rehash what has happened, but to talk about how we’d each like things to be going forward. I miss you, and I’d love to find a way for our kids to spend more time together/for us to be supportive of mom together…..etc.”

Strategy 3: Initiate a conversation to understand the rift. Let them know that you’d like to talk. Not so that you can talk them out of their feelings or their behavior, but so that you can better understand what’s happened between you. Melissa’s approach of telling her sister that she is welcome at their house anytime is helpful, but it leaves the ball in the sister’s court to take the initiative. She may be too stuck to be able to do that. Propose something more specific – let them know that you’d love to have coffee before the next family get together, at a specific time and at a favorite place perhaps. Or that you’ll be calling next week to check in on their reaction to your note. If you talk about it, do so one-on-one.

In that conversation, you’ll be doing two things – talking and listening. If you want them to listen to you, your best chance at making that happen is by first listening to them. Why? Because people simply do not take in what you have to say, cannot question or shift their perceptions, until they feel understood. To get meaningful communication moving, someone has to be the first to listen and that someone is going to have to be you.

Work hard to understand their perspective, and not to argue with it. Imagine that you’re a journalist who has to explain your sibling’s perspective to the public. Ask questions to clarify what they mean and how they felt. Assume that their story will have lots of partial truths (leaves out things, misinterprets things), be teeming with blame, and cast you as the bad guy. That’s O.K. They’ve come loaded for bear, and they expect a fight. Don’t give it to them. Don’t argue with their story; just work to understand it.

Don’t worry. You get to say your piece too. When you have spent enough time listening to and asking questions so that they feel heard and the energy behind it has settled down, you can turn to your perspective. The transition is important, because you’re not working to contradict, just to add your pieces of the puzzle to more fully understanding what went on between you:

Thanks for telling me what’s been going on from your perspective. There are a number of things you said that I was unaware of, and there are things that are important to you that I just wasn’t thinking about. I’m starting to get a better sense of how upsetting it’s been for you…. [Agree with what you do agree with about what they’ve said. This helps them feel heard, and creates some common ground, whether it’s 5% or 65% of what they’ve said. After that, say….]

And, there are also some things that have happened between us that have also been upsetting to me….

We call this using the “And Stance.” You can be upset, and I can be upset too. You can feel you are right, and I can be right about some things too. I contributed to the problem, and you contributed too. We need to talk about both.

When you describe your perspective, keep these ideas in mind.

Take responsibility for your contribution to the rift: “Looking back, I can see why not inviting you to the wedding was hurtful. At the time I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t think you wanted to come, and I was also feeling so hurt myself that I wasn’t sure I was up to being upset on our wedding day….”

Don’t accuse them of bad intentions, just describe the impact: “You may not have intended it, but when you took over the planning for mom’s birthday without consulting anyone, I was really hurt and confused……”

Say what you want for the future: Too often we get to the end of a big conversation and walk away unclear what happens next. This sets you both up for further disappointment if your expectations differ. Close by saying what you would like, or intend to do: “So I’d like to go back to getting together at the holidays….” Or “What if we have coffee every couple of weeks for awhile?” or even, “I want to think about some of what you’ve said, and I’ll call you next week….”

Whatever you try, remember that it takes time to normalize a relationship this estranged, and it’s also not a linear process. Things often get worse before they get better, and then go up and down even as they gradually, in the big picture, improve. So the dips and frustrations are normal, and not necessarily a signal that you should give up.

But the bottom line is that the only person you control in this relationship is yourself. Your goal should be to offer the most appealing and welcoming invitation to relationship that you can, consistently over time, and to feel proud of the way you handled it. How they choose to respond is up to them.

A special note to those who have curtailed family contact

If you are going to cut off ties or establish a boundary — and this can sometimes be a healthy reaction to unrelenting criticism or destructive hurt — here are two things to remember.

First, tell others why you are doing it. You think they already know; after all, your reasons are obvious or should be obvious to anyone who cares. But they really might not know. And if they don’t know, they are free to think the worst. When you inform them, don’t focus on others’ character (“I can’t be with the family because you are all so toxic and hateful.”) Instead, focus on how you’re feeling (“The last three times we’ve had big family get-togethers, my anxiety has just gone through the roof. I leave feeling judged and rejected. It’s too much for me to deal with, so I’m going to stay away this year.”). And if there are conditions under which you would increase contact, let them know (“If you can refrain from commenting on my weight or my spouse, we’ll come.”).

Second, remember that your kids are watching. They’re learning how to handle conflict in families and in relationships. There are no easy answers here, but at least be aware that what you do today may be what your kids do — to you or to one another — one day down the road.

Next week: Ms. Heen answers questions about conflict about the holidays.

Previous Ask an Expert columns can be found here.

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here. You may also follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. Our e-mail is booming@nytimes.com.

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