Family Fatigue

Family plays a central role in your life. This is wonderful. Strong family connections are a source of enduring support. On the flip side, strong family relationships can be a source of stress. You have strong family relationships because you’re invested in your family members, and them in you. But your strong family relationships can raise expectations for your wedding, and emotions can run hot. Because you’re so close with your family, there are more opinions and feelings to take into account.

Even if you don’t have close family relationships, a strong emotional bond still exists. If you feel detached and withdrawn from your family, it’s for a reason, and the reason is based in emotion. While you may not feel close to your family, your family members may still have feelings about your engagement, and those feelings can cause stress.

It’s likely that your engagement is impacting your and your fiancé’s families emotionally. Weddings and engagements bring up difficult feelings, even though marriage it’s a really happy thing! Seeing a child, sibling, or other family member get married means familiar family dynamics are changing, and this can feel like a loss. Have your family members been acting weird throughout your engagement? This could very well be the reason.

Recommendations for You:

Consider how your engagement may be impacting your family emotionally and develop some awareness and empathy for your loved ones.
Set new boundaries, with equal parts firmness and compassion. You may need to hone some communication skills for this!
Strategize with your fiancé about how to handle both families together. You’re a unit now!
Schedule a counseling session for yourself, to think and talk through these family issues and get feedback on how to manage them. Read about our services here!
Schedule a family counseling session to help you and your family members share your feelings with each other and navigate conflict. (Btw, we do that too!)

Tools for You:

The Mindful Nearlywed | An Emotional Resilience Guide + Workbook

The Mindful Nearlywed is a free 20-page resource that will guide you through four common struggles during the engagement journey, with actionable journal prompts for self-reflection and emotional resiliency.

The Mindful Nearlywed explores: