Red flags

It's true that all of us here would have more fun and peace on our own than with someone whose behaviour is distressing. I empathise too.

I listened to a video about coping with Christmas, yesterday, on the Stand Alone charity website. It advised us to treat it like any other Bank Holiday, get some nice food in and do things we want to do.

It's a shame that the website is all out of date , dated 2023 for workshops - no updates. I was hopeful when the Estrangement charity started up and now I don't know of another one.

The issue with Christmas is all the advertising. It's all about families being together and when you can't have that, and estrangement is one of many reasons why it isn't possible for everyone, it makes it particularly difficult.

Our DS is in Aus. Our ES's children are our only GC. From the outset, we were and remain determined to make the most of who and what we have but it isn't always easy and for us, Christmas remains particularly hard.

Christmas is difficult with a lot of things. Adverts and build up is all about happy couples/happy families.

All fine - but I found it incredibly hard last year without DH. I had the family but no DH.

I just staggered through, reminding myself it was only one day.

Which is all you can do, whatever the circumstances. 🤷‍♀️

I know Smileless and it must be so much worse for people who don't have a partner or a pet. So sorry Diamond Lily

We also won't have GC and will be missing people, but we'll try to make it a nice day, eat some nice food and wine and try to get through it. It's only one day, but I remember feeling a huge sense of relief last year when it was all over. Yes it is all you can do.

I hate hearing about it so early. I haven't had the TV on much since they started going on about mince pies in August.

Does anyone have any good ideas for games to get/play with elderly people? I like Scrabble, but we'll have our parents with us and they find it hard to keep up now, so I was wondering about something that might keep the attention better? Perhaps if we all threw ourselves into a game it might make the afternoon go faster.

If the weather is nice there's walks with the dog to break up the day. Perhaps we should make a coping post and add as many ideas to pass the day well as possible.

poshpaws

If they think practical jokes are acceptable. To me practical jokes are unkind, and usually humiliating, to the victim and I would question the entire character of someone who found them funny.

Could bot agree more uts bullying.

I’ll leave aside any behaviors I just find unpleasant or unlikeable—most of them have been covered by other commenters anyway!

My red flags for genuinely unsafe persons include:

• Inability to accept boundaries or understand what they are (lines we draw for ourselves and our lives, not project onto others/use to control their behavior.)

• Refusal to ever admit they’re wrong or to apologize

• Racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, etc. I especially cannot abide when such bigotry is couched in “political or religious differences” so as not to be too specific or alarming to the listener, or to be easily rug-swept as “not personal”. For most ideologies, the political is personal, and I won’t spend time with someone who thinks my friends’ and family members’ existence is something to be squashed.

Fortunately I’ve gotten quite good at identifying these traits pretty quickly and keeping them out of my life!

Indigo8

When somebody accepts and expects generosity without ever it occurring to them that they should give or do anything in return.

I think I agree with all of the suggestions on here, but this one is probably the biggest one for me.