When Holidays Hurt: Navigate the Season in Recovery With Strength and Honesty
The holiday season is often portrayed as a time filled with joy, connection, celebration, and family moments. Yet many couples who are walking through addiction recovery, betrayal trauma, or the slow rebuilding of trust experience the season very differently. Instead of ease or warmth, they may feel grief, confusion, tension, or emotional distance.
If this was you this year, you are not alone. And nothing is wrong with you.
The holidays can bring up memories of how things once were. They can highlight what has changed. They can expose the places where healing is still happening. This is true for both the partner who struggles with addiction and the partner who carries the wounds of betrayal. It is also true for couples who are courageously staying in the work of rebuilding.
What follows are four invitations to help you understand the emotional landscape of the holidays and approach this season with honesty, compassion, and intentionality. These ideas are not formulas and they are not pressure filled. They are simply ways of paying attention to what matters as you continue your healing journey.
1. Understand the Emotional Terrain, Both Yours and Your Partner’s
The holidays stir memory. They bring up nostalgia, expectation, and sometimes the ache of what has been lost. For many betrayed partners, this season heightens vulnerability. Dr. Rachel Yehuda, whose research in trauma has influenced the field significantly, notes that trauma reshapes the brain to stay alert to potential danger. During the holidays, with their unpredictability and social pressure, that sensitivity can become even more activated.
For the partner in recovery, this season can stir shame. There may be moments when you feel painfully aware of past harm. There may also be moments when you want so badly to recreate normalcy that you override what your partner is actually feeling. This is not uncommon. Many people in recovery discover that the hardest part of the holidays is pretending things are fine when their partner is grieving.
Avoiding the emotional reality rarely works. The couples who grow during this season tend to be the ones who acknowledge what is true without letting it define them.
One man in recovery told us that he used to believe staying positive during the holidays would help his wife heal. Instead, she felt unheard. When he finally learned to say, “This season may feel different because of what we have walked through, and I am open to hearing how this is affecting you,” their conversations began to soften.
An Invitation to Reflect
Ask your partner,
What might help this season feel more manageable or grounding for you?
Then simply listen. Let the answer be what it is.
Authenticity creates far more safety than pretending.
2. Honesty and Safety Matter More Than Ever
Trust is not rebuilt through one moment. Trust is rebuilt through many small moments of honesty over time. Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s work in betrayal trauma highlights how consistency and predictability are essential for restoring safety in a relationship. During the holidays, when schedules shift and expectations rise, this becomes even more important.
For the partner in addiction recovery, this season is an opportunity to demonstrate reliability in simple and steady ways. Not from a place of fear or shame, but from a commitment to becoming a trustworthy person.
This may look like sharing your plans without being asked.
It may look like checking in emotionally rather than withdrawing.
It may look like acknowledging discomfort with humility instead of defensiveness.
It may look like honoring boundaries even when it feels inconvenient.
One betrayed partner shared that her spouse’s willingness to offer information before being asked created more peace for her than anything he bought or planned for Christmas. She said, “He did not wait for my anxiety to rise. He simply chose honesty as a way of caring for me.”
An Invitation to Practice
At the start of each day, ask yourself,
What can I do today to contribute to emotional safety in our relationship?
Let that question guide the tone of your interactions.
3. Honor Old Traditions. Create New Ones When Needed.
Traditions can be comforting. They can also be triggering. Many couples are surprised at how emotional this part of the season becomes. Family gatherings may feel heavier than expected. Social events may stir anxiety. Religious services may bring up memories of connection that no longer feel available. The pressure to perform or to appear fine can also intensify old wounds.
Some traditions may need to be adapted for a season. Others may need to be paused. This is not regression. It is wisdom.
One couple we worked with made a courageous decision during their first Christmas after disclosure. They had always hosted a large gathering, but the betrayed partner felt overwhelmed at the thought of entertaining. Instead of pushing ahead with their usual plan, her husband suggested a simple evening together at home. They cooked a modest meal. They lit a candle. They watched a movie. She later said it was the first holiday she felt emotionally respected.
Creating new traditions does not require anything elaborate. It simply requires presence and intention. A slow walk. A shared meal. A moment of reflection. A simple ritual that symbolizes hope or commitment.
An Invitation to Connect
Before and after each holiday event, check in with one another.
Ask,
How are you feeling about this?
What would support look like for you?
Afterward ask,
What felt helpful or difficult about that experience?
Healing happens through connection, not performance.
4. Care for Yourself So You Can Care for the Relationship
Many people in recovery fall into the trap of believing their job is to repair everyone else’s pain. This often leads to over-functioning, emotional exhaustion, and ultimately relapse or shutdown. The truth is that caring for the relationship begins with caring for yourself. Not in a self-centered way. In a grounded and responsible way.
Your nervous system needs support when you are navigating grief, shame, or conflict. Emotional regulation practices help you show up with presence instead of reactivity. These practices can include therapy, support groups, journaling, spiritual reflection, movement, or simply time alone to breathe and reset.
One man in long-term recovery described the moment he realized that trying to heal the relationship without healing himself was impossible. He said, “I kept trying to fix us without realizing I had not yet become someone who could offer safety. When I started caring for my own growth, my capacity to love my wife changed.”
An Invitation to Strengthen Your Foundation
Choose one personal practice that helps you stay centered.
Choose one relational practice that helps you approach your partner with kindness.
Let your healing overflow into your relationship, not replace it.
Reach Out for Support When the Season Feels Too Heavy
Healing from addiction and betrayal is complex. It is not meant to be done without support. Many couples benefit deeply from therapy, coaching, groups, or recovery communities especially during emotionally charged seasons. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of wisdom.
Even individuals with years of sobriety or significant relational restoration still reach out for guidance. Growth is a lifelong journey. Support allows you to navigate that journey with clarity rather than isolation.
This holiday season may not have looked the way you hoped. Yet it can still become a meaningful part of your story. A season that revealed where healing continues. A season that clarified what matters. A season that nudged you toward deeper honesty, compassion, and connection.
Progress is not perfection. Progress is presence. And presence is what slowly rebuilds trust.
Closing Thought
You do not need a flawless holiday to have a meaningful one. You simply need honesty, courage, and a willingness to grow. Healing rarely looks clean or predictable. It looks human. It looks imperfect. And it often looks like two people choosing, again and again, to move toward truth and connection instead of away from it.
Whatever this holiday held for you, it can become part of the larger story of restoration that you are writing with your life. There is still hope. There is still room for growth. And this season, even in its difficulty, may have been an important chapter in your healing.
