Redefining the Holidays After Betrayal: What Does Your Heart Need?

When I told a friend recently that I didn’t have Thanksgiving plans, she looked startled — almost worried. “You’re not going anywhere?” she asked.

Her tone carried kindness and a genuine concern for my well-being, but underneath it was something familiar: that cultural discomfort with solitude, especially around holidays. It can’t possibly be healthy to spend a holiday alone when I am surrounded by friends and family that would love to include me.  But I’m not waiting for an invitation. I’m not sad, and I’m not lonely. For the first time in years, the thought of a quiet day at home feels perfectly right — peaceful, even.

It’s taken me a while to realize that this feeling of peace around not having plans is part of healing.

Remembering the Old Holidays

Before betrayal changed the landscape of my life, Thanksgiving was always large, loud, and busy. My ex-husband’s family hosted — his parents, siblings, their children, and their families. My parents joined when they were alive, and we were all welcomed, but I subtly understood that the day centered around his family.  I knew that a smaller and quieter gathering at one of my family members’ homes was not an option we would ever be choosing — even occasionally — so I gave up suggesting it, even though I secretly longed for it.  I know my family did as well.

They were good people, his family. The food was beautiful, the tables warm and perfectly set, the laughter genuine. And yet, every year I found myself quietly exhausted — ready to leave long before the evening ended. I never questioned it then; I thought everyone felt that way after big family gatherings. But now I see that something deeper was happening: I was performing belonging. I was trying to fit seamlessly into a family that never truly saw me as a whole person, only as an extension of their brother, father and uncle who was revered by them. 

When betrayal shattered that life, the silence that followed from that family I loved was as loud as any argument. No one from that family — people I had loved for close to fifteen years — reached out. That silence revealed what I hadn’t wanted to see before: I was valued for my role, not for myself.

So this year, quiet feels like truth.

Choosing Stillness Is Not Isolation

When betrayal rewires your world, it also rewires your nervous system. I now recognize that, for years, I was on emotional high alert — tending to others, laughing, participating, trying to anticipate who they needed me to be in order to fit in and be loved.  My vigilance masqueraded as warmth, inclusion, and love for an extended family. Which I genuinely felt for them.  But in reality, I see now that it was survival.

Now, my body doesn’t want to perform anymore. It wants quiet. It wants predictability. It wants the kind of peace that doesn’t have to be negotiated or performed to be accepted by others. 

And I’ve learned to listen.

Solitude, in this season of life, no longer feels like a void I need to fill. It’s recognizing and honoring what I need to fill my own cup and make a day feel special. It’s my body saying, I finally feel safe enough to rest.

When we’ve spent years in spaces that required us to shrink, adjust, or overgive, stillness can feel foreign at first. And it can definitely feel awkward to share the genuine need for stillness with others. But there’s nothing wrong with preferring calm to chaos. The urge for quiet isn’t absence — it’s presence. It’s an authentic recognizing of yourself and your own needs — often when that hasn’t happened for years or even decades.

Reclaiming Thanksgiving

For a long time, I thought Thanksgiving was about being surrounded — full tables, full schedules, full everything. This year feels more about being rooted. Gratitude feels different when it’s no longer performative and superficial with many, but quiet and deep with myself.

This year, my Thanksgiving table might be small — maybe it’s just a coffee and a book, or a simple meal I make for myself. I might pop over to the next door neighbors’ who invited me to join the two of them at any point.  I might go for a walk and breathe in the crisp air, being thankful that I can do both. And that will be enough. Because it’s not about recreating what was; it’s about honoring what is.

Holidays can stir up deep grief for what’s been lost, especially when families disappear after betrayal as my in-laws did. But maybe grief and gratitude can share the same table. Maybe it’s okay to acknowledge both: the ache and the relief, the memory and the quiet, the space left behind and the peace that’s arrived in its place. And the time to reflect on what all that means to me.

Belonging Without Performance

Belonging doesn’t have to be earned. It doesn’t depend on whether anyone else sees our worth, as I had long thought was the case. After betrayal, we often learn that belonging begins in the relationship we build with ourselves.

When I think of Thanksgiving this year, I think of it less as a performance and more as a new practice — a practice of noticing what feels true. I don’t need to host or attend to prove my value. Value and worth isn’t something to prove at all. It’s something I now carry, quietly, within.

And that, to me, feels like gratitude.

A New Kind of Celebration

The day after Thanksgiving is my birthday. I plan to mark it with something gentle — maybe treat myself to a facial, maybe just time to rest. Or maybe an unstructured outing of my own choosing. I want to celebrate not by filling my day, but by feeling at home in it and being grateful that I made it here.  Last year I wasn’t sure how I ever would.

If you’re reading this and find yourself approaching the holidays with a strange new calm — a pull toward quiet instead of crowds — I want to say this: there’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t have to explain your peace. You don’t have to translate it into productivity or performance.

You’re allowed to step out of old traditions and create your own. You’re allowed to prioritize calm over company. You’re allowed to feel whole in the quiet.

Wishing you the kind of holiday YOUR heart needs this year.