Have you noticed that too? Until the last minute of the opening hours of the shops, we rush through the “quietest” time of the year. And then, as if at the push of a button, it suddenly becomes quiet. The streets are getting emptier and the “Christmas truce” is spreading mercilessly.
Suddenly from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and the longing for silence and contemplation ironed down by “Jingle Bells” and “Rudi, the rednosed Rendeer” into the hoped-for Christmas idyll with partner and children.
Christmas is the socially prescribed celebration of the family with all the ingredients of children’s dreams and wishes. Because there is the longing for security. The longing for domestic peace. The longing to be together. The desire for the cuddly and the cozy. The desire for Christmas, just as it was imagined in the past.
And the reality: Most of the time, the relationship temperature, which was already lukewarm at most during the year, cools down to the warmth of an igloo. Expectations, on the other hand, are rising, if you compare them with the temperatures, at least at the level of the wellness room.
Failure is therefore inevitable, especially if you make your partner primarily responsible for creating the mental wellness climate.
All in all, a situation that invites conflicts, especially at Christmas time, which you can’t even avoid because there is enough time.
But what are the most common causes of conflict and how can we avoid them?
Too much proximity:
We are hardly used to spending more time together than we do in everyday life.
And especially at Christmas, the number of hours a day where we spend time together increases.
On the one hand, there is the joy of having more time together, on the other hand, we are not used to this togetherness, which often has no alternative. Men in particular, who are out of the house for more than eight hours in everyday life and who only know the volume level of a family with two children to a very limited extent when they come home, are often overwhelmed and expect their partner to have it under control. She, in turn, would like to be relieved and supported in the preparations for the festival.
What helps:
Planning in good time, relieving each other and scheduling time for yourself for everyone at an early stage. Cultivate some everyday rituals over Christmas and have them cared for.
Differing expectations:
Each of us has different expectations about how and in what form we want to spend the Christmas days. We believe that we know our partner’s expectations and desires and think that they agree with us anyway. This is often wrong.
Everyone has the ideal Christmas in mind and wants to experience it that way. And he has coherent reasons why it has to be so.
Most of the time, this is skewered with the expectations of the partner. At first, people swallow for the sake of peace, but then conflicts usually arise very quickly.
What helps:
Renouncing perfectionism. Creating more opportunities for improvisation. Don’t cram your daily routine to the limit.
Traditions to be respected:
How the celebration and the days after it should take place is often not questioned at all or follows a process that lasts for years without being asked. And so there are often conflicts because of this process, because basically no one really likes it, but what can you do against mothers-in-law and the rest of the relatives. Then it’s better to argue with each other than with the others.
We bring traditions from our childhood into the relationship and our families of origin want to live on as much tradition as possible. Most of the time, we don’t have a chance at all to develop our own tradition with our partner and our children. And so topics that start with “We’ve always done it this way…” the ideal invitation to quarrel.
What helps:
Make a conscious effort to put the marathon of visits on the back burner. Together with your closest family, think about what you want and how you want it.
Find a joint solution and then present it to your relatives.
Christmas becomes a real and tangible celebration of the family when we really reflect on the modest, unspectacular and real and pay less attention to what we have to fulfill.
Christmas will also be beautiful in your partner and parenthood, if you are careful with your time and your partner, but above all with yourself.
With this in mind, I wish you a Christmas and a positive view of yourself and your relationship.
The author of this article is Bernhard Moritz, couple and sex therapist from Austria.
Photo: oli_ok_/Photocase
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Photo: oli_ok/Photocase