Vacation! Oh Nooo !!!
Holidays should actually provide relaxation and recuperation, but for many couples, the trip ends with a big bang. Why is that? Here are the answers:
Get out of everyday life, get on the plane and leave all worries at home: this is the good intentions of many couples who travel. But when you arrive at the holiday destination, it usually takes less than 24 hours until the first argument arises. She instructs him about the right sun protection factor and the cultural program to be processed. He watches beach beauties and prefers to watch football in the evening instead of making the city unsafe. The paradisiacal beach is no use to smooth the waves.
Couple therapists are familiar with this problem and explained what the causes of such disputes are. Even though a vacation is a great experience for most couples, it cannot be denied that the stress level in many relationships increases during or shortly after the trip.
Vacation should be a time of relaxation, why are so many couples arguing anyway?
When there is a dispute on vacation, it almost always has to do with high expectations. Then usually one of four constellations appears:
1.) The vacation MUST work particularly well with the relationship. It is the most beautiful time of the year when it should be harmonious, romantic, conflict-free - at least that is what expectations are. That is understandable. In everyday life, the focus is on the "management" of one's own life, work, family with children, and partnership, which often leaves too little time for relaxed togetherness. What doesn't have enough space 49 weeks a year should then work right away in three weeks of vacation and make up for the moments of togetherness that were lost during the year. That is simply too much what the partners expect from each other and from themselves. It can't work.
2.) Dormant conflicts that remain below the surface in everyday life or that cannot be resolved due to lack of time and leisure, discharge themselves on vacation when the dispute becomes inevitable.
3.) The vacation is a relationship test, or to put it another way: the "stress test of the relationship". The vacation spent together is then understood as a stress test or reflection of the partnership. If both partners were happy with each other on vacation, it says afterwards: We have a great partnership. If there was a noise, everything is in question. But vacation is not representative of everyday life. If the vacation is not so great, it doesn't say everything about the partnership as a whole. Vacation as a relationship test almost always means that additional stress arises. The course of the vacation then forms a distorted picture of everyday reality.
4. A special case:
The vacation serves as a decisive reason for the fact that separation is inevitable. The partner who basically wanted to separate before the holiday but was not yet completely decided then based his intentions on the fact that even the holiday could not avert the end. So, strictly speaking, it's not about the vacation, but about a plausible reason for separation. To what extent a vacation in happy togetherness can succeed at all under such conditions is of course questionable. Therefore I will not go into this case any further.What are the most common arguments?
If there is a dispute on vacation, it almost always revolves around very similar topics as at home, namely different, often competing wishes, ideas and needs of the partners and their fulfilment. Disputes then revolve, for example, around different ideas about the place of vacation, accommodation, the organization of the day or the division of tasks during self-catering holidays. What is often different on vacation: the constant closeness of both partners means that conflict issues are more important than in everyday life. For example, if you prefer to be quiet and comfortable while your partner likes to be a party animal, you may rarely be bothered by it at home because there is simply no reason to do so. But at the holiday location, when there are the same discussions about evening entertainment every day, anger is much more likely. There is also plenty of fuel in the expectation of finally wanting to solve a long-standing conflict in the quiet of the holidays.
How should couples avoid quarrels?
The best way to avoid quarrels on vacation is to spend more vacation. More vacation in the sense of more small and micro vacation in everyday life. Quarrels on vacation, as we have just seen, very often have to do with the fact that wishes, needs, expectations of the partnership are not met to the extent that one or both partners hope and long for. Quarrel in the vacation is caustic, but it's not stupid! The vacation is only too short and, above all, too rare for the - entitled! - to meet the requirements.
In such a complex world in which we live today, more space is needed than is often available, in which the partners can exchange ideas and spend time together. It literally takes more "free" time for the partnership. This is especially true for couples with children. Because parents are not just parents but above all, a couple that needs space for themselves as a couple. Additional pressure to perform, to experience a perfect couple vacation, is not successful. But those who spend their everyday lives with enough freedom for the partnership run the risk of being disappointed on long vacations.
But now, just before many go on summer vacation, the question is of course how to avoid or at least contain arguments on your next vacation. Most couples who have little or no quarrel on vacation appear to be travelling with reasonable expectations. Above all, they expect nothing more from the vacation than the partnership can really offer. Above all, these couples do not make the mistake of measuring the state of the relationship solely by how it "works" together on vacation. Couples who spend a quiet, relaxing vacation have exchanged information about what is important to everyone when planning their travel, and have agreed on what should have space for their wishes and needs. A healthy mix is agreed for different ideas. Such couples recognize that it is nice to spend a lot of time together, and at the same time that everyone can do something alone for a few hours a day.
And how do you react if there are any discrepancies?
Vacation time is - in the best sense - a kind of state of emergency. You should, therefore, be to differentiate between two levels. On the one hand, the current situation on vacation, on the other hand, what the couple will make of it in the future. When people argue on vacation, many people go tough on themselves. Conflicts on vacation quickly become more dynamic than they would have been at home. However, these couples get better very quickly when they recognize that both of them - each in their own way - contribute a lot to the relationship and a great vacation, including a commitment to a harmonious time together. And that with so much closeness there can sometimes be tensions that you shouldn't overestimate - especially not in the precious and well-deserved vacation time. Not every word belongs on the gold scales.
However, dealing with conflicts on vacation in such a relaxed manner can often only be relieving if it is clear that the topic of the dispute or the pattern of the dispute remains serious and will be clarified at a later point in time, according to the motto: later, not now. So it is a matter of both keeping an eye on the meaning of the vacation in the acute dispute situation, relaxation - and at the same time assuring each other that what needs to be clarified will be clarified at a later date. This aspect is important because, of all things, conflict issues threaten to escalate on vacation, at a time when exactly the opposite is desired: namely rest, relaxation, carefree.
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