Welcome to holiday season when families travel sometimes miles and sometimes only minutes to spend hours together, eating, drinking and celebrating Thanksgiving and family together. The problem, as most married couples can attest to, is that holidays are a great time for families to come together and for old tensions to be refueled.
Family Ties & Tensions
You can’t have family ties without there being tensions as well. Whether it’s disagreements over traditions, personality upheavals or just simply revisiting old family grudges, it’s important to be aware of the emotional landmines before you or your spouse accidentally detonates one.
For example, if a sibling is bringing his or her current flame – someone you can’t stand – then you need to be prepared to put a smile on your face and make it a great holiday regardless. I’ve been in this position before and despite my own negative feelings on the subject, I recall looking at my husband and saying rather succinctly:
We’re not perfect and we don’t live in a glass house. No one should feel unwelcome on these days. We don’t have to like them. We don’t have to embrace them. But we also don’t need to make them feel unwelcome or shunned. So if you can’t put away the hard feelings on one or two days a year, when can you?
Emotional Landmines
It can be hard not to step on someone else’s feelings – even unintentionally. I’ve been down that road before too. The best thing to do – if you or your spouse does detonate an emotional landmine – accept that what’s done is done and say you are sorry. Just because you didn’t mean something or someone took what you said out of context doesn’t mean it can’t hurt their feelings. Chances are – intentional or not – you did not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings.
The fastest way to defuse a detonated emotional landmine is to mea culpa. When you say, you’re right, I was wrong and I shouldn’t have said that – I’m sorry. You extend the olive branch and embrace the holiday feeling once more. The more positive your united message is on the holidays, the greater time you and your spouse will have and so will your family.
How do you and your spouse avoid potential emotional landmines at the holidays?
Related Articles:
Dating: Staying Together for the Holidays
Coping with Holidays without Your Spouse