Stay Connected to Your Spouse and Avoid Holiday Fights.
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The holidays bring out both the best and the worst in people. It is a time for thinking of others, reaching out to family, and spreading good cheer. Unfortunately, it can also be a time of focusing on what you don’t have, grudges you have against friends or family members, and all the work you must do. Don’t spend the holiday fighting with your spouse! Plan together on how to avoid holiday fights, so you make the holidays a time of togetherness, fun, and getting closer in your marriage.
How to handle those holiday fights
With a little planning and compromise, you can make sure that the holiday stress won’t have you screaming at each other for no good reason.
You love to get in the holiday spirit with all the decorations, activities, baking and wrapping that goes along with Christmas but your spouse could care less.
Spend some time together talking about what the holidays mean to you both. Your spouse may not have had a good holiday experience as a child. Tell them about how doing things together as a family creates memories that you want to be important to you both. Your Spouse may be more likely to participate if they feel that it is a way to build a deeper connection.
Every year, you do all the buying of Christmas gifts, and your spouse complains about the money you spend.
Sit down and make a gift list and a detailed budget together. Set a shopping date you can go and buy the gifts together. This way, your spouse can feel like they have a say in what gifts are bought and how much is spent. It’s also a good way to get in the holiday spirit together and get some “together time.”
All the stress of holiday events and parties leaves no time for the two of you.
It is essential that you and your spouse spend quality time together during the holidays. You both must make time for your marriage. Go to a holiday party but leave early so you two can have a little date night. It’s okay to say no to a holiday invite so that you and your spouse can spend a quiet night in relaxing and cuddling. You need to work together to reconnect and take a break from all the stress.
Your spouse loves spending time with his family at the holidays, but your family wasn’t very close, so you are a little resentful.
Build in escape time where the two of you can go for coffee, talk, repair, and clear the air. That way, when you say something inappropriate to your brother-in-law that irritates your spouse, you'll have a time to talk it out. Escape time will help you get through the holidays without letting things build up, so you end up fighting with your spouse.
You dread having the in-laws for holiday dinner because your mother-in-law always manages to push your buttons and your spouse gets irritated with you for not getting along.
Before you host the in-laws, talk to your spouse about how their mother-in-law treats you and ask them to help you keep a calm gathering this year. Agree that when you had all you can take of his mother-on-law, you will give a signal -like sneezing twice-and your spouse will respond by asking you to help them in the kitchen. Having your spouse remove you from the situation avoids a confrontation with his family and brings you closer together as a couple. You are the damsel in distress, and he is the knight in shining armor.
The best ways to avoid a conflict or quickly end an argument is planning and communicating.
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