During the most wonderful time of the year, you might notice that your relationship is a little more strained than usual. As a couples therapist, I’ve gotten pretty familiar with the influx of couples requests I get at the beginning of November. More specifically, I’ve gotten familiar with the state most new couples’ relationships are in at the beginning of November. So I decided to create a little survival guide! Here are my top 5 tips on how to manage this hectic and wonderful season with your partner.
1. Strategize.
There are a lot of added responsibilities during this time of the year including managing finances a little more closely, preparing to host, making travel plans, and buying gifts. I would argue all of these responsibilities are joint responsibilities. If it were up to inertia these things would probably fall on one partner, and that one partner’s head might explode at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Don’t let that be you! Be proactive and work together as a team. This might mean scheduling weekly family meetings for the next couple of months. It’s amazing what couples can handle when they’re doing it together.
2. Pay attention to each other.
The couples that thrive in times of stress are the couples that use each other as an anchor during a storm. To create this, you and your partner have to learn how to seek closeness and maintain contact with each other throughout any family gathering or social event. Rooted in research on attachment theory, the technical terms for this are proximity seeking and contact maintenance.
Proximity seeking is the term used to describe the extent to which a caregiver reaches out to pick up or hug his or her child, and the child responds (& vice versa) in a strange situation. Contact maintenance is the term used to describe the child’s ability to maintain physical contact without turning away, pushing away, or quickly letting go.
What researchers found with an insecure attachment pair was a “striking” lack of proximity seeking in both the parent and the child. If proximity seeking & contact maintenance in an insecure attachment feel intrusive (either to the parent or to the child), a child learns to stop seeking them.* The whole purpose of couples therapy is to help couples create a secure functioning relationship. You and your partner should be each other’s secure base in any “strange situation”.
Again, if inertia were to take the wheel, you and your partner would be in separate areas having different conversations completely unaware of how each other is doing. Particularly, if one of you leans toward the avoidant side of the attachment spectrum. To read more about attachment styles, you can read more on this post I wrote about attachment theory and how to navigate attachment styles.
You don’t have to be attached at the hip, but you do need to check in with each other. This also means you look for and observe each other so you are clued into how each other is doing. You won’t know if your partner is uncomfortable or ready to go if you don’t look at them.
3. Protect the couple bubble.
The term “couple bubble” was co-created by Marion Solomon and Stan Tatkin around 2008, and is described in detail in Wired for Love. A couple bubble is a self-generating energy system that provides resources and protection to the couple. The bubble serves as a mutually protective membrane that contains the “air” you breathe. Keyword here being mutual. The couple bubble is a place of rest, relaxation, and restoration; a place to be fully yourself.
In other words, you and your partner should think of yourselves as stewards of your relationship. So instead of there being a boundary around you and your partner individually, there is a boundary around both of you together. This framework is especially important when it comes to navigating in-laws. To be clear, protecting your relationship from in-laws is not the same as protecting your partner from his or her parents. As a good rule of them, if either of you feels like “it’s every many for himself” or “you or me” around extended family, chances are your couple bubble needs some work.
4. If you’re going to escape, escape together.
As you’re reading this you might be thinking, “Wow, this is a lot of work”. In fact, at several points throughout this season, you might be tempted to check out because between marriage, work, and family everything can just become too much. Resist the temptation to check out and leave your partner to do all of the work.
Additionally, while self-care is wonderful and necessary, tag-team efforts don’t always facilitate enough togetherness. The problem with tag-teaming so each of you can have a minute to catch your breath is you can start to lump each other into the bucket of “stress and responsibility”.
Instead, see if you can commiserate and escape together. Remember when you were in high school and you and your best friend would both lie and tell your parents you were staying at each other’s houses? Do that! Both of you can tell your friends/family you have other plans and then you can ditch them all and spend time with each other. You could also just be honest about needing to spend time together…just trying to give you options here. Point being, if it’s been too long since you and your partner relaxed together, it’s time to prioritize the relationship.
5. Go to therapy.
It is way too easy to blame/resent each other or start living parallel lives during the holiday season. In the midst of chaos, you and your partner need each other. If you are interested in learning more about couples therapy, please feel free to reach out with questions! My email address is info@alexbarnettecounseling.com. Happy holidays!
