Festive Frustrations...

Sometimes I think my job is to take the romance out of love :(

After all, what is romance other than a heady mix of mystery and intrigue, excitement, intensity, desire and chemistry?

Good relationships are not based on romance...

Romance can really help to kick start a potential relationship, but the thing is, a strong solid relationship is based on more fundamental elements such as communication, negotiation, understanding, compromise, good will and friendship.

If you don't talk about things together and work out how you can both be happy enough with your agreement, there is always going to be an argument or miscommunication waiting for you round the corner.

At this festive time of year, you may be busy organising yourselves for Christmas parties and dinners, or you may have holidays away together planned.

Either way, in our own heads we usually have ideas of how we want things to go and have expectations for how things will play out.

With Expectations Come Disappointment...

If you are going away together you may be very excited to spend time together and visit a new place or you may just be glad to get away from the stresses of everyday life.

I hate to be the kill joy, but what concerns me when couples are very excited about something is that with expectations come disappointment when things don't go exactly to plan.

One of you may have ideas to get up early every morning and go for walks, explore and make the most of your time in a new place. Whereas the other one may have ideas about sleeping in late, being lazy and generally taking this break as an opportunity to relax.

This disjointed agenda may come as an unpleasant surprise following all the anticipation and excitement that has preceeded your time away and be the perfect fuel for an argument to further taint and disrupt your festive mood.

Talk about it...

My advice, as always is to talk about everything. Prepare yourselves for how you want things to go.

Talk about how you want to spend your festive time together and agree in advance on a plan of action so you know what you are both doing before the time comes and what is expected of you.

If one of you wants to be more active with this free time and the other wants to be more low key, try to find a compromise between what you want to do and what your partner has in mind.

Never assume...

You know that saying, assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'. Don't assume in the midst of all your excitement that things will just go the way you want them to. 

Certain times of the year such as Christmas, Birthdays and New Years are high stress periods and conflict is much more common at these times.

If you know you have a propensity to argue in certain situations, set up safety plans for yourselves as to how you will manage this.

Be aware of your reactions... 

If you know that when you argue you have a tendency to shut down and walk out, then make an agreement that if you do that, you will come back in an hour, or you will call your partner to let them know what you need to calm down and get a hold of yourself.

If you know that when you get frustrated and angry you shout and scream, make an agreement that your partner will ask you once to stop shouting, then if you continue they will walk away till you can calm down and you can talk about it. 

Have an honest open discussion of how you both react in certain situations and how you can deal with this together.
   
Have a great holiday!!

And once you've done all that prep work, be as excited as you can be, let go, love each other, trust in your relationship and have a grrrrrrrrreat holiday!!

xxx