Vacation season is a wonderful time to rest and enjoy yourself with family and friends, as well as to improve your relationship and friendships. Why, then, are divorces and separations more common during this time of year?
On vacation, couples spend a lot of time together. This can have a very positive effect if they get along well, but an extremely negative one if the relationship is going through a rough patch.
Over the course of the year, everybody is busy with their work, their routine, and family obligations. This can mask possible problems in the relationship like unresolved issues, lack of communication, disagreement on how to spend free time and planning the vacation, lack of common interests, or incompatibility in preferences and passions.
If the couple doesn’t address these concerns before going on vacation, they are more likely to break up. Vacations don’t work like magic, and won’t automatically resolve any issues that have been building up over the course of the year.
On other occasions, our expectations are too high. When things don’t work out as we would expect, we get frustrated and cast the blame to our partner.
How can couples improve their relationship while on vacation?
1. Improve communication
Most of the difficulties that couples face are a result of communication problems. It’s not just what we say that’s important in communication. It’s also:
- How we say it.
- Putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes.
- How we understand others.
- How we listen.
- The key to having positive communication is knowing how to listen.
2. Create an atmosphere of trust
It’s difficult to establish good communication where we feel comfortable sharing our feelings or worries without first creating a climate of trust. It might seem obvious, but there are many couples who need to create this atmosphere of trust.
They should set aside time to talk, to communicate, and to be together without distractions, and above all, without screens. This point is key to improve your relationship to keep it healthy.
3. Practice empathy
Empathy is our ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, understand how they feel, and understand their motives and opinions. For relationships, this seems obvious, but we often forget. Often times people use their partner as a “punching bag” to unload their anger, sadness, and frustration.
Learn to speak up
When we’re in a relationship, sometimes we think our partner is psychic and will know what we want or what we’d like. That’s not always the case. In fact, all of us are immersed in our own world, our problems, and our day-to-day routine. Occasionally, we become aware that the other person was needing us. For this reason, stating your needs is fundamental to improve your relationship.
