An article submitted to Amerikaner by our feminine correspondent, Pearl. If you would like to submit your own content, please email amerikanercontributions@proton.me
Did you make it through the holidays without arguments, stress or resentments? If you did congratulations, you are in a very small and exclusive club. As for the rest of you, I say “solidarity my friends”. Holidays, birthday, and vacations are the perfect occasions for bickering with your partner.
I have found that unshared expectations are a big factor in many holiday arguments. It is common to have a vision in your head as to how an event will go. When headcanon meets reality, disappointment can follow. Where there is disappointment, there is often blame, passive aggression and other not so great behaviors (ask me how I know!)
There are two ways that a person can bring the vision and the reality closer together. The first is very obvious and often overlooked: open communication with your partner. No one should be expected to read another’s mind. We women are notoriously bad about this. A man may know you, love you, spend every waking moment with you and still not know that you were expecting the cute boots from that one store you were at together six months ago. Yes, even if you said “these are cute” in July, he probably didn’t know you expected them for Christmas.
Further, everyone has different aspects of a holiday that they hold as “most important”. Gran wants to see her entire family together while Dad wants a few days of quiet rest. Mama loves the experience of opening presents on Christmas morning while the gifts themselves are very very important to the kiddos. So talk with your partner. If you have a deeply held desire, share it. Even when our wants seem contradictory, talking them out can help create third paths that fulfill everyone’s needs.
But I promised two ways that you can bring reality and vision together.
The second is to actually know what it is that you want. Using your words to communicate is the easy part – unless you are my three year old – knowing one’s mind is something different entirely. But, but, when you understand what is truly is that you are looking for, it helps you to put stressors in the correct context.
Do you follow? Here’s my personal example:
Before Ruby and Emerald entered the scene, Rusty and I rarely did Christmas gifts. Once I had babies, everything changed for me. I suddenly wanted, no needed, the Christmas traditions that I grew up experiencing. That meant piles of presents for each person on Christmas morning.
As I have been wife-ing for a quite a while at this point, I realized that just because my desires changed, that didn’t meant that my wonderful husband suddenly wanted to be forced to shop for gifts. When I thought further, I realized that more than the gift, what I wanted was the experience of the whole family opening presents on Christmas morning. With this in mind, the last couple years, I have bought all the presents, my own included, and have gotten to have the Christmas morning that I wanted. Because I understood what I actually wanted (opening presents as a family) I was able to get it without anyone feeling resentful.
So go forth and work to understand your own mind, wants and desires. Then communicate them without expectation to your man.
Because Valentine’s Day is coming up and we all know what a minefield THAT can be!