Why do so many couples have conflicts during the holidays?

When we start a relationship we tend to feel completely connected with our partner. His thoughts or attitudes may still surprise us, but the overall feeling is one of permanent and solid connection.

From there it is very easy to face the holidays. Spending all the time together, without the interruption of our daily obligations, is perfectly in tune with our desires.

Holidays: a challenge for the well-being of the couple

However, when a couple is in crisis, vacations are not always those expected days.. It seems that, when we find ourselves together and with fewer obligations, that feeling of disconnection becomes more powerful, more difficult to ignore.

During our day to day we can attribute our lack of connection to a thousand factors: that we do not have time, that work absorbs us a lot, that Children require a lot of attention, the gym, Sunday lunch with the family, shopping, cleaning, we have a thousand and one commitments, ...

It is true that generally these factors or other similarities are in all couples and minimize their ability of paying attention day by day, but what is not so true is that they are what keeps the distance between they.

Managing time together

Normally they cause us to start feeling disconnected from the other, but if we separate them, this feeling of disconnection does not go away. Therefore, when they are not present on vacation, but the feeling with the couple remains the same, all the alarms go off.

When we go on a romantic weekend and even then it doesn't seem like we can feel close, we worry, we think that maybe our relationship will never be the same again. We discover that we have settled in that distance between us in which we feel more secure, although not more comfortable, and that, although the reasons disappear, the distance remains.

Usually there is a desire in us for things to go back to the way they were before, and it does not mean to erase our obligations or our "children" from the equation, but to be able to feel ourselves again As a couple as before they arrived, and, if not daily, at least if that weekend alone I was talking about before.

There are many couples who after trying and seeing that it does not work, or even after giving up trying and starting to spend the summer alone with the extended family to avoid having to face this reality of disconnection they go to therapy, hoping that perhaps, with It helps, things can be a little less bad... because few dream of imagining that they can be just as good or even better than at beginning.

And you can, not always, I'm not going to lie to you, but in many cases you can.

How can couples therapy help us?

The Emotion-Focused Therapy (TFE) It is a model of therapy that allows us to delve into the reasons for this feeling of disconnection.

It is not a therapy in which we are going to enter to discuss how we discuss our conflict issues. I sincerely understand that the couples who come to my office, generally, are fully capable people to have exchanges of opinions more or less satisfactory in almost all their relationships (family, work, friends, ...) and that they have the feeling that they are "stuck" in their discussions of partner. This is because they do not have to do with their abilities when it comes to making and receiving criticism, nor with their good or bad decision-making techniques,... if not that It gives the feeling that in a couple's discussions emotions are put into play that catch them and that lead them to react in a very determined way.

The feeling of disconnection does not appear simply because we have different opinions than our partner, or even because these opinions lead us to a discussion more or less heated, but it appears when we feel that this discussion is endangering our bond with our partner, that it is touching fundamental issues: how I see myself; how the other sees me; how I see him in the relationship ...

It is when they feel our bond on the tightrope, when the discussion becomes especially painful, because the two, each in their own way, do everything possible because the bond is not broken, and generally, they do it in different and almost opposite ways, increasing the insecurity of the other, and consequently the own.

How to help couples not to feel insecure?

According to Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of the Emotion Focused Couple Therapy Model, there are only three essential factors that make us feel that our relationship as a couple is secure. We need to know if our partner will be available, receptive, and emotionally involved with us.

• Availability: Are you there for me? I can come to you? Will you be present?

• Receptivity: You care about me? You love Me? I'm important for you? Can I trust you to answer me when I need you?

• Involvement: Do you commit to being emotionally involved and will you pay attention to me?

The TFE Model gives us therapists trained in the technique a clear map of the way to go to get from this feeling of disconnection, in which it is difficult to talk about any topic or even going on vacation together, to that of a secure bond in which all these questions are answered with a YES, and we can feel as if we are on "vacation" in our day to day.