Delaware Relationship Center

The stressful holiday season can put a strain on all your relationships—familial and romantic.

But couples have added stresses. Between travelling long distances, visiting each other’s families, wading through crowded shopping malls, and the like, there’s a lot of opportunity for things to get heated between you and your partner.

Luckily, there a number of ways that you can effectively diffuse the tension of the holiday, helping you make it to the New Year with your spirt, sanity, and relationship intact. Here a few ways for you and your partner to get the most out of the holidays while keeping a lid on the seasonal stress.

Create a Game Plan

It’s a good idea to go over a game plan with your spouse or partner before the holidays begin. Bring up any concerns or obligations that you have for the impending holidays, and flesh out a game plan for tackling the bigger challenges you face this year.

The advantage of planning ahead is two-fold. First, you will be better prepared in general for the big holiday monsters like family visits and travel. Second, bringing up major concerns beforehand helps start a working dialogue between you and your partner—making the two of you better able to communicate whenever unexpected sources of tension occur.

Take a Non-Holiday Break

Holidays, by the very definition of the word, are supposed to be a break from work – yet they can be the most stressful time of the year.

So take a vacation from your vacation, and spend some time with your partner doing non-holiday activities. When you focus too much on impending travel, shopping, dinners, and the like, you’re liable to lose the perspective that helps you stay sane during the holidays.

A non-holiday date can provide a welcome relief from the rushing around of the season, and allow the two of you to spend some time focusing on your relationship. Do something wholly unrelated to the holiday—like going to a museum or a movie. Take some time to relax and avoid talking about all the things on your to-do list.

Remember What Is Important

Of course, the people closest to us are often the best at getting on our last nerve. This fact is rarely ever as apparent as during the stressful holiday season.

But before you allow anger to bubble over into something you’ll regret, remember to be grateful that you have someone to spend the holidays with—even if he or she is driving you a little crazy.

During the holiday season, it’s important to keep perspective on what actually matters most. Though it can be stressful to spend time with in-laws, or wade through the throngs of black holiday shoppers, remember why you do it.

For example, visiting in-laws may be stressful—but to your partner, it may be the only time he or she will get to spend with family all year. Shopping might be tense, but keep in mind the goal is to remind the people you love how much you care about them.

If you and your partner find yourselves at wit’s end with each other, don’t despair – Delaware marriage therapy can help by providing you with the tools you need to get back on track.

The air is growing crisper, the jack-o-lanterns are popping up on front stoops, and candy corn is on sale—Halloween is upon us! But while letting yourself get scared by ghosts, goblins, and ghouls can be fun and relatively harmless, many single individuals and newly paired couples fear something far more important: love.

That’s right. We may not always realize it, but many of us are afflicted by fears of falling in love or being in a relationship. These insecurities lead us to put up a shield that can keep other people out and prevent us from being able to form lasting, loving, and genuine connections.

These defenses may take different shapes or appear in different situations, but they are often driven by the same common relationship “scares.”

We are scared of being vulnerable. When we open up our heart and allow ourselves to be deeply affected by another person, we make ourselves incredibly vulnerable. When you let yourself love someone, become excited, and grow hopeful, you expose yourself to the possibility of disappointment and rejection—and that’s scary.

We are scared of being hurt again. We all carry scars from previous relationships, dating all the way back to childhood. We may flinch at the possibility of being hurt in a similar way, and shy away from strong emotions because they remind us of negative relationships from our past. When you experience new love, it can remind you of the pain you associate with old loves lost.

We are scared of hurting the other person. In some situations, individuals feel reluctant to become too deeply involved in a relationship out of fear of hurting the other person. If we doubt our own ability to love, or worry that the other person feels too strongly already, we may hesitate to allow a relationship to blossom out of fear that we will end up rejecting or disappointing them. Worrying about how we feel at this moment can stop us from allowing ourselves to see how our feelings will evolve and grow over time, and keep us from even starting what could end up being a beautiful relationship.

Loving truly and deeply takes a great deal of courage, and relationships all come with their share of hurdles. Only after accepting these challenges, opening yourself up to the possibility of disappointment, and making the decision to face your fears can you give yourself an opportunity to find love.

For practical tools to navigate the many challenges associated with love and relationships, you may want to consider relationship counseling. A Delaware relationship counselor may be able to help you identify your own relationship “scares” and get to the root of the issues so you can approach future relationships with confidence and renewed passion.

Holding hands. Tousling hair. Hugging.

What may seem like insignificant gestures of fondness and affection can play a major role in determining the health and longevity of your relationship.

Touch is one of the most important ways to nurture a relationship as an intrinsic part of the human bonding experience. Without regular touch and affection, human beings can fall victim to loneliness, tension, anxiety, and even illnesses.

Alternatively, touching your partner regularly has a variety of powerful benefits, including:

Developing intimacy. In the initial stages of a relationship, humans use touch to express interest and get to know one another, often experimenting to see how much of their touch will be welcomed and returned. As couples grow increasingly comfortable and develop intimacy between each other, they begin to touch each other more.

Keeping intimacy alive. For more established partners, continued touch can strengthen the relationship bond by promoting trust and mutual feelings of pleasure.

Improving communication. Oftentimes, touch can be more effective at communicating emotions than words alone. A kiss can sometimes say a lot when you cannot find the right words, and a hug can often express love, appreciation, and reassurance more clearly and succinctly than speech.

Providing comfort. When you or your partner are sad, upset, frustrated, or stressed, touch can be wonderfully comforting and therapeutic. Gestures such as hugs and hand squeezes trigger receptors in the body to ease stress and enhance relaxation.

How to Increase Touch in Your Relationship

Want to harness the power of touch to boost intimacy, improve communication, and promote trust? Happily, there are many simple ways you can increase touch in your relationship.

• Make it a habit to share a 20-second kiss and full-body hug every time you meet and part with your partner
• Try holding each other in bed while lying still
• When your partner is stressed, treat him or her to a foot rub or neck massage
• When you are walking or sitting near your partner, hold each other’s hands

For more advice on increasing touch and boosting intimacy in your relationship or marriage, consider talking to a Delaware relationship therapist. Your therapist can provide you with valuable techniques for incorporating touch into your daily lives, as well as teaching you other tools for enhancing intimacy and relationship satisfaction.