It’s coming – Even though you can still smell the mashed potatoes and the turkey, the holidays are upon us.
Ready or not.
The question that nobody is asking is:
How do you make sure that your marriage survives the days (or weeks in many cases) of family staying at your place?
You know – those people that raised you or your spouse?
Those people.
Or someone else somehow related to one of you.
And yes, you did decide this together.
Nobody’s arguing that you didn’t.
Nor would I recommend that you did otherwise.
You decided together (though maybe it took a day or two) that they would come and stay for a few days longer than originally planned.
Your spouse didn’t trick you into agreeing to three days of them staying that magically overnight turned into three weeks.
So, that’s a given.
And if you didn’t plan this together, for the love of the universe (and for everybody’s benefit), next time please do.
DO you have a plan? If you have done this before, DO you have a plan of attack?
And if you don’t believe me, ask anyone else you has tried to do this thing (without a plan) and they’ll tell you.
For this to end up going well, you NEED a plan.
Otherwise, the chances of it all going sideways are just too high.
And you don’t want to risk it.
Trust me.
When your space has been overtaken by others for an extended period of time, make space for each other.
This applies if you are looking at a long weekend, a week or a month.
And if you haven’t talked about this yet – please do. You have to be able to say how much of this you are able and willing to tolerate.
There is no one right answer.
There is no one preference.
And at different times or stages in your life, your tolerance level might also change.
If you have just had major surgery, you are likely not going to want to host anyone. Unless it’s someone who has seen you (and you don’t care) in your pjs on day three without a shower, with your hair so out of control that from behind one might have trouble recognizing it’s you.
How do you make space for each other?
Idea #1: You schedule a secret lunch (or dinner) on the days that you are working and purposely forget to make the invitation public.
Create little (or big) escapes out of the house so you have a chance to connect.
Idea #2: You excuse yourselves at nine (even if your bedtime is eleven) and make your way to the master bedroom only to have a wine-drinking mini-party on the floor right next to your bed.
Sipping right from the bottle because you forgot the wine glasses.
Who cares.
Or you didn’t want to clink them all the way up to the top floor for everyone to hear, given that it’s a secret affair.
Idea #3:
If children are involved, you ask for it proactively – Parents, Dear, might you be able to help us out on Saturday night with childcare as we have purchased tickets to go see a show at 7pm?
Pushback:
Now, I can hear it already – we can’t go out when family is in town!
They came to see us – how would we spend one whole
There is that thing happening with loyalty, right?
That’s fine – and I never said that you do this every. single. night of their two week stay.
Of course you are going to want to spend time with them. Of course you are going to want to take them to a show or a concert or dinner.
What I am saying is that you don’t JUST do that.
That you don’t lose sight of each other because of company.
Put each other on the back burner for weeks.
Not allow yourselves to still make each other a priority.
Which brings me to my second point:
Don’t completely disconnect.
The surefire antidote to disconnecting when you have family members occupying your space is creating mini-connects once a day.
And the once-a-day part – that’s really the minimum.
Same goes for you if you are in their space.
Set it up ahead of time and agree on what time of day works best for this.
It’s not supposed to be complicated – it’s a super simple way of checking in with each other.
“Hey, just wanted to check in – How are you doing? How are you feeling? What did I miss? (because I wasn’t around when it happened?) What am I not aware of? Anything you need from me? What can I do to help the situation out?”
Feel free to use all or parts of that.
Or design your own that will sound more like you if you’d like.
Either way, remembering to check in with each other is huge.
Particularly if you know that your spouse has been having a hard time with something. Or if there is a situation/conversation that went poorly last night between a member of your family and your spouse. Or if you know someone is not physically feeling that great.
Plan ahead, talk about your expectations and be specific.
Yes, I mean pulling out the calendar.
What is the ONE (or five) thing that you would want to see happen before company arrives and while they are here?
How can you each make sure that you get to do what you each need to do to be at your best- as individuals?
This includes but is not limited to:
Going to the gym, spending a couple of hours at the coffee shop reading, going for a run/walk, prepping food, prayer/meditation, getting alone time, asking for help, getting things done for work, not staying up past 2am every single night & getting your sleep.
If you want to make sure that you all go to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, then that’s exactly what you say.
If you would like to be able to sleep in one day, say that.
Pushback:
You don’t know our family – things are always changing, there are so many moving parts, half the time it seems pointless to make any plan at all.
Making a plan doesn’t mean that you can’t change it.
Making a plan means that you will have a place to start.
You can adjust as you need to.
Being able to talk through things in advance, proactively, will give you guaranteed return on investment.
Surviving the holidays with family in town, particularly when those times span over several days or weeks, is no small task.
But being able to prepare for it accordingly, plan time together so that you don’t get lost in all the hype of the moment (and then feel like you have to recover and reconnect for days after) and the daily little connects will ensure that you still like each other after the family gets on the plane and you have the house back to yourselves.
Such power hidden in these three little tips.
It seems only fitting that I should say – Now that you are ready, enjoy your company!
If, by chance, you are reading this and your holidays didn’t go as planned – dare I say they were a disaster? You might find this article intriguing – titled Plan Your Holidays NOW & Why. And yes, that goes for you even if you are reading this and it’s January or the beginning of February.
