#2 Navigating Your Difficult Relationship Over The Holidays - How To Honor Your Spouse And Still...

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad you're here today. Today, our topic is navigating your difficult marriage over the holidays, how to honor your spouse and not lose yourself. But first up, as usual, my win and my fail. So my win is that I went camping. If you listened to the episode last week, I went camping with my daughter who has recently joined Scouts of America, BSA, and I went on my first Scouts camping trip. It was 2 nights. I did a tent and a sleeping bag, and it was actually really great. We camped up in the Malibu Mountains. It was cold, very cold. It got down into the 30s at night, and my nose froze a little bit, but we were prepared and it was a really great time, and I learned, I learned how to tie 2 knots. I learned how to actually use a compass because I didn't know that I didn't know how to use a compass, not just for north, south, east, west, but also for degrees. So I learned how to do the degrees, and it was wonderful. It was a great bonding experience with my daughter, and I enjoyed camping. I don't tend to value downtime. And actually, we did an almost 7-mile hike, so that was really wonderful, but I know I need to work a little bit more on valuing downtime. So my fail, and this is where the balance is that I need to figure out, that we all really need to work on and figure out in our life, is that in taking the weekend off camping, I played hooky from work, and I've got a ton of catching up to do. I'm sitting here Sunday night after camping, working on this podcast. And so it's both my win and my fail. It's my win because I allowed myself to take time off work and have some downtime with my daughter. The fail is not getting work done, having to catch up, but that's also a learning opportunity for me. I've got to figure out how to really work on that balance. So that's my win and my fail for the week. Let's dive into how to honor your spouse and not lose yourself over the holidays. Now, last week we talked about why you matter over the holidays, especially in the context of being in a difficult relationship. And today we're going to talk about being able to honor your spouse as well, because yes, you matter. But your relationship also matters. And if you're navigating a difficult relationship, it's important to be able to focus on how to honor your partner. So one of the things that can be super hard to do when you're dealing with someone who's a little bit difficult is being able to stay present when you're having a conversation with them and not be on the defensive. And so, especially because the holidays can just garner stress and we have different ideas and different traditions and different ways of wanting to celebrate. The holidays, it can be difficult when there's already some underlying tension or strife in the relationship. And so one of the things that I'd like to remind you to do is to listen to what your spouse has to say. Listen completely without judgment. Listen with the intention of understanding. A great tool for doing that is making sure that when they're speaking, of course you listen, but You repeat back what they said. So I heard you say that you don't want to open gifts on Christmas Eve, that you only want to open gifts on Christmas Day. So that way you're letting your spouse know, I hear you. And now you want to seek to understand. Can you tell me more about that? And sometimes just repeating back what the person says and pausing allows them to say, yeah, and maybe even explain a little bit more about that. So instead of immediately going to the defense, repeat back what they said and be curious about why they feel that way and maybe how they want something implemented. When someone feels heard, their defenses go down as well, and then all of a sudden it's a lot easier to have real healthy conversations. So number 2, I'm also going to use that word compromise. Nobody likes that word. Usually people feel like compromise means I'm losing something, and although the reality is yes, Compromise means that you're probably not going to get exactly what you want. If you're able to ask of your partner what their priority is in the thing, and you can state what your priority is, then often you guys can figure out how to make that work. So you might have an idea of, let's go sledding or skiing over Christmas break, and your spouse is adamant he does not want to go skiing over Christmas break. Sometimes just asking yourself, what's my priority? Why is it that I really want to go skiing over Christmas break? And maybe it's because you want to spend time with your You want to do a family activity and bond. And then maybe if you can ask your spouse, you know, why does he want to go somewhere else? And his priority might be, I just want to be warm and I want to enjoy myself. And so if your priority is family time and his priority is being comfortable and enjoying himself, you guys could actually accomplish that by possibly doing the thing that he wants to do, right? And so pay attention to what is my priority in this thing that I want? What is their priority in this thing that they want? And how can we make those possibly work together? And then it really is a win-win. Number 3, you may have to put up a boundary, just like the boundaries I talked about a little bit last week and why you matter over the holidays. And so when you put up boundaries, the resulting consequence, if we're going to use that word, is often that your spouse gets angry. That's natural, especially if you haven't been putting up those boundaries before and now you're going to change things up, of course there's going to be some anger about it. Now, should you do it? Absolutely. Should you also be aware that this might create a response in your partner? 100%. And so how can you honor your spouse when they're having a reaction to your boundary? The first is to withhold judgment and your own anger. When you expect it, then when your spouse gets upset, instead of getting upset yourself, you can go, oh yeah, I knew that was going to happen. You can expect it and prep yourself, and then you are not having an emotional response Because they're having an emotional response. And so then what you can do instead is acknowledge, acknowledge your spouse's feelings, acknowledge your spouse's frustration that now you've put in this boundary and they don't like it. And so being able to repeat back what your spouse is saying, you're not going to weaken your boundary, but you can still care about your spouse's reaction to the boundary that you need to uphold for yourself. And sometimes that might look like understanding what's going on with your partner. So you might say something like, I get how frustrating that must be for you that I'm not willing to go to your mom's house over the holidays. We already talked about why that is, because of the way that she responds to me, but I get how frustrating and even painful that might feel for you. Is there anything that I can do other than going to your mom's house? To help make this easier for you. That's sharing with your spouse and making it clear that you do care about his feelings. Now, his response might be, no, you can't, and that's okay too. But you honor your spouse by acknowledging their feelings, showing that you care, and offering an alternative solution, or at least offering to be open to an alternative solution. Now, this next one might feel counterintuitive, but We actually honor our partners by being honest. So you need to be upfront with what you want. So hedging statements look like, I think, maybe, I'm not sure, something that almost discounts or disqualifies the thing that you say after that. And when we hedge, instead of being direct to our partner about what we want, we're not honoring them in the process because all we are doing is setting them up for sabotage. If there's something you really want, need, desire from your partner, and you're not willing to state it clearly, Then what often happens is when they don't give it to you, you feel resentment. There are then behaviors that you exhibit that just further damage the relationship. We honor our partners by being honest, by stating clearly what we want and letting them make the decision about whether they can or are willing to provide that for us. So be upfront with what you want. And so that also kind of begs the next one, number 5, which is letting go of expectations. Yes, you need to be upfront with what you want. You also need to acknowledge that you're not always going to get what you want, that your partner may not always be willing to cooperate, and likely, likely your partner will do what they've always done. And so although it's important for you to honor yourself and honor your partner by being upfront, it's important for you to set those boundaries. It's also important— it honors your partner by letting go of expectations. If we Expect and demand our partners to be or show up a certain way, we are not necessarily honoring them. We have to accept them for who they are. Then we decide if this is something we want to continue or are able to continue in, in the relationship. But honoring your partner is, is accepting them. And part of accepting them is letting go of expectations. So you put your words, your desires, your wants out there, and you don't chase them. And you don't even necessarily expect them to give you what you need. You don't chase and follow them. You put your words out and then you watch. And whether your partner meets your needs or doesn't, it's all information for you regarding the relationship. And I know this might be hard to hear, but the goal isn't necessarily to get your expectations met, but the main goal is for you to be able to express them in a healthy way and set up healthy boundaries. And my last little tip for honoring your spouse over the holidays, especially when you're in a difficult relationship, is investing time into your relationship. Now, when there's a lot of water under the bridge, when there's a lot of resentment, it gets easier and easier to distance yourself from the relationship, to spend time doing your own thing. To— I've had couples who he watches TV upstairs, she watches TV downstairs. They are living parallel lives and A home, and that becomes a slippery slope. And so not that you can't ever do that, but if you're not investing time regularly in your relationship, you're not honoring the relationship and you're not honoring your spouse. And so especially over the holidays when tensions can easily rise and so many people are pulling on you, your partner may feel neglected and neglected partners usually don't show up as their best selves. And so if you can be intentional about investing time in the relationship. You will likely grow health in your relationship. So the point of this episode was to point out how you can both honor yourself, as I talked about in the last episode, and honor your spouse, even when you're in a difficult relationship, which basically means you can love yourself on your journey and you can honor yourself and honor your spouse at the same time. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get weekly encouragement from me and also know when my podcasts come out. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Have a strong week.