EPISODE 27: Your In-Law Holiday Survival Guide

Yeah, I think definitely being on the same team here is super important because what you really don't want to have happen is to set up this dynamic where it feels to the in laws you are taking their child away from them.

Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex Therapist with over 20.

Years of experience and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. This week we are talking about in laws and the holidays.

Oh, this will be a good one.

Chances are you are probably going to be seeing your in laws at school some point over these next six weeks or so. Maybe you'll even be seeing them a lot. And in laws and the holidays are each tricky topics in their own rights.

I mean, maybe even your own family. Your non in laws.

Oh yeah. Are challenging parents in the holidays for sure. So we decided to make things extra challenging and combine them and have an episode about how to navigate in laws and family stuff during the holidays. For first of all, we just wanna say this can be really hard. Like we are both very lucky that we have great relationships with our in laws. There haven't been any major fallouts or huge fights or anything like that. Like we both get along with our in laws really well. They get along with each other really well. Like we're very lucky in that regard, but still, like we've had tense situations with like who we spend the holidays with, how much time we spend with them. Is it fair? Is it even the specific things that we do together, like this is just tricky stuff.

Yeah, there's been disagreements over gifts, gifting, philosophy. Oh yeah. Who's getting what, how much.

What we decided to do for this episode is to do it kind of like advice column style, similar to our should we break up episode. If you have never listened to that one, definitely give that a listen.

Next, should we title this one should we go to our in laws for the Holidays?

I don't know if that's as enticing. No, not really the title should we break up. But basically what we did is we went over over to our Instagram fam and we asked you guys to share your stories of like tricky situations with your in laws that you're trying to navigate around this holiday season. So we are going to be sharing some of those. They are some interesting stories. I'll just say that. So even if you're somebody who like us, you get along really well with your in laws. You haven't had any major disagreements. This is still going to be a really interesting episode to listen to just from the stories alone. But we're also going to be talking a lot about just how to set healthy boundaries and navigate complex relationships, be better communicators. I think there's going to be a little something for everyone in this episode.

Oh, yeah. First of all, let's get into the review of the week. And before we even do the review of the week, I have to say, I think someone on our team has probably been listening to me struggling with these reviews. It's like a screenshot from Apple podcasts and like, you know, it's hard to see the emojis. Clearly someone on our team has taken it upon themselves to really maximize the size. This is so big. So big. The. The font is like two to three times larger than the font with like, our notes on the episode and the stories that we're about to read. Thank you. I won't miss a thing. And these emojis are crystal clear.

Okay, let's see how you do.

Such a pleasant surprise. Hallelujah. Touchdown.

Hallelujah. Touchdown. Oh, yeah, we went over this one before. That's what you think that one is. Okay. Yeah.

I stumbled upon Vanessa and Xander through the Herself podcast when Vanessa was a gu and talked about postpartum sexuality.

Yeah. If you have never heard the Herself podcast, those are some really good friends of ours, so definitely check them out. They are great.

We love them. As a recent postpartum mom, those episodes really spoke to me. Vanessa helped me understand that so many of the changes that were happening in my sex life were normal and that I was not alone. Heart. From that moment on, I was hooked and started following her on Instagram, then learned that she and Xander were also having this podcast. What a pleasant surprise. They are a total breath of fresh air and I love that they are not afraid to talk about awkward or taboo topics. I love how real they are and how approachable they make conversations about sex and sexuality. I look forward to their new episodes every single week. God, what is this emoji? It's like not crying, laughing, but like really happy. Squinty eyed. Squinty eyed, happy.

I don't know what you call that one. Actually, I would. I would say squinty Eyed. Laughing.

Laughing, or just like vigorous, vigorous smiling. That's what I'm gonna go with. Vigorous smiling.

Okay. Maybe we'll have to put the emoji.

On our possibly even aggressive smiling. So, so aggressive that your eyes got scrunched up. Yeah.

Should we do with, like, our little announcement of the podcast of the week, us trying to enact that one?

Yeah, we both. We both.

We both just did it at the same time. So we both had our eyes closed and we could see each other.

And then there was total sile on the podcast.

We're doing such a great job with this podcast. Thank you so much for leaving this great review. Excellent emoji choice. You stumped both of us. We really, really appreciate the reviews. Not only are they fun for us to read, and Xander's just increasing his emoji knowledge every week, it also really, really helps the podcast grow and helps us reach new people. So we do a weekly giveaway with the reviews. If you haven't heard of it yet, all you need to do is submit a review on Apple Podcasts, and then you are entered into our weekly giveaway every single week going forward. If we pick your review to be the review of the week, then you can DM us on Instagram at Vanessa Marin Therapy. Share your situation or what you're going through, and we will send you a personalized private coaching session back over Instagram. So it's just our little way of saying thank you for taking the time to leave a review. All right, so let's get into it. So we're going to be sharing a lot of stories from our audience, and I think the overarching theme in this episode, all the stories are very different, but there's definitely a common thread of.

Boundaries, needing to have them, needing to have them, needing to enforce them, et cetera.

What are boundaries? I think it's a word that a lot of us use or have heard of but don't really know exactly what it means. Basically means the place where you end and the other person begins. Boundaries are all about the behaviors that you will and won't tolerate from other people. The ways that you protect yourself, keep yourself separate from others, you know, protect your own energy. And I think it's really important for us, you know, we teach other people how to treat us. And even around things that sometimes seem like they should be obvious or like, I shouldn't have to say this, I shouldn't have to tell you that this is something I need, it is still something that we do have to do with everyone in Our lives. And there's some really important self reflection that goes into discovering for ourselves what are my boundaries and how do I communicate them to other people. A lot of times boundaries can seem almost sort of rude, I think, especially when it comes to family, the holidays. A lot of us have this belief of like, you're just supposed to suck it up and deal with it because they're your family or because it's the holidays and it's a special time. But boundaries are absolutely healthy and necessary. Like I will say, I will go so far as to say, you can't have a happy life without having boundaries.

Yeah. And I can imagine that this is really hard with family because inside your own family, you grow up getting a sense for, you know, what are the general boundaries in your family. You don't really come out of the womb being like, all right, I got 10 boundaries that I, that I need to explain and enforce to my brand new family. Like, you can't even talk. So like, with you.

Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome.

The baby just comes out with like a little scroll with them all written down.

I wanted to dispel, you know, that one person is going to be like, oh, but why don't we just do that? It would make us so much easier.

But okay, well, you really showed them. Yeah.

So, you know, I think that within like a family structure, we are kind of used to maybe not having boundaries or sort of having implied or like understood boundaries that develop over time. But then we become adults, then go off and we have our own lives where our family is involved only sometimes. Or we gain a new family via a significant other, a partner, a husband, a wife, a spouse, whatever. And then we kind of get into this weird place of, oh, well, this is like a family. I shouldn't have to do boundaries. Like, people should just know what it is that I want and need. We should have these agreed upon, understood boundaries that we never have to talk about. And then the reality is it's like, no, you're a full grown adult now. You have your own needs, you have your own boundaries. Unfortunately, you aren't living with your family usually for the most part. And you're gonna have to just be clear and explicit. This is a boundary when we're together.

Yeah. And also the other thing about boundaries is that yes, we can set boundaries with other people, but we can also set them within ourselves. So for example, you could decide for yourself, you know what, I'm not going to engage when my in law says something that bothers me instead of me feeling like, okay, well now I have to like over explain myself and then tell them. And then I'm kind of like giving them permission to keep engaging with me on a certain topic. I can say something like I don't want to have this conversation or I can remove myself from the situation. Like there are ways that we can enforce and hold those boundaries internally. So let's get into our listener stories. First one that we're starting with. This is the longest one by far, so just bear with me for a minute while I share this story. My in laws really dislike me. Things have always been kind of negative between us, but it blew up at our wedding where my husband's mom and sister almost didn't come because I didn't invite his sister to my bachelorette trip. They said horrible things about me and my family and my relationship with my husband. Fast forward to Christmas after we got married and we went over to my in laws house for Christmas Eve. His mom and his sister did not look at me or speak to me all night. They acted like I had some horrible disease and they even sit next to me. It made me feel like the worst kind of person even though I hadn't done anything wrong. Since then, my husband and I have agreed that there need to be boundaries in place, but the last two years have been so difficult around the holidays. It just feels like because of the time of year you can't just cut your family out even if they are toxic. And my husband and I can't seem to agree on acceptable boundaries. I try to realize that they are his parents and he doesn't want to totally cut them off, but the things his mother and sister said about me and my family make me not want to be around them. I usually end up giving in at Christmas and we go to his parents house anyway. Although this year his parents are living with his sister who we are not on speaking terms with. It's chaotic and stressful. I wish we didn't even have to deal with seeing them at the holidays, but his mom would be so upset with him if we didn't make the effort. So the first thing that stood out at me when I was reading this one over is the I haven't done anything wrong.

Oh yeah, immediately putting it in a right wrong black and white context where there's going to be a winner and a loser of this. Which is I'm sorry to say, but that's just not how this is going to ever get resolved.

So it sounds like this all Stemmed from the bachelorette trip incident. I think it's her right to pick who she wants to come on her bachelorette trip. It's her trip. And that being said, I can completely understand the sister in law feeling hurt or left out that she wasn't invited. Yeah. So maybe they're not even particularly close close. Maybe this woman thought it was, like, shocked that the sister in law would even want to come along. But the bottom line is that for the sister in law, sounds like she felt left out. And that's an understandable experience. It actually sort of made me think about how much family tension there can be around weddings. So I'm almost sort of curious. Do people think there's more tension around holidays or weddings? We might need to do a poll on Instagram.

That's a tough one. I mean, the problem is that holidays repeat themselves every. Every year. But, I mean, I guess if you were to think about, like, if we had to have a family wedding every single year versus holidays every year, what causes more stress? Obviously, you're not the one planning the wedding. That would add a whole other layer to it.

So it sounds like the husband's mom and sister really went overboard. They said some really nasty things. They treated this woman really poorly. So I'm not saying they're saints here at all.

Oh, yeah.

But it does sound like now they're in this. This gridlock with each other where they both feel hurt. They both feel probably. They both feel like the other person's the one who started it.

Oh, yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

They did a bad thing.

Yeah. The sister in law. I totally understand. She can go. Oh, well, she didn't invite me to her bachelorette party. Like, she started it. And, you know, the person writing in is saying, I get to choose who comes to my bachelorette party.

You guys started it by saying that.

Yeah. You guys started it by saying horrible things about me, and they've just dug in their heels.

Yeah. My advice to the woman who wrote this is, could you be the bigger person and apologize first?

And to be super clear, you're not apologizing for everything. This isn't like a blank check. I'm a bad person. I'm apologizing. This is a limited, narrow, specific apology.

Yeah. So I think that in a way, actually, the holidays can offer this nice opportunity for us to try to reset with each other and get back on the same page. So I could imagine saying something like, and maybe this could be a conversation over the phone. This could be like an email that you send. I tend to prefer the email stuff. It's nice to, like, give people a little bit of space to process your words. But I could imagine saying something like, with the holidays coming up and just thinking about how this is such a special time of year, and, you know, we spend it with family. I would love for us to have a more pleasant holidays this year. And so, you know, I know the last year, a few years, have been really tough. I know we've had some challenges in our relationship, and I just want to say I'm really sorry for the hurt that I've caused you, and I really would like us to start over fresh and to make some. Some new traditions and some new memories together. Something like that.

And I think that you could even mention the bachelorette party specifically and say, I can imagine it must have been hurtful or confusing that I didn't invite you to the bachelorette party. I'm sorry that I didn't invite you. I would love to. To be closer with you. I would love to have a better relationship with you. Start over and start over. And I can see how that feels tough, given that we didn't kind of, like, start out the wedding festivities, like, doing something together. And I feel bad about that. I'm sorry.

I'm thinking, as you're saying that, that we're definitely gonna have to do an episode about apologies, because I know this is so triggering to people, and I can imagine this woman sitting here listening to this and thinking, like, I did nothing wrong. It was my bachelorette party. Like, it sucks to apologize for things, but I think it's really important to recognize the intentions that we have with our words. And our actions often have very different impacts on other people. So even if you felt like your intentions were totally pure, you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't mean to hurt any feelings. Whatever the reasons were why you didn't invite her, I'm sure there are good reasons. So whatever those intentions that you had, the impact was different. And it feels hard to acknowledge that impact. Cause you're like, I didn't do this to be a jerk. I didn't do this to, like, purposefully hurt her feelings. But that's not what an apology is. An apology is just acknowledging another person's reality, another person's experience, even if it's completely different from yours.

Yeah. And I think the real key here is that you're not saying, I'm so sorry I didn't invite you to the bachelorette party. I'm a horrible person because I didn't invite You. What you're saying is, I'm sorry I didn't invite you to the bachelorette party because I can't see that this has caused some hurt. And that makes me feel really bad to see the impact that that had on you. So you're apologizing for the, you know, the impact that not inviting her had on her. You're not saying, like, I was wrong, I'm bad, I'm whatever. You're. You're trying to validate the feelings that she had and apologize for the part that you played in her feeling that way.

Yeah. So I think there's also something that we should talk about here around the relationship between the husband and the wife, because this is his family, and it sounds like ye they've had some disagreements about how do we handle this going forward. It's so important for partners to get on the same page before going into situations with family, because if you guys aren't on the same page and then you go into the fire pit, like, it's just gonna blow everything up.

Oh, yeah. There's so much opportunity for having misaligned expectations, feeling like you're getting pressured into doing something or making certain commitments or whatever in the moment. And so, yeah, all this takes is some pre planning, some level setting of expectations and boundaries, and just really making sure you're aligned and on the same team.

Yeah. So my hope is that if this woman can apologize, that maybe it can start this conversation and they can all start over and get into a better place. But, like, let's say that they're not ready. You know, none of them are ready to go there quite yet. It falls on the husband to be the one to. To set boundaries and be more communicative. So I think it's a good rule of thumb that if they're your parents, you're the one who should be communicating with them directly about the boundaries. Because you and your partner, like, you want to be a team, you want to be like, on the same page, on the same team about this kind of stuff. So of course, there are always exceptions to this, and you are allowed to have your own boundaries. You're allowed to be your own person separate from your partner. But I think especially as a first step step, it's best to have the son or the daughter of the parents be the one who's talking to them directly. One specific thing that came up for me reading over this is like, if the wife is going over to the house and there are nasty things being said about her, if people are refusing to Even acknowledge that she's there, like making her feel completely unwelcome. I think the husband could say something like, I'm not going to come to your house unless you are civil to my wife. You guys don't have to be best friends, you don't have to be all chummy. But like, you have to treat each other with a basic level of respect. Acknowledging each other's existence, saying hello, not saying anything nasty like to their face. That's a bare minimum.

Yeah. It is important to me that my wife, who I love, is shown basic respect by my family. And that's a very simple request. And I don't think that's a request that anyone is going to argue with. But I think that is where it is so important that that initial apology come first. Because without it's going to get into a he said, she said type of thing really quick. Without that, the husband goes in and says, hey, you got to be civil to my wife. It's just going to turn into, oh well, she wasn't civil to me when she didn't invite me to the bachelorette party. So taking responsibility for our part in things first before setting those boundaries, I think is really important because you have a much firmer ground to be able to. To set that boundary.

Yeah, absolutely. And so even, you know, in the moment, the husband could take some of the responsibility for calling things out too. Like if, let's say the mom says something nasty to the wife in the moment, I think the husband should say, hey, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. If you continue saying things like that, we are going to leave, you know, and enforcing that boundary. And I really hope it doesn't get to that. But I do think, because the idea, I'm just thinking of this woman sitting in her in laws house feeling so uncomfortable, having nasty things said to her face. That's awful. Nobody could deal with that kind of situation. Right. So, you know, enforcing those boundaries and really sticking up for her, I think that's something the husband should do.

Yeah, I mean, I think the mistake a lot of people make with boundaries is that it's pretty easy to identify what a boundary should be or what boundary you want to have. And people are even okay sometimes communicating that boundary. But then I think the enforcement part is where people have a lot of problems is that we communicate a boundary once and we expect everybody to respect it, but everybody is not you. They are not constantly having those boundaries running through their head. So it's very easy for someone to inadvertently Violate a boundary, like, someone else is going to need a number of reminders, oftentimes to really internalize. Oh, yeah, this is this important thing that I need to respect. And even if, you know, you are kind of intentionally not respecting a boundary, that's where the enforcement becomes super necessary. Like, there needs to be something that happens if the boundary is violated multiple times. So in this case, it's, if you are not able to be civil to my wife, you know, most important member of my family, then we will go home. And then it actually becomes very important to properly enforce that. So if they go civil, you know, maybe it's like, okay, I'll give you one warning. Like, hey, that didn't feel like a response. Respectful comment. If this happens again, then we are going home. And then you actually have to go home. Because if you don't enforce the boundary, all you're doing is you're training other people. The boundaries you set are not actually important to you.

Bingo. All right. And so one final thing that I want to mention about this one is, you know, it sounds like this is going to be a particularly challenging year if they can't turn things around because it's going to be at the sister's house who they're not on speaking terms with anymore. So I always like to mention that as a last resort, partners can spend time separately with their families. And I know this is not an ideal solution. It could feel really lonely to not spend time with your partner on the holidays, but maybe it's something like, you decide, okay, Christmas Eve, we are gonna spend it together, just the two of us. But for Christmas Day dinner, you know, my husband's gonna go to his family's house, I'm gonna go to my family's house, or I'm gonna stay at home, you know, by myself and have some relaxing time. You have to force yourself to be in a bad situation just because your partner is going to.

Yeah, I think that if they were to do that, the one thing that I would hope is that the husband can still just set some general boundaries of respect for his wife. Because I could imagine a situation where, you know, he goes over there without the wife, and then, like, the sister is just saying all kinds of horrible things. And in that kind of case, I think it's still really important to stick up, up for your partner and be like, it does not feel good for me to hear you saying these horrible things. And, like, you know, I'm not going to be able to continue doing these holiday things with you if this is how it is.

Absolutely. All right, let's move on to our next story.

All right, speaking of boundaries, the second one. Again, boundaries will be very important. I have a feeling the biggest issue with my in laws is that my mother in law is never satisfied with the amount of time we get with her. She always wants more. And it's a literal emotional meltdown. Yes. Like a toddler when the holidays are starting to end, as parts of the family depart, she throws actual fits with crying. It's honestly embarrassing. We found some good strategies over the years to deal with her departing from a public place, making sure pictures are taken early in the day, etc. But overall, the whole experience just sucks and no one wants to be there. It gives me such anxiety of her standing over me asking when we can come back, why do we have to leave so early, etcetera, etc, etcetera.

Oh, this one sounds so tough.

Yeah, this sounds really hard.

So first of all, I want to congratulate this couple for coming up with some creative solutions for dealing with these emotional meltdowns. It sounds like you guys have been very creative and you have come up with some good options. For me, this one is a reminder of the importance of enforcing those boundaries. You know, like Xander was saying a few minutes ago, you know, we can't rely on other people to remember and respect our boundaries 100% of the time, especially in the beginning. They are not inside of our heads. They're not going to have the same recollection of our boundaries that we are. I think this is something that they're going to continue needing to talk to the mom about. But that actually stirs up a question for me of. I'm not sure if they've ever actually talked to her directly about her behavior versus the two of them. Just like changing their behavior to deal with the mom.

Yeah, that's a really good question. It's hard to tell. And this is definitely one of those situations where this might seem far fetched, but it's possible that the mother in law is just not aware of what she's doing or how extreme this is coming off to others.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, like she might be thinking this is her way of showing her love, you know, letting them know how badly she wants them to be around, how much it pains her when they leave. I mean, it's always shocking to realize how different somebody's intentions are from the impacts that they're having.

Yeah. Sivas suspicion that it's not just that in this case, I think so. But I just wanted to Start. It's really good to start in that place because so often we jump two levels beyond and go like, oh, this is so messed up. Or this is this huge problem and we start addressing it from that perspective when in reality it could have just been like a misunderstanding. So it's always good to exhaust that misunderstanding possibility at the beginning before moving on to the bigger stuff. Stuff.

Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that there's clearly the mother in law is going through some sort of issues or maybe even trauma around the holidays. So there might be a possibility of trying to tap into some compassion, maybe trying to see this as a mental health issue or at the very least an emotional regulation issue. And yeah, for.

Yeah, that was the first thing that really stuck out to me with this. I felt really sorry for this woman who's really struggling to regulate her emotions. Like, it sounds like she's having emotional outbursts. I doubt she's really in control of them, given that it's like we need to say goodbye in public spaces so that she doesn't have this meltdown. I felt really. I felt really sorry. It sounds like something really serious is going on for her. This is something that she probably should be in therapy about.

Yeah.

To discuss because this is a real serious issue.

So this is another one where I think it would be great for the partner, they didn't name any genders here, but the child of the mother, for them to talk to the mother directly. And I would say something along the lines of, you know, we really love you, we want to spend time with you over the holidays. We cherish this time that we get to spend together. And the way that you act when we leave causes us a lot of stress and anxiety and it makes us not want to spend that time together because so much anxiety comes up. And so I would give her specifics. And you can deliver this in a very kind and compassionate way. Not like you're nuts, why do you do this kind of thing? But just sharing with her, like it's really a struggle for us to see how emotional you get. And I think you can give her some validation as well and say, like, you know, I understand it's hard to say goodbye and I understand that you love us and you want to spend as much time with us as you can. And the way that you act is creating the opposite effect of what I think you intend.

Yeah, yeah. I think the one other thing that I would add there, because I think they kind of mentioned in the description a bit that it's like challenging for Them. And also they kind of allude to, like, others, like, no one wants to be there. I think if you're having that conversation, it's really important to just take responsibility for yourself. Don't try to be like, oh, the whole rest of the family doesn't want to be there. Everybody hates it. All that's going to do is give her space to tear into your argument. Be like, oh, well, so and so told me it's fine. Or, you know, no one else talks to me about it. So just focus on yourself, you and your partner. Like, this is hard for us. Don't bring the whole rest of the family into it. Just talk about. About your specific relationship with her.

And so then with the specific questions she's asking, like, when can you come back? Why do you have to leave so early? What they could do. And I think this would be best coming from the child. Her child is to share with her beforehand, crystal clear, what is the plan of when they're coming, when they're going, what they're gonna do together so that she knows that beforehand. And you can set a boundary around that too and say, you know, mom, this is the plan of what we're doing. I can understand if it's not exactly how you would want things to. This is how we have to do it for our family. But, like, make space for her. It's okay for her to be disappointed or sad or wish it could be longer. That's fine. And you're still making this decision for your family unit. Tell her beforehand. I would really appreciate it if you didn't ask us questions like, why do we have to leave so early and when are we going to come back? Because that brings up a lot of stress and anxiety for us and we just want to be able to enjoy that time with you instead of thinking ahead or, you know, feeling like we have to justify ourselves.

Yeah, right. Write up the itinerary in an email, print it out on a piece of paper and bring it and set a boundary that, yeah, it feels stressful to you. And she continuously asks. And so when she does that, you are going to just refer back to the email. You can check the email to see the details, Mom.

Ooh, I like that. I like that a lot. All right, let's move on to the next one. I grew up with divorced parents and was entirely raised by my mom. The way she loved us, was so compassionate and physical in a safe way. She was very reassuring, held our hands when we were sad or hugged us. She was not afraid to show emotions and allowed us to express ours. When I spend time with my husband's parents, it's really hard for me. They don't love me the way I'm used to receiving love from my family and mom. They're not the lovey physical type. The love feels superficial. And I feel like they like to express their care through gifts like money, gift cards, or dinner. This sounds great, but also comes with a lot of stress for me. I feel like I owe them in return and I just feel disconnected from them them. I feel like I need to physically repay them. But I grew up money insecure, low class, and struggled having enough money to eat as a child. The thought of giving up hard earned money to repay them then gets me stressed. All right, so I think the main thing coming up in this one is that these people are speaking very different love languages.

Oh yeah. Not only do we have our own personal love languages, I think that there's also family love languages. Within a given family, a whole family dynamic comes up and it's, it's hard to break out of those dynamics. And any given family, there could be a dynamic that's like, this is how we do the holidays. These are the types of gifts that we get. These are the types of things that we do. And so between families, even if within that family you have different people with different love languages, there can kind of be. Be this default, like, okay, yeah, we spend a lot of time together on the holidays. We don't do a lot of gifts or we just do gifts. We don't spend very much time, but we do like really lavish gifts.

Yeah. So if you haven't heard of the love languages, it's this model that describes the ways that we like to give and receive love. There are five different languages. One of them is gifts and one of them is physical touch. We actually have an entire series about the love languages over on our YouTube channel. We have a different video about each love language. Language. And we talk about how to love other people in their language if it's not your language. Because this is one of the common things that comes up in really any kind of relationship is like we're looking to give and receive love in different ways. And that can cause us to feel disconnected, misunderstood. So I think that's the primary thing coming up here is this person is looking for that physical touch kind of love that they're so used to. And instead they're getting again, gifts type of love. And neither one of them is right or wrong, better or worse than. It's just that they're different types. So I was sort of thinking it could be interesting to bring that up as a topic of conversation the next time you guys are spending time together. There's love languages, tests that you could take. Like, you kind of bring it up in a more like general sense of, hey, have you guys taken this? Let's all take the test together and figure out which type we are.

Ooh, sneaky.

Yeah. And then you can use that as a way to connect with them. There could also be, you know, a way of opening up a deeper conversation about your families and kind of share with your in laws. This is my story of the holidays and my families and the way that we would give and show love and, you know, how does it work for you guys? Tell me more about your histories and your traditions and why do you love each other in these specific ways. It also stirred up for me what I didn't see in this question. Know, does this person want to connect with their in laws in the way that they connect with their mom? So like, do they want to be lovey dovey and touchy and physical with their in laws? I think that's kind of a first starting place.

I think it's also worth considering, like, is this just the way their family is, or is this like an intentional choice that their family said, we like to give gifts and this is what we do, or is this just something that is of kind, kind of developed over time and no one has ever questioned, oh, why is it that this is what we do on the holidays instead of spending quality time together, we give a lot of gifts or like we'll go to a fancy dinner and that kind of is all we do. So I mean, it can be interesting when you, if you're having a deeper conversation about love languages or what you're used to in the holidays, just getting to know individual people and asking like, like how they like to give and receive love on the holidays. And perhaps you can kind of tailor your, your, I'm putting gifts in quotes, like your holiday gifts to each person based on what it is they really like. And there may only be a couple people that really love receiving gifts. And there may be some people that like spending time or do like physical touch or something like that. And you see, you can kind of tailor what you do do to different members of the family rather than just assuming, oh, well, they all give gifts. So I have to also give gifts. That's the only way that I can do it.

I do think that this person has to do a little Bit of self exploration around why gifts bring up so much anxiety for them. And they know, you know, that it comes from this money insecurity that they had as a child. So that's a great first step that you've identified it. But there's probably some work for you to do in therapy or even journaling or something around processing that. Because the reality is when somebody gives you a gift, and especially somebody whose love language really is gifts, they love giving that gift. And there's not a sense of needing to be repaid, especially like financially repaid. Oh, I gave you this nice comforter for Christmas and now you have to pay me back $300.

Oh, yeah. And it's like you have to Google. You have to google the gift so that you can figure out exactly how much it cost and then give me something of that same value in return. Yeah, of course there are going to be some people that have a kind of skewed view of things and maybe do expect that. But for the most part, I think when people are giving a lot of gifts, there is not this idea of I need to receive something in return that is of equal or greater value. But I think it's really easy for us in our heads to go to that place when we feel kind of blown away by something that someone has given us, we go, oh, well, the only thing I could ever do to make up for this is to give them something, something back of the same value.

Yeah. So one thing you could do particular to the holidays is you could have a more open, straightforward kind of setting expectations type of conversation of what are our rules around gifts. So could it be we're setting a maximum that everyone can only spend $50 on a gift or $100 on a gift, something like that. So if you kind of set those expectations beforehand, you wind up avoiding some of these kinds of situations. But I also think it could be the opportunity for like a really nice, intimate conversation between this person and their in laws for them to share. I really appreciate that you give me these gifts. You guys are so generous. And for me, like, I really struggle receiving them because I have this history with money, this relationship. And you can share with them, be super vulnerable about what your relationship was like with money growing up. So there can be an intimacy there, you know, having that kind of vulnerability. And I bet you'd be really shocked to hear what you're in in laws would respond. The other thing here is that you can always set a boundary in terms of what you're open to receiving or not. Receiving. I do think there is some personal work to be done around receiving, some really beautiful, vulnerable conversations you can have. But if you're just at this point where you're feeling I don't want to receive these gifts, you can say that, you can tell your in laws you're so generous. I really appreciate it. This year I really would like to not receive any gift gifts. So please, if you wanting to give something, donate to charity or you know, whatever. But like I really don't want to receive anything and that would be fine too. But final note that I want to make on this one is going back to this person saying their love feels superficial. I just think it's so important not to judge the different ways that people like to give and receive love. So it is easy to look at like giving gifts and money as a superficial thing, but for a lot of people, and I can kind of speak from experience because I love giving gifts to people. When I give gifts to somebody, it comes from a really deep place of love of like, I've thought about this person, what do I think they would like? Exploring different things. And it feels so good to me to be able to give somebody a gift. It genuinely feels like a place of love. It doesn't feel like a, oh, look how great I am, look how much money I have. You know, honestly, we just gave our employees really generous bonuses after a big project. And you could say that that was, was like a superficial thing, that I got a lot of enjoyment out of giving money to our employees. Obviously an employee employer relationship is different from, you know, in laws.

Yeah, where are we going with this one?

But no, what I'm saying is that like yes, I gave our employees money, but I felt really good being able to do that. It felt like a nice gift, a way of acknowledging all of their hard work of making them feel valued, part of the team. So all of this is just to say that money and gifts, gifts are not necessarily just shallow or superficial things. There can be a lot of love behind them.

All right, so let's get on to the next story. My sister in law and her husband have been gracious enough to put us up in a spare room every time we come back in town for the holidays. I've never really felt comfortable staying at other people's houses and would much prefer a hotel room. It also gives us an out at the end of a long but good day with family. My wife is concerned that staying elsewhere would hurt her sister's feelings. So for the last 18 years, years we've Slept on a small sagging bed whenever we visit. Am I the bad guy for wanting to get a room? Is it reasonable that my wife's fear of hurting her sister's feelings keeps us coming back?

All right, very interesting one. And I can very much relate to this one because we have slept in some uncomfortable beds over the holidays. Yeah, we absolutely have. Okay, first thing is I think that maybe there could be some examining to do on either person in this relationship. So it sounds like one person. I think he's saying he's the husband because he said the bad guy. The husband says he's always uncomfortable staying at other people's houses.

That always made me curious. What is going on there?

Yeah, like, does everybody have small saggy beds or is there something else going on?

Did you have a bad childhood sleepover somewhere?

And then the wife. Wife sounds like maybe a little overly worried about hurting other people's feelings.

Yeah. Or like, protecting her sister's feelings. Like, not even having the chance to hurt her feelings. Like, preemptively protecting her sister's feelings.

So this one actually feels pretty straightforward to me. I think it is totally reasonable to want to be comfortable. Like, it's okay. And yes, you know, the holidays, like, we want to spend time with family. You know, we want to be together. But. But I think it's reasonable to want to sleep in a comfortable bed, to want to get a good night of sleep, to want to have privacy so you can have sex over the holidays, or to want to have your own bathroom. Like, all of those things are completely understandable.

Yeah. I mean, and if this is a struggle, think about, like, it gets easier to consider. If it was like, would you sleep on the floor? Like, at what point? Like, at what point. At what point would you be like, okay, we're just going to get a hotel room. Like, you know, the small, saggy bed idea, guess is sort of a gray area. Perhaps it's like, well, we're in a bed. Like, it could. It could be worse. But, you know, if. You know, if you're going to your family's house and they're like, yeah, all the bedrooms are full. We also don't have any air mattresses. You're just literally going to be on the hardwood floor. Like, you probably wouldn't have much of a problem being like, you know what? We are going to get a hotel, and we're not going to feel bad about that. So think if you can realize, okay, well, in some situation, I would do that. This. I think then it becomes easier to be like, okay, well, it's not like, totally out of the realm of possibility that we do this.

Yeah. And just to normalize this one, like, I very much relate to this because we are actually spending Thanksgiving in a hotel ourselves. There is a bedroom for us to stay in. We're spending it with Xander's family. There is a bedroom there for us. But we want to be comfortable. We want to have a bigger bed. And so we're staying at a hotel. And like, that's okay. So I think that what you could do is to have. Have the wife talk to her sister directly, well ahead of time. And to say something like, you know, we love staying with you guys. We're so appreciative of your hospitality. We're really looking forward to spending the holidays together. But this year we decided that we're going to stay in a hotel so we can have a little more quality time together. Obviously, if you tell the sister, your bed is small and sagging and terrible and we hate it and we don't ever want to sleep in it again, like, of course her feelings are going to be hurt. Right? But. But if you frame it as we want to spend some quality time together, or maybe even saying, you know, it's been a chaotic year, we haven't gotten much time together, we wanted to just have a little bit of privacy, or there's this really cool hotel that just opened that we're dying to check out. You know, have it be some other reason, like a positive, good reason why you're wanting to be at the hotel versus a negative, bad, critical reason why you don't want to stay in the sisters house.

Yeah. And if your initial thought is, but my sister is still gonna hear, oh, well, we don't want to stay with you, or we're not comfortable enough, too bad your sister is gonna hear what she hears. As long as you do your part in being really clear that it's about you. We are gonna stay in a hotel because, you know, we want to have some time together. You do your part to make it it as clear as possible to you. Other people are allowed to have their own reactions. They're allowed to have their own interpretations of things. We can't control the way that other people interpret the things that we say and vice versa. You can't make an omelette without breaking a couple eggs. Sometimes you just gotta shoot your shot. And if someone else wants to interpret that differently, that's on them. And you get to deal with that after that happen happens. Don't try to think about all the ways that it could go wrong and then try to prevent all of those things from not happening by compromising yourself.

The other thing with this one, I would invite you to consider the possibility that the sister might actually be relieved that you guys go to stay in the hotel.

Oh, yeah, there's a. I'd say there's a 50% chance that your sister.

We're like, oh, thank God, now we can have some privacy and we don't have to worry about, you know, not having sex in our own home or having to cater to them 24 hours a day.

I hate what it.

Maybe there's a reason why she keeps.

We.

We just thought of that at the.

Same time, didn't we? You know, that small, saggy bed could be for a reason. Did you ever consider that she's been waiting 18 years to ask for you to ask if you can stay in a hotel and they've been giving you. They've been giving you a small saggy bed that. But you haven't gotten the message.

Sister's like, maybe this year. Yeah, they're like trying to break in the mat or jumping in the middle or every year they cut off an inch of the mattress. Just shrinks smaller and smaller. All right, so let's get to our last question of the episode. My soon to be in laws are great with everything but holiday planning. They automatically think that their family should be the priority. And it's very hard to plan things with my family without upsetting them. My parents are recently divorced less than five years ago. I have grandparents that I need to spend time with before I anymore. I have to split my time between three get togethers on my side and then try to make it work around my in laws schedule. My question is how do I approach asking for flexibility without offending them? P.S. love your podcast. And my fiance and I are using your connection challenge as wedding prep. Excellent idea.

Very good choice.

Okay, so this is such a classic dynamic that comes up the comparison slash fairness game when it comes to spending time with families. Like we mentioned earlier, like, this is something that's come up up in our families as well. You know, it's. It's just really easy, I think, for people to feel left out to, you know, want to know that things are fair and even. And the reality is that there's just absolutely no way to make it fair or make it even. You're just not going to be able to get there. So I think we have to get that idea out of our heads and it can even help in more extreme situations, which it sounds like this one might be kind of veering into, like to maybe stop giving information about the specific, specific plans that you have with your family. You know, so that your in laws don't get into that comparison trap of, oh, but you spent like three days with them and you're only spending two days with us. That kind of thing. What this person is asking for, like, this sounds really reasonable. Like, of course you want to spend time with your family. Of course you want to spend time with your elderly grandparents. Like, that's understandable. And you are allowed to do that. You're allowed to spend that time. Time.

Yeah, you are absolutely allowed to. So what stuck out to me a bit was saying, like, how do I approach asking for flexibility? So my question is, why do you need to ask them for flexibility? This is something that is totally understandable. You have family you need to spend time with. You get to spend time with your family. I think that you have a right to visit with all the respective families. So you can just tell them, them what your plan is by asking. It just opens it up to feeling like it's a negotiation. Like, oh, would it be okay if we do this? And then they feel like, oh, well, this is our opening to try to, like, negotiate downward. Like, the important thing is just what are the things that you need to do? What are the events that you need to go to? Who are the people that you need to see? And then you tell them, this is the plan. I'm seeing my family, I'm seeing my grandparents, and I'm seeing you. You're all really important to me. And so this is the decision that I've made, or this is the decision that we've made so that we can accommodate and see everybody during the holidays.

Yeah. And this would also be a great situation to get your partner involved in too, to have your partner directly communicate with their family and say, hey, this is our plan. This is what we have to do.

Yeah, I think definitely being on the same team here is super important because what you really don't want to have happen is to set up this dynamic where it feels to like, you know, to the in laws that like, you are taking their child away, away from them. Like, it's so important that you guys are just in lockstep about what the plan is, about what the plan is and whatnot so that it's really clear to them that this is actually important to both of you. It's not just like, oh, this person came into our family and is taking one of our family members away so to spend time with their family. I mean, as I say that, it sounds. It sounds nuts. Like, it's just when you get married, when you're in a relationship, like, there are. You double the amount of family and there are double the amount of family obligations, and we have to split time. There's no other way.

All right, well, that is it for us this week. Like we mentioned earlier, we do have that whole YouTube series about different love languages. I think that's just a great primer for everyone to check out before heading into the holidays. Just help you learn a little bit more about how everyone in your family, your partner's family, likes to give and receive love.

We're all different.

We're all different.

And it's important to just understand the differences between us and, you know, understand and respect those differences.

Yeah. And if you are loving our podcast, we would also love your support. Over on our YouTube channel, we do YouTube videos every week on Tuesdays. They're really short, snappy, fun, to the point, and we talk about some of the most popular topics, like face sitting. That was a recent very popular video that we had.

Oh, yeah, It's a real thing. It is not a joke. A lot of people have thought that face sitting is a joke. It is no joke.

Yeah. So go on over to our YouTube channel. We'll put the link to it in the show. Notes to this episode. Subscribe to us. Let us know if you see any of those videos. And you're like, ooh, that would be a really good podcast episode. Like, I want to know more. Tell me more, then come and let us know. And we can definitely make a podcast episode out of that, too.

All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about what to do if you and your partner have different fantasies.