Dreading being stuck home for the holidays? Here’s how to survive the festive season when your relationship feels rocky.

If you’re spending your Christmas break feeling a sense of foreboding and gloom, then please know you’re not alone.

The holidays are a notoriously difficult time for couples. Emotional pressure is higher, expectations are louder, and if your relationship is already on the rocks, the cracks will likely get a lot wider.

So no wonder the emotional load of it all makes you want to avoid, escape, or simply start to cry from the sheer overwhelm of it all!

Here’s how to stay sane and protect your peace:

1. Keep bringing it back to you.

It’s so easy to point the finger at our partners and blame them for how crap we feel. But this is counter productive. Not only can you not control them, but you rob yourself of the opportunity to grow and be a better version of yourself. Plus, when you keep fixating on them, you go deeper into a victim mindset where you’re disempowered to do anything about it. No bueno.

So instead, in a self-regulated way, bring the focus:

• Back to your internal narrative

• Back to your own emotional regulation

• Back to your boundaries

• Back to your needs

Because when you’ve had a lot of conflict, or feel disconnected, or your partner’s behavior is unpredictable, your nervous system is going to be on high alert for threats - and you will likely be feeling quite triggered even just by looking at them.

It’s something we call ‘negative sentiment override’ - when just being around them feels triggering and upsetting. 

So it’s not necessarily what they are actually doing - it’s how you’ve been feeling over time and how it’s built up. It’s the past informing the present.

And from this place, even subtle criticism or flatness from them can activate an internal panic if you don’t feel safe in the relationship.

Which is why emotional self-regulation matters more than ever. 

When you bring the focus back to yourself, you regain control of what you CAN control - your own triggers, reactions, the stories in your head, your interpretations, and so on.

This is the fastest way to bring back peace into your heart. And to start discerning what is true and what is your old pain leaking into the present.

2. Understand the neuroscience of your reactivity.

Your brain is wired for two things: connection and threat detection.

When relationships feel emotionally volatile or ambiguous, like maybe yours is, because let’s say you’ve been debating whether to stay or go for a while, your amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) will be pretty activated.

You’ll be scanning the room for signs of evidence (do I stay? Do I go?). 

And sadly, your brain can’t tell the difference between emotional pain and physical danger. 

So it sends out signals, like anxiety and anger to warn you of oncoming dangers.

Even if the dangers aren’t really there - your brain is just activated and on high alert. 

So you either freeze, fawn, run away, or explode.

And when you’re stuck home for the holidays, those reactions escalate fast. You’re SURROUNDED by threats. So no wonder you’re feeling triggered 24/7!

This is where self-awareness becomes your leverage:

• Notice the moment your body tenses.

• Name what you’re feeling, and lean into it.

• Take space if you need it (even 10 minutes to breathe or journal can prevent escalation).

This is a simple but powerful process.

Because naming an emotion e.g. “I’m feeling resentment” or “I’m feeling dismissed” actually activates your prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking. That’s what brings you back to center.

So even if you’ve been feeling anxious and triggered, just interrupting the automatic pattern to come back to yourself can be super powerful. 

3. Anchor into your own body and stop escaping into fantasy land.

It’s so easy to spend the festive season disappearing into a flurry of high expectations, fantasy ideals, picture perfect postcard moments - and then find yourself secretly hoping your partner will do X Y Z.

Maybe you’re hoping that they will get you a certain gift, or they will miraculously step up, be different or somehow ‘see’ the real you.

But expectations are a fraught thing to have…because hope turns into resentment really quickly when reality doesn’t deliver.

So the more you spend up in La La Land having all these lofty ideals, the more disappointed you will be. 

Now, you don’t need to abandon all expectations, but you do need to root them in what’s true.

And you do that by dropping down into your body and anchoring into what is real - what is coming up for you, how you feel, and being here in the present moment.

You can also ask yourself:

• How are you feeling with your partner right now?

• What are you desiring? 

• What has your partner consistently shown you this year?

• What parts of the fantasy do you need to release?

You’ll feel more in control the moment you stop waiting for someone else to behave differently.

And, beautifully, when you drop down into your body and feel what’s there, you anchor into the present moment, you open yourself up, and you increase the odds of actually being happy.

4. Get clear with your boundaries.

Boundaries are a good, wonderful, healthy thing for relationships. They are not ultimatums.

They are instructions for what you need to feel loved, and what you will do to preserve your own emotional bandwidth.

Examples:

• “If the conversation turns critical or dismissive, I’ll leave the room to cool off.”

• “I’m not available for deep conversations about our marriage after drinking, I’ll go for a walk or read and we can talk about it in the morning.”

Boundaries give your nervous system a structure for safety. And they reduce the cognitive load of having to “figure it out” in the moment. 

They also describe to someone how to love you, which is helpful as a roadmap. So get clear on your own boundaries, and start naming them.

5. Use this season as data gathering.

You don’t need to figure it all out right now. The Christmas season is a busy, busy time and emotions are likely running high.

So rather than focusing on your partner and what they are or are not doing, use this time to gather data on:

• How do you feel in this dynamic?

• What shifts when you're together all the time?

• What do you start craving (or avoiding) most when they are near?

You need to go inward to really feel what’s true for you and to gather the data to make empowered decisions later down the line.

Ultimately, if you’re walking into Christmas unsure whether you should stay or go, whether it’s you or the relationship…

I promise you, there’s a process for untangling that.

And it doesn’t involve years of vague talking in therapy or feeling lost, stuck or confused.

I’ve created a 3 step proprietary methodology to help you fix your relationship, or get the clarity that it’s time to leave if that’s the case - in as fast as 90 days.

I can help you gather all this data and make sense of it, to know precisely what to do. 

And it all starts with you - not with your partner, not with couples counseling, but with you.

Message me today if you’re ready to discover more, or watch this video www.successfullyinlove.com