According to a study, 40% of partners quarrel while on vacation. Because vacations should be relaxing, enjoyable, and rejuvenating, small burdens can become important arguments simply because you’re far from the familiar and you’ve placed so much hope that the vacation is an escape from real life, Dr. If you can say to yourself: “This vacation doesn’t depend on an experience going exactly the way I want it to go, that will probably overcome some potential disappointments. Try to make room in your vacation schedule to stick to some of your personal routines, such as going to the hotel gym to work out or taking a walk alone.
If your vacation is nature-oriented, you may find that you don’t want to wait up to a few times a year to have time in nature. Talk to your partner about your expectations and find out what you expect from the vacation period before you set off. So being on vacation can feel a bit overwhelming if you’re used to it or need time to yourself. Because as pressing and lousy as it feels to have an unresolved dispute while on vacation, adding the trip to the list of complaints only makes the problem feel even more insurmountable, and the most important thing is getting to the bottom of it.
While you both love using Netflix or going out to eat at home, vacations can be a completely different proposition. When couples go on vacation, they often disagree on which places they should visit — to museums or shopping, to memorials or art exhibitions. Your good intentions can have the opposite effect, like a fight with your partner, as you each have different needs and aren’t used to spending every minute of the day together. Not only do you have more time on vacation to think about your relationship, but you also have time to think about your entire life.
Instead of correcting one of them wrong and the other, think about how you can make the most of each of your holiday styles. While conflict is hard to deal with and not what you want to do while on vacation, it’s a pretty common experience. For example, if your partner’s drinking bothers you and you notice that he wants to stop for a glass of wine or cocktails during the day while you don’t, your irritation over his alcohol consumption while on vacation may increase. Just as with dividing up household chores, it is difficult to delegate vacation planning perfectly and evenly.
It could be splitting up the activities in one place, or flying to a bustling city for part of the vacation and flying to a chiller area for the second half. But if you can use the experience to really process things and change yourself, you’ll be SO solid next time you vacation (and yes, you’ll still be arguing about where to eat).
