What Traveling Tells Us About Each Other - Part II
After traveling almost 3 weeks abroad with my significant other, I am reflecting on our experience and how traveling can teach us so many things about how we interact with one another. It’s like a pressure cooker for a relationship! I’ll be sharing my thoughts and lessons learned (and re-learned) through a mini series of blogs that are applicable to all couples, whether traveling or at home.
Week 2 - Break The Relationship’s Routines
If anyone loves a good routine, it’s me. I believe that patterns and rhythms are crucial to managing daily life, as well as a healthy relationship. Routines can help guide our expectations, how we communicate with one another, and create safety within a relationship. I could go on and on but today I want to talk about the value of breaking the routine 😱
As a naturally more anxious person, our traveling certainly spiked a lot of worry and ‘what if’ questions. Where would we eat? What if we missed our train? Did I pack the right items? The list is endless. All of my comfort from my routines at home was left in Kansas. We were in new countries with new people experiencing new cultures.
When a couple is placed in a brand new experience that they don’t have a routine already established for, they can either turn towards one another, turn away from one another, or turn against one another.
Let’s use this example. After 8 hours of traveling on trains, my significant other and I spent 25 minutes on the wrong bus trying to get to our AirBnB. It was 10pm at night, and we were exhausted, hungry, and hot. With no taxis in sight and no desire to try the bus system again, we decided to walk 30 minutes on cobblestone streets with all of our luggage.
Turning towards one another in this situation looks like both of us pausing, de-escalating, and deciding the best course of action together. It’s a teamwork approach. “Together we can do this right.”
Turning away from one another in this situation looks like shutting down, internalizing the conflict, and disengaging from conversation. It’s an individual approach. “I’m the only one I can count on right now.”
Turning against one another in this situation looks like me blaming my partner for not figuring this out sooner, us fighting, and continued conflict as the vacation continued. “You can’t do anything right.”
There is little to no chance this scenario would happen at home. However, by breaking our routine and placing ourselves in a new situation, we gave ourselves the opportunity to use the relationship as home base in a chaotic and frustrating environment. While I ended up turning away from my partner that evening, we were able to have a successful repair attempt the next day and continue to have a great vacation. Stay tuned for my next post on repair attempts!
Create little moments of breaking your routine by picking somewhere new to eat, visiting a new area in town, or rearranging your living space. Set aside time to try something new together to create fresh opportunities to turn towards one another.
Elise Grigg, LPC
Elise@kcresolve.com
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