Anticipating holiday tensions with partner and parents

I’m showing up with a messy and imperfect question.
There is a reasonable chance this situation will be OK, but I’m trying to do some thoughtwork anyway to get the best outcome.

My husband, kids and I are spending a week with my parents over Christmas. They all like each other so it is mostly pretty good.

The situation I want to minimise is that when I’m with my parents, I often become more critical and judgemental of my husband, and I don’t want to do this. Mostly this is inside my head, but sometimes it spills into my behaviour and language, then he experiences it too.

Why is this a problem? Because I feel I’m not a nice person when I do this, and then I feel ashamed. Also because it makes me feel less connected to my husband and less aligned with him. It brings up all the things that I can get frustrated with him about and makes me feel dissatisfied with my marriage. This also happens to me in day to day life, ie without my parents, but being with my parents exacerbates it as I am more like them and less like him.

When he says or does something that irritates me, this is amplified by being with my parents, as I see him through their eyes as well as my own.

How I would like to feel is ACCEPTING. That it is OK to be different, to do things differently, and think differently.

The Unintentional Thought is something like, “I wish we were more aligned” and that makes me feel sad. I wish we felt more like equals.
I would like to see our differences as complementary and as a strength.

 

 

Answer:

Is there something specific that he does or doesn’t do that you notice this pattern coming up for? Have your parents actually said anything recently about his behaviour or are you projecting what you think they think?

Notice how you have given the power of how you think and act over to being in your parents’ presence. Be curious why that is.

Perhaps what you’re looking for is to be more aligned with yourself when you are at your parents’. What do you think?