Stress and arguments on holiday!

Why do we always argue on holiday?
Having spent much of the year working hard, whether in the workplace or at home, most people usually look forward to their Summer break. However, for some people once it arrives it often seems to start with a blazing row before they are able to settle down and enjoy their time off. There may be many reasons for any couple to have an argument and of course we may feel entirely justified for our annoyance because he/she did this or that. However, if this is an enduring pattern there may be more to this than the occasional spat (that can be seen as necessary for a healthy relationship).

One way we can think about this is using the idea of “stamps”. This is an idea developed by Eric Berne who developed the theory of Transactional Analysis. Berne suggested that in our interactions with other people we can store up negative feelings. He likened this to collecting “trading stamps”; a useful example of trading stamps is what were known as “green shield stamps” which people used to collect and then trade them in for a prize (the top prize being a brand new mini!). The modern day equivalent would be nectar points. When we think of psychological stamps, we are thinking of the storing up of negative feelings. In the same way as we can collect nectar points, once we have collected enough stamps we can trade them in for a prize. In this case an argument. Prizes can vary in size, for instance a low level “prize” could be a sarcastic remark, something a little larger might be a low level spat, through to a blazing row or ultimately filing for divorce.

So what goes on when we have that row at the beginning of our Summer break?
For many of us today, we live in a world that makes constant demands on our time and attention. Our normal day may mean getting up early in the morning to get into work early to clear all our e-mails before attending the meetings of the day, complete a report, before finishing late, getting home in time to say goodnight to the kids, have a late dinner and off to bed. Alternatively, it may be getting up, to get the kids up ready for school, do the school run, go off to work, where we are on our feet all day, before picking up the kids from school, giving them tea, organising baths, bedtime stories, making dinner for us and our partner before collapsing into bed. Exhausting!

One of the problems of leading such a busy lifestyle is that inevitably there are going to be moments of miscommunication where one partner or the other makes an insensitive, thoughtless or unsupportive comment. In such situations, ideally it is useful for us to take time to deal with such situations at the time. Letting the other person know how we feel about the impact of their words or actions and what we would like in the future. However, because we are living such hectic lives we often let such incidences “ride”, thinking it’s not worth getting into a discussion about it. The problem here is that each time we do this we are storing up a “psychological stamp” to be traded in in the future. In addition to this we will also be collecting stamps from all the other people that we have dealings with who have made insensitive or thoughtless comments.

Let’s fast forward to the summer holiday. Finally we have some time for some space in our lives. We have got through the stress of packing and managing the long trip to our destination. Then at some point our partner makes an inappropriate comment and we explode at them. The problem is we are not just exploding at that comment; we are bringing all the previous stamps to bear and offloading them as well. Our partner is stunned and may well be left thinking “What did I say?” and feel that we are over-reacting.

The problem here is pretty obvious. At best our holiday gets off to a bad start, and in some cases the bad feelings created by our explosion may last most, if not all of the holiday. The antidote to this is to ensure that you make some time in your life to ensure that you have cleared all your stamps, before you get to the “free-time” of holiday. Ideally, it is best to clear stamps at the time or near the time we are collecting them. However, if that is not possible, it’s a good idea to schedule in a regular time together (not less than weekly) to review and clear our stamp collection.

Wishing you all a happy (stamp free) holiday!!

Mark Head MSc (TA Psych) CTA (P) UKCP Reg. Psychotherapist, TSTA (P), Trainer, Supervisor, Mindfulness Trainer. Mark is a Director of the Link Centre – thelinkcentre.co.uk – a training centre based in Newick, Sussex that offers courses in personal and professional development as well as longer term courses in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Mark’s core focus is about helping people to develop self-awareness to achieve quality in their lives and in their relationships.