Summer Holidays and Your Relationship: What Are You Longing For?
Summer can offer something precious in a relationship: more time, more space, and perhaps a chance to come back to each other.
But holidays can also carry many unspoken wishes. One person may long for slow mornings, swimming, reading, and days without a plan. The other may feel ready to travel, explore, meet people, and bring more movement and adventure into the summer.
There is nothing wrong with wanting different things. The important part is to share what is true for you before the plans are already made.
You might ask each other: What are you longing for this summer? What would help you feel rested, nourished, and alive?
Perhaps you need more quiet time after a busy year. Perhaps you need a change of scenery, beauty, nature, or a little more playfulness. Perhaps you are longing for time together, but also some space to simply be with yourself.
Try to speak from your own experience, without making your partner wrong. And when they share, listen with openness. Their wish to travel may hold a longing for freedom or inspiration. Their wish to stay home may be a need for rest, simplicity, and coming back into their body.
When both people can be heard, something softer and more creative often becomes possible. Not a compromise where each person gives up a little too much, but a summer that has room for both of you. Perhaps some days of adventure, and some days with nowhere to go. Time together, and time apart. A little structure, and plenty of space.
Resentment often grows when we do not say what matters, or when we keep adjusting ourselves until we lose touch with our own yes and no.
In couples therapy, I often see that conflict is not really about the holiday itself. It is about the deeper wish underneath: to feel considered, free, rested, close, or important to the other person. When you can share these wishes with warmth and curiosity, planning your summer together can become a way of creating connection rather than distance.
If you are looking for couples therapy in Stockholm, or online couples therapy, this can be a beautiful place to begin: learning to speak more honestly, listen more deeply, and make room for both people in the relationship.
A good holiday together does not need to be perfect. It simply needs to include both of you.
About Jivan Dios
Jivan Dios is a couples therapist and relationship counsellor in Stockholm, offering couples therapy in English, Swedish, and online. Her work supports couples to communicate with more honesty, understand their patterns, and find their way back to closeness, intimacy, and connection.
