Vacations—His Family, Her Family or Exploring Together?

By Dave and Lucy Snyder
The Story:  Have you ever had the “vacation discussion”?  We grew up in such different families. Lucy: Being an Army daughter I experienced the annual visit to relatives and thought that’s what Dad’s leave was for.  I was ready to do something fun that didn’t include visiting relatives.  Dave: I came from a small town in PA and a family where my Dad was very work focused.  I was ready to reconnect to my family and friends back in my home town.  It wasn’t until we were well into our military life and marriage that we were able to communicate in a normal tone of voice about this issue.

​We credit our WWME Weekend and the tools we learned about unmet expectations and active listening for our eventual ability to resolve the vacation issue.  After much listening with our heart, we now make decisions about vacations based on what is best for US and our family, rather than on what we ”should” do. By the way, we STILL have to use our tools after retirement from the Army to plan vacations, although now WE are the family waiting for the visits!  Imagine that!

The Strategies:  We have listed three strategies for dealing with vacation decisions. We know that you may have found other ways—we would love to hear your ideas. 

• Sometimes writing down your thoughts and feelings about a sensitive subject like vacations paves the way for a more open discussion.  This is not a time to make judgments about your spouse, but just to share your values and feelings.
• LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. We still have to stop our motor running in order to listen to each other and let go of our impatience that blocks listening to our spouse with our heart.
  
• We are getting very good at making lists and in this case, you might want to make a list of possible plans that includes both of your priorities. An example of this might be our last vacation, when we were able to meet both our needs for R&R by visiting family in the summer, and saving time in the fall for a special US vacation to see the changing of the leaves and visit our special beach when it was less busy.  It was Great!
  

The Scripture:   James 1:19  “…Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak.”

Dear Lord, Help us to reach out to one another each day with a listening heart. 

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