Hello and welcome to the Empower Couples podcast. We're here you get modern, non-boring

relationship advice for you and your partner to communicate like pros, fight smarter, and stay

on the same team. No matter the challenge that you face, I am one of your host, Erin Freeman.

And I'm Jocelyn Freeman, but you all just know what says the Freeman's.

And this episode is timely. It's about discussing holiday expectations and visiting in-laws,

really so that you prevent some of the chaos and the conflict that can ensue.

We are actually visiting family next week. And actually this week we have family visiting us.

And then a few weeks later after our trip then we have more family coming

to visit us and so this is something that we practice we're not just preaching this and not doing

it behind closed doors this is truly one of the greatest ways that we've managed to prevent

as many conflicts as we can the holidays being a big time where

there's a lot of moving parts. But we do this before vacations. We do this as often as possible.

And every single year, right around this time when we're doing private sessions with couples,

we find that, yes, it can be mixed with the fun,

the joy. We're not saying it's all, you know, stress or conflict, but we definitely see that while

couples are posting these happy pictures as a family and, you know, it should be a time of

celebration, there's actually a lot of unnecessary friction and

frustration and arguments that happen that can kind of shadow and reign on this what could be a

really connecting and special time of year. So this episode is here to help you prevent a lot of that

starting right now.

Yeah, it's a funny time because there are memories that you have from your past.

So when you get together with your family, if it's your family, you think about what it was like with your parents and food items and maybe a certain Christmas tree or activities or traditions. And so that brings up a lot of

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