“Why does my partner always ruin holidays?”
Summer Survival Series – Part 1
Every summer, people arrive at my website after typing some version of this question into Google. Sometimes it’s, “Why do narcissists ruin holidays?”
Sometimes it’s, “Why do I dread going away with my husband?”
Or perhaps, “Walking on eggshells on holiday” or “Why do I feel anxious before family holidays?”
They’re not usually looking for a diagnosis. They’re looking for an explanation. More than that, they’re looking for someone to tell them they’re not imagining it.
Because one of the most confusing things about narcissistic abuse is that holidays are rarely ruined by one dramatic event. They are worn away by dozens of moments that, on their own, seem almost too insignificant to mention.
If you tried to explain them to a friend, you might even hear yourself minimising them.
“It sounds silly really…”
“Perhaps I was overreacting…”
“It wasn’t anything major…”
And yet you come home from the holiday feeling utterly exhausted, wondering why everyone else seems refreshed while you feel as though you’ve been holding your breath for two weeks.
It Often Begins Before You’ve Even Left
One story has stayed with me because it captures something I have since heard many times in different forms.
A couple arrived at the airport for the start of their holiday. From the moment they entered the terminal, the husband walked several paces ahead. He didn’t look back, wait or acknowledge his wife. At passport control, a member of staff asked whether they were travelling together because, from the outside, they looked like strangers who happened to be standing in the same queue.
When she told me about it, she almost dismissed the story herself. “It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. He only walked ahead.” But that wasn’t really what she was describing.
She was describing what it felt like to be emotionally abandoned in a place where she had expected to feel connected.
Anyone can walk quickly through an airport. Anyone can become distracted. That’s not what made the experience so painful.
It was that this small moment echoed something much bigger. It reflected the relationship itself. Before they’d even boarded the plane, she was feeling the pain and the loss – why wouldn’t he walk with her? Should she say something? Asking only make things worse or the behaviour would be dismissed or turned into a joke.
Her attention had quietly shifted away from the excitement of the holiday and onto managing another person’s emotional world. That is one of the hidden effects of emotional abuse. You stop experiencing your own life directly because so much of your energy is spent anticipating somebody else’s reactions.
When Every Holiday Follows The Same Pattern
Most difficult relationships have disappointing moments. Holidays are stressful. Flights are delayed. Children become overtired. Couples disagree. That’s normal. What survivors describe is something different. They describe a pattern.
The holiday begins with hope. Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps being away from work will help. Perhaps a change of scenery will bring you closer together.
Then, almost imperceptibly, something changes. The hotel isn’t good enough. The weather is disappointing. The restaurant you chose is criticised before you’ve even sat down. A sigh. A look. A withdrawn silence. Nothing dramatic. Nothing you could easily point to and say, “That’s abuse.” Yet the atmosphere changes.
Before long, you’re no longer wondering where you’d like to explore tomorrow. You’re wondering how to stop the rest of the holiday deteriorating. Many survivors tell me they became experts at reading the smallest changes in another person’s mood. A tightened jaw. A different tone of voice. The way a car door closed. The speed of someone’s footsteps walking away from them.
To anyone else, these details would have gone unnoticed. To someone living with coercive or narcissistic abuse, they became important information. They were the early warning signs that the emotional weather was about to change.
Holidays Stop Being About Rest
One client said something that has stayed with me. “I don’t remember the beach. I remember watching him.”
That sentence says so much. Instead of noticing the sea, she was noticing whether he looked irritated. Instead of enjoying dinner, she was wondering whether she’d said something wrong. Instead of laughing with the children, she was trying to prevent another atmosphere from descending over the evening. When I hear stories like this, I’m reminded that emotional abuse doesn’t simply spoil occasions. It changes where your attention goes. Gradually, almost without realising it, your own experience becomes less important than managing someone else’s.
You stop asking yourself whether you’re happy. You ask whether they’re happy. And if they aren’t, everyone else’s enjoyment begins to feel uncertain.
Why It Can Be So Difficult To Explain
One of the cruellest aspects of covert emotional abuse is that individual incidents rarely sound serious enough on their own.
“He criticised the hotel.” “He walked ahead of me.” “He hardly spoke to me all day.” “He spent the evening on his phone.”
None of those statements captures what it felt like to live through them. The pain lies in the accumulation. In the way each small incident reinforces the same message over months or years. Your feelings don’t matter. Your excitement is inconvenient. Your role is to adapt.
By the time people come to see me, many have started doubting themselves precisely because there isn’t one dramatic story to tell. There are hundreds of tiny moments that have slowly eroded their confidence, their joy and, often, their sense of who they are.
That is why so many people say, “I can’t explain it.” Not because it wasn’t real. Because it was subtle.
If You’re Dreading This Summer
If you’re about to go away with someone who regularly leaves you feeling anxious, invisible or emotionally alone, I hope one thing stands out from this article.
You’re not being oversensitive because you’re affected by “little things”. Little things matter when they happen over and over again.
Relationships are built in ordinary moments. They are also damaged in ordinary moments.
In the next article in this Summer Survival Series, I’ll look at what you can do if you’re spending this summer with a narcissistic partner or family member, and how you can begin protecting your own emotional wellbeing even when you can’t control someone else’s behaviour.
Because recovery doesn’t begin with understanding why they behave as they do. It begins with recognising what those experiences have been doing to you.
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