I recently did a radio talk with Dubai Eye 103.8, and it prompted some reflections I wanted to share here.

By the end of the year, most couples are tired. The pace drops, routines loosen, there’s more time together and fewer places to hide. The busyness that carries people through the year thins out. When that happens, what has been avoided or left undealt with starts to surface. Not always as dramatic conflict, but as a growing sense of strain. December often exposes what has been pushed aside during the year.

There’s also something about December itself. Being back around family has a way of opening old material. People slip back into roles without noticing. Old sensitivities get stirred. Ways of dealing with closeness, conflict, and obligation come back online. Those early experiences don’t stay in the past. They continue to shape how partners respond to one another, and being in those family environments tends to make that influence more visible.

At the same time, the season sells a particular story. Warmth, joy, togetherness. For couples who feel disconnected, tense, or worn down, that contrast can be jarring. The problem isn’t the decorations or the gatherings. It’s the gap between what’s being performed around you and what’s actually being lived inside the relationship. That gap is hard to ignore once it’s noticed.

And then the year ends. Another one. That alone seems to shift something. Looking back highlights how long certain patterns have been in place. Looking forward raises questions that don’t always have comfortable answers. Can this hold another year? Do we want it to?

I’m not in the business of selling optimism, and December doesn’t redeem anything on its own. But it does tend to reveal what’s actually sitting under the surface, and whether there is work that has been avoided or simply deferred. For some couples, that means confronting harm, responsibility, and what hasn’t worked. For others, it clarifies what is no longer sustainable. Either way, December rarely leaves things unchanged.