Journal & Blog

Travel Puts A New Lens On Your Relationship

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November 13, 2017

Before embarking on our journey together I read a lot about relationships and travel. Naturally, Christian and I worried about how travel would impact our relationship.

“Researching” online answers to those questions can be daunting, especially when you are faced with a multitude of possibilities and titles like “Travel Is the Ultimate Relationship Test“, “10 Ways Traveling Together Early In Your Relationship Puts It To The Test” and “Travel as a Couple to See if You Really Love Your Partner.”

In fact, Mark Twain said it best when he said:

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

We are by no means “new”. We recently marked over five years together with half of that married; and for two out of our five years together we were cohabiting.

But living together while holding down jobs and graduate school is one thing versus 24/7 together for four months with the joys and stresses of travel.

We also live in New York which means that we spend our every day lives rushing back and forth to work, school, board meetings, gatherings and parties. There have been times when days have gone by before I realized Christian and I haven’t as much as looked each other deeply in the eyes and sat down for a proper meal together to focus on us.

With such a rush it’s easy to ignore relationship problems and it’s easy to forget to celebrate relationship successes. Even the simple intimacy of stopping and looking your partner in the eyes to smile and remember why they are beautiful to you gets missed in the day to day rumble of life.

This long vacation would be the first time in a long time we would just be with each other and we knew, as much as we looked forward to it, that we were also taking a risk.

We are very independent people who enjoy our time together as much as our time apart. We also have different interests, different sleep needs, different things we wanted out of the trip, different tolerance levels for safety, different tolerance levels for grime, even different tolerance levels for weather. Again, opposites attract.

And while we are fiercely independent people, one of us is still more needy than the other for attention. That combined with 3 months of uninterrupted 24/7 time together and guaranteed travel stress had the potential to put a strain on our relationship; even in the midst of all that worldly beauty.

So we took action. We spent a lot of time leading up to our travels talking with each other about our fears, our expectations, and how we would gently tell each other when we needed time alone.

We developed code words for when one of us was feeling unsafe or uncomfortable in public, we agreed to do separate activities if needed, and we agreed to be realistic about alone time and be honest with each other and respect our needs and limits.

For example, I would not push Christian beyond his comfort level when it came to activities I wanted to do. He would pay attention to himself and be honest about when he needed to be alone.

And frankly, as we approach the end of our time together before Christian goes back to work and I continue on a my solo trip – we could not be more happy to be together.

It’s like this long period of time together is just what we needed to remember why we love each other – and even beyond that- to see each other as beautiful again.

That’s not to say we did not have our ups and downs.

Within the first two weeks of our travel I had already taken a tour by myself while Christian slept in. Within a month we had had at least one major fight. Within two months we had read a few good books (meaning we had spent a lot of time in silence).

We dealt with each transgression (mostly) as adults (I am the dramatic one). We stayed away from degrading words. We took breaks when needed but always made sure to come back to each other and resolve issues. If something bothered us – we discussed it in painstaking detail if needed.

We knew an unresolved issue would boil over quickly and with the fact that we would still be with each other 24/7, it was necessary to resolve what needed resolving.

Those actions lead to a few revelations. One, we stopped hold grudges for too long. It wasn’t worth it to be angry when here we were traveling the world together.

We also respected each other’s space and limits within reason. When one of us was getting to “that point” where alone time was essential for a personal WW2 not to break out – we would simply pick up a book and start reading. That would give clue to the other to accept that private time was needed and they would go about tending to their own world. When we finally got internet again in some countries and we started ignoring each other for news from home; we put our phones down and made an effort to be present.

We became more patient with each other and shared greater empathy with each other. Our travels challenged a lot of what we thought were the norms of society and in the end that helped us see each other through fresh eyes – slightly less biased to our own definitions of how things should be.

We got use to not being in control and through not being in control, in some ways, we let go of our controlling definitions of the way things are. We didn’t take social norms for granted anymore. That allowed us to be free in the world and free with each other.

That also allowed us to appreciate the other for who they are.

That appreciation lead to a deeper lover.

In our third month together it was like seeing the same person with new lens. Gone were those silly grudges and ideas, they were replaced by love, passion, appreciation, and a happiness to know that we were living out our dreams together. It was us in the world and that made our bond stronger.

As the day approaches where we will separated for the next month; I feel like travel has truly shown us that we are actually really good together.

Rumi once said: