When your spouse doesn't support your solo travel goals...
TL;DR - My husband doesn't like the idea of me taking a week-long solo trip. Any other married/coupled folks dealing with this?
I had a different post prepared to ask about my plan for Paris this fall, but unfortunately that may have to come later.
I've been loving this subreddit in the month or so I've been subscribed, though many if not the majority of the solo travelers seem to be single and slightly closer to college age, whereas I'm 30 and married (no kids). That being said I have never taken a non-work trip by myself before and it's something I REALLY want to do. I think it would be fun and challenging, especially because I wouldn't have my husband to rely on for language. I want to push myself. I don't know if solo traveling would or could become a regular thing for me, but it's become a bucket list addition of something to do at least once.
I told my husband for the first time last night that I was considering a week long trip to France, and it was clear he doesn't want me to do it. He said it would be one thing if I went with a friend, but he feels weird about me going on a trip alone without him. We'd each had a drink or two so we moved on to another topic but I want to approach this again with him tonight to dig a little into why he doesn't like the idea of me going on a trip by myself.
I am lucky to have a job with a decent amount of vacation. He has a couple weeks less than I do and is less free to do big trips. My hunch is that his biggest issue is jealousy - he wishes he could do this trip too, and it's less that he doesn't want me to have this experience on my own.
At the end of the day, I want to talk this out with him and make sure he gets to a better place about me doing a solo trip, but at the same time I don't think he really has a leg to stand on saying he doesn't want me to do it. If he's jealous, I'm sorry to hear that but my going on a trip without him does not affect my ability to take trips WITH him (we already went to Iceland this year, and are going to Spain in August). If he's worried for my safety, I can make assurances that I will take every precaution, etc. If he's concerned about me spending too much money… well, he's already aware that I pay more of our rent, bills, groceries, and travel expenses, not to mention putting plenty into savings, and I can afford to do a trip with the money remaining after all that.
If the destination is the issue, he's been to France before and I have not. We had a different conversation a couple months ago about future potential travel with others (as in me and a friend, or him and his dad, etc) and the agreement was that for the most part, if one of us wanted to do a trip with someone else to a place the other hadn't been before, we'd discuss it with each other first since there are several destinations we really want to do together. But if the destination was somewhere the other had been, it would be a non-issue. This would fall into the latter category.
For anyone who has dealt with a spouse that isn't on board with your solo travel goals, how have you handled the conversation?
Submitted May 01, 2019 at 01:05PM by wayNoWhey http://bit.ly/2WeXnw1
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