I’ve been married to the same guy for 42 years. We’ve known each other for 44. He’s a Type-A personality. I’m Type-Z. And thus, in order to stay married, we must compromise on many things. It’s the only way to go.
He’s easy-going in a lot of ways and loves to travel. Let me be clear about this. LOVES, loves, loves it. If he could travel two weeks out of every month his life would be perfect. Of course, he is a working musician, so gigs have to be accounted for. I am a working writer, so words have to be accounted for. The reality is, we can only travel around ten to twelve days every other month. Let me add right up front, we don’t have kids and try to live slightly beneath our means, not counting the cats. They get whatever they want.
The one thing my guy seems to love as much as travel is planning a trip. As long as he does it in his office with the door closed and doesn’t hassle me with anything except what directly impacts moi, I’m good with it. He tried going on a vacation by himself once and it didn’t work. He spent the majority of the time on the phone telling me what he did or was going to do, such as staying in the room and reading a book. I spent the majority of my time being lonely.
But what, you may ask, has this grade-B movie scenario got to do with writing? Plenty. I don’t have to tell anyone reading this post that writing a novel takes a lot of time and concentration. Taking off and going somewhere so often is an interruption that doesn’t work. At least, not for me. But staying home longer than two or three days without my guy doesn’t work, either. So, off I go. However, no matter where we travel, my mornings are dedicated to writing, unless I’m doing research for a new book. He spends his mornings exploring, loving life, and walking his feet off.
His favorite mode of transportation is a cruise ship. And no, he doesn’t walk on water. But he does walk around the Promenade deck many, many times. We’ve done thirty-four cruises, and counting. Three more are lined up (as stated, he loves to plan). The longer the cruise ship stays at sea, the happier I am. This is because I order room service, put up the do not disturb sign, look out at the passing ocean, and write my head off. He zips in and out, going to or coming from somewhere, while I get one or two chapters a day done. He sometimes brings his portable piano or guitar along and practices while I write. But the evenings are always “ours.”
If this sounds like an easy-breezy sort of life, it wasn’t stress-free to arrive at. I would say it took us a good five to ten years to find a compromise that gave us mutual happiness and rewards. Possibly, we are slow learners. But pretty lucky ones.
We’re older now and soon enough travel will be limited, at best. But we have loads of scrapbooks, some handheld, some online. And memories. Oh, yes! Then, of course, I have my novels, mostly written somewhere other than my home office.
Ladies of Mystery 
Heather, what a wonderful compromise and life! I would love to be that type of vagabond, traveling and writing, but my husband can’t stand to be away from home more than a week and then it takes him two months to recover. LOL I dragged him to Hawaii for ten days on our 35th anniversary and you would have thought I’d taken him to the moon. He worried about everything at home, talked every day to his friends, and begrudgingly went on hikes and sightseeing with me. He did to pretty well last winter when we did a two week trip to Texas to take our granddaughter’s belongings to her, visited his sister and our grandson in the Air Force, then some friends on Arizona. And even though he said we could do that again in the winter he hasn’t mentioned a trip at all this year. But that’s okay. He let’s me go to the Oregon Coast for a week twice a year as a writing retreat and soaking up the ocean’s energy.
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Patry, wouldn’t it be lovely to have someone who wanted to travel 3 times a year? That would be my choice. But that stated, I am blessed and realize that. Also, he’s a great guy, which really is all in all.
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Susan, I hope someday you and I get to meet each other in person. One of the best things about doing these posts is you meet some wonderful people along the way.
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This sounds like a trip for the future. Yes, I feel fortunate to be here.
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And by the way, I think your husband was an upright for going to India for you, especially when he didn’t want to be there. But that’s what we do, right? Compromise and do what we can for the person we love. I think my Egypt was your India, although I wasn’t there for a year! How exciting.
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That’s upright GUY!
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Heather, I am stunned! I can’t imagine your life but it sure sounds like fun. Could you clone your husband? I know several women who’d like one like him. When I got my grant to live in India and conduct research, I was over the moon, but my husband was somewhere crawling under a sand dune. Travel to India (where?) was not for him. I said okay, you stay, I’ll go. I went, he followed after a few weeks. When he finally got to our flat, he looked around and settled in, fixing holes in the walls (Huh? Where’d those come from), declaring war on ants and palis (little lizards that hung on the walls), and trying to recover his sense of direction. Best year of my life, the strangest year of his. I cannot imagine him taking off every other month for destination unknown. You live a wild and carefree life, but what about the cats? Aren’t they angry with you for leaving so often?
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Susan, I have close friend whose husband was exactly like mine. I write ‘was’ because he was a healthy man with no signs of anything who dropped to the floor recently and was gone. Life lesson there: we never know. When he was alive, they wound up doing what we do, making a deal, mostly sticking to it, and packing up to go somewhere more than she’d like and less than he would. She also has pets. My cats have made a deal, too. They get treated well by their ‘tanta’ and have the house to themselves when we travel. There are two of them, siblings, and they are devoted to one another. So, it seems to work out. A year ago we were in Egypt, my only bucket list destination. We went because I’d whined one day I’d always wanted to go to Egypt since a kid. He listened, picked up the phone, and made it happen. It was the trip of a lifetime. Magical. And I would have never done it on my own.
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I’m impressed your cats have adapted, and you have too–writing anywhere and everywhere. But the trip to Egypt–we all have one, the forgotten trip we longed to take. That’s probably the topic for my next post. Yes, my husband was a stand-up guy.
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