Getting Along With Your Spouse While Traveling

Blair and I are exceptionally companionable. We have a running joke—semi-serious—that we need to work on making friends because right now we spend all our time together and neither of us will have the proper support network in place should something dire happen to the other one of us. In short, we like hanging out together.

This doesn’t change while on vacation. I’m almost at the point where I can’t travel with anyone other than Blair. We’re on the same time schedule, have the same mindset about where to go and what to see, mirror each other in our sleeping and eating habits and are altogether very well suited for spending large chunks of time together.

But everyone has his or her breaking point. Ours is usually around Day 5. After 120 hours of constant contact, the love fest begins to break down. It usually begins with a “look.”

ME: “What?”

BLAIR: “What?”

ME: “Why did you give me that look?”

BLAIR: “What look?”

ME: “That look. The ‘I’m annoyed but not going to say anything about it,’ look.”

BLAIR: “I only gave you the look because of what you said.”

ME: “I only said what I said because of what YOU said about the thing.”

BLAIR: “I only said what I said about the thing because you were giving me a look.”

ME: “What look?”

BLAIR: “Huh?”

Yes, it’s not pretty and it usually goes downhill from there. We’ll spend an afternoon sniping at each other until we realize we’re in a foreign country far from home with only each other and we remember we came on this trip in the first place to spend time together and then he apologizes and it’s fine. =)

Hope you’re all busy appreciating the people in your life!