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JackieMom
Guest
My husband has promised me that I can go to a luxurious resort all by myself for a week when our last child is three : ) I can’t wait! The idea of that break, even though it is years away, keeps me going!
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maryjk
Guest
Again, it depends on what you call vacation.
How I define it, we only have take one or two, each.
Now, I used to travel 2 to 3 times a year to stay with my parents. It wasn’t really vacation. I went there to help them catch up on deep cleaning, lawn care and the like. We did have some fun, but most of it was simply spending time with them or working.
And my husband has traveled for work. Neither of us consider those vacations.
This past year, I went away for a long weekend with a friend. We spent time in a “big city.” We spent the time going to restaurants, museums and swimming. It was a typical “girls weekend.”
And my husband, a couple of months later, took our son away for a week. They went hiking and biking and doing guy things.
Yes, we both had a great time on vacation. But, truly, we have a much better time together.
How I define it, we only have take one or two, each.
Now, I used to travel 2 to 3 times a year to stay with my parents. It wasn’t really vacation. I went there to help them catch up on deep cleaning, lawn care and the like. We did have some fun, but most of it was simply spending time with them or working.
And my husband has traveled for work. Neither of us consider those vacations.
This past year, I went away for a long weekend with a friend. We spent time in a “big city.” We spent the time going to restaurants, museums and swimming. It was a typical “girls weekend.”
And my husband, a couple of months later, took our son away for a week. They went hiking and biking and doing guy things.
Yes, we both had a great time on vacation. But, truly, we have a much better time together.
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Cat
Guest
Sorry for my lack of clarity.
My husband and I have always been interested in the sport of figure skating. I grew up with parents who roller skated; they built a real roller skating rink in our basement, and some of my earliest memories are sitting on the basement steps with my baby brother and watching my parents and their friends roller skate around to music from a record player. Lots of fun.
My parents were interested in ice skating, too, and some of my other earliest memories are of watching television broadcasts of ice skating with them and listening to their conversation about the competitions.
One of the most famous and beloved Olympic figure skaters came from our city, so I grew up reading about her on an almost weekly basis. I went to school with her sister.
As for my husband, his father did a lot of ice fishing when he was a younger man, and my husband would go along, and while his daddy sat in the little tent and fished, he would put on a pair of skates and join all the other children who were ice skating on the lake! He never took any formal lessons growing up, but he enjoyed skating.
When we were dating, we watched skating, and after we were married, we were glued to the set during the 1980 Olympics (Lake Placid–Tai and Randy–so sad).
We continued to keep up with the sport, and when we had our daughters in 1983 and 1986, after watching the 1988 Olympics (Battle of the Brians), my husband decided that he wanted to be the first 40-year old Olympian in figure skating. Our city (down South at that point) had just opened a new ice skating rink (there were only 8 rinks in the entire state at that time!), and so he signed up for lessons. He decided to bring our older daughter and her best friend along, and they signed up for lessons, too. They were both five at the time.
Eventually our young daughter, at age 3, got bored watching all the other kids, and so the coaches agreed to allow her to sign up for Tots lessons. She spent a lot of the lesson sitting on the ice and playing, and hugging the coaches, but after four sessions of Tots I, she finally passed the little test and moved on to Tots 2!
My husband continued with classes for several years, but eventually, the girls’ skating became the main priority (and expense), and so he stopped taking lessons so that we could have more money and time to be involved with their skating.
He occasionally joined the girls doing a family competition number. When my youngest daughter was 16, she volunteered to coach the local adult synchronized skating team (no coach was interesting in helping them). Of course, she persuaded her daddy to join the team. She coached them for two years, and got them to the point where they were able to win a Sectional medal. She’s never stopped coaching synchro, and this weekend, is hoping that her teams will earn spots at Nationals at their sectional competition.
After the girls left, my husband kept up the synchro, but he got interested in ice dancing when several of the other adults on the team started learning the skills and taking the tests. He decided that he enjoyed skating with one other partner rather than 15. So he switched from synchro to ice dance. Of course, it’s easy for a male ice dancer to find a female partner, and he was matched up with his partner through other ice dancers and coaches.
I think the reason this works for both of us is that we are both utter, total, wild-eyed fanatics about this sport. You do whatever you have to do, without sinning, of course, to participate in the sport. Since his dance partner doesn’t live in the same city we live in, they commute.
Commuting has been part of this sport for decades.
Do you all remember hearing Tara Lipinski’s story about how her mom and dad moved apart so that Tara could skate at an elite training facility? There are hundreds of stories of skaters whose families made these kinds of sacrifices for the sake of skating. The Sieboldt’s sold their home and moved the family into a TRAILER. The brother and sister slept on sofas in the “living room” of the trailer. They did this so that they could afford to skate at the elite level.
My daughters commuted into the nearby Big City (69 mile trip one way) three times a week for years to be part of an elite synchronized skating team.
Yes, most skaters will say, “It was worth it.” To this day, our older daughter, who will turn 30 this year, says that she can’t live without ice skating. She’s working on Gold ice dance tests now–she’s been working on her ice dancing tests for 12 years, passing them one test at a time with whatever male coach or dancer she can find who will test with her. Very hard work, but worth it to us and her.
You just do what you have to do. It’s all part of the sport–the long drives to and from competitions, the hanging out at the rinks, the endless hours of practice, the pain–yes, it’s a painful sport, especially for adults in their 50s. A lot of ice dancing involves the knees, and these are not flexible or strong for my husband and many other adults.
I agree with those who say that it’s not always good for a husband and wife to skate together. It works for some, but for others, it doesn’t work.
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dixieagle
Guest
We’ve been married 38 years and have never taken a vacation apart, or wanted to. My husband has an occasional meeting out of state, and a conference now and then. I occasionally go to visit my 92 year old Dad 1500 miles away. However, if it’s at all feasible to travel together, we will.
When our girls were young, we always took them with us. The two of us simply enjoy being together, and it’s even better if our daughters and their husbands and babies are with us.
When our girls were young, we always took them with us. The two of us simply enjoy being together, and it’s even better if our daughters and their husbands and babies are with us.
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chevalier
Guest
People need their solitude sometimes, and some people need more of it, some less. It’s like the proverbial desert, where you withdraw to collect your thoughts (but it can be a forest or even a bustling city just as well, especially for traveller types). It’s probably different when people need to take a vacation specifically from each other actually, but that could still be “normal” with strong personalities that are somewhat challenging to live with or require a lot of attention, so needing rest is somewhat normal (e.g. loud people, chatterboxes, social team players who get you involved in everything they do etc., in which case I guess sooner or later one would need a bit of a vacation to stay sane). Which is to say that needing to be alone for a while is different from needing to be specifically out of the spouse’s company, although even that could have a non-problematic cause sometimes.
If I were married, I’d probably not be worried by the hypothetic Mrs needing some solitude or needing some rest from my constant company, but I’d be a little bit worried if she seemed to need a vacation from being married, more worried if the vacation needed to involve some partying without me, and really worried (read: belligerent) if it needed to involve spending time with other men in flirtacious ways or some kind of “innocent” prolonged intimate one-on-one scenarios in which I sensed trouble (some people can treat a childhood friend of the opposite sex like a sibling, some just fail to see that they are being lured to somebody attractive, as innocent as it may seem initially).
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chevalier
Guest
Well, those types of other-than-marriage significant partnerships with people of the opposite sex can be rather hard on some people; not only dancers’ significant others but those of people who have a business partnership or share patrol duty with especially an attractive member of the opposite sex, then there are also the “best friends” who happen to be 1) of the opposite sex but 2) not the spouse himself/herself. I don’t even think it’s as simple as either being secure or not, although surely security has everything to do with it. I’m not sure I would be emotionally capable of being a dancer’s husband myself (while I’m empirically sure I’m incapable of being a decent dancing partner for a professional). As in, the way I grew up, it wouldn’t really be a stopping event if your girl went dancing with a mutual friend or even her own friend. In fact, you just might ask a friend to go with her if you couldn’t yourself. Kind of a chivalrous trust in others and refusal to be petty about things. But the emotional bonds and the relative importance of a more permanent partnership with constant exposure to romantic sceneries could be problematic (training a martial art could involve an equal measure of physical contact and adrenaline but at least it isn’t really romantic). Specific sounds are proven to have effect on human mood and can affect behaviour (incidentally, the aphrodising ones are the ones typically found in dancing music), not like the fact of losing oneself in someone else’s embrace is neutral to one’s emotions (maybe not oxytocins but endorphins probably do their job). I’m honestly troubled by the language some amateurs use, less so with professionals who seem to be more sports-minded about it but still. I’m really not a big fan of listening to Catholic girls talking about how they love the eroticism of the dancing floor, for example, and losing themselves in that. Defcon 2 red flag for me and you can imagine if I were married there would be some rather dry conversations (I’d separate if I heard about the eroticism of the dance floor ever again in a context involving some other guy).
Also, all of us have probably seen some significant partnerships and other companionships with someone-else-than-the-significant-other go wrong despite the initial assurances that it would never happen and that everything was under control (“platonic soulmates” and such stuff). This is much easier when you’re hearing it from a confident, trustworthy person with a strong backbone and a somewhat clear view of his or her emotions and intentions. Much harder to accept when according to your read, that person is already insecure about whatever he or she is saying and especially when you can read a thrill of adventure, excitement, or actually notice signs of sexual attraction (which are very easy to spot), especially in someone with a tendency to be somewhat immature and ignorant about such things, which is not an infrequent trait in people.
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aloe
Guest
Found that interesting as well.
Visiting family I guess could be a vacation, provided they are going on a cruise or traveling to a resort, spa, theme park, etc. or going to connect. Although I would be curious why you wouldn’t go as a family to visit family - not in the bad/time critical situations but the situations where you plan it out and go for fun. Work commitments or something else?
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Valerie_Welch
Guest
I’m having a really hard time right now, and have for the past few years. When our children were younger we were always together and really didn’t take many vacations. I few years ago, we met a new couple and I and the woman are now best friends, as well, our husbands have become best friend too. They are big time travelers and we have now started going on vacation with them, it’s been wonderful most trips. Now, her husband who owns his own business is wanting to go on weekend trips with my husband, he’s bored. They just got back from biking in Moab, Utah for 3 days. They will go on they weekend trips a few times a year. My husband uses vacation days and then I don’t so I end up have to take a vacation day and stay home alone or lose it. I get very emotion and upset that he’s going without me. I feel lonely and sad especially after a couple days go by. I’m I co-dependent and crazy? I’m going to counseling to find out and get on some meds possibly. I’m a christian woman and my husband is not which is another struggle and also plays on my feelings. Advice please?? 
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Xantippe
Guest
Hey!I’m having a really hard time right now, and have for the past few years. When our children were younger we were always together and really didn’t take many vacations. I few years ago, we met a new couple and I and the woman are now best friends, as well, our husbands have become best friend too. They are big time travelers and we have now started going on vacation with them, it’s been wonderful most trips. Now, her husband who owns his own business is wanting to go on weekend trips with my husband, he’s bored. They just got back from biking in Moab, Utah for 3 days. They will go on they weekend trips a few times a year. My husband uses vacation days and then I don’t so I end up have to take a vacation day and stay home alone or lose it. I get very emotion and upset that he’s going without me. I feel lonely and sad especially after a couple days go by. I’m I co-dependent and crazy? I’m going to counseling to find out and get on some meds possibly. I’m a christian woman and my husband is not which is another struggle and also plays on my feelings. Advice please??
Why not start a new thread? The one you’ve just posted on is from 2013.
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