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I think things get a bit harder once you have too much free time on your hands (like retired folks do) and live with a partner. I've been travelling for several

I think things get a bit harder once you have too much free time on your hands (like retired folks do) and live with a partner. I've been travelling for several months with my girlfriend now (after we quit our jobs), and it is not as easy as when the daily routine of work and other duties is in place. Not saying that it's not good, it is, but it sometimes creates weird tensions that I didn't think about before. Some serious travellers that I've met on the road had similar stories to tell, about themselves or their friends. The root of the problem, I think, is that when you have a job you only really spend 20-50% of your awake time with a partner. When you don't it gets to a 90-100% range, and it is harder. No single person can fill 100% of your time.

murph-almighty 7y ago
I had a similar experience recently with my family- that is my dad, mom, grandfather and siblings. Doing _everything_ together is a socially exhausting experience. The way I coped with it was to find some bits of spare time to go do my own thing. For me this was something mundane- I wanted to find a popular ruin bar in the area, but in the process I found a backpack I really liked and later purchased. This might be a more complicated situation given it's your girlfriend but taking a bit of time to solo it helped me a lot.
gumby 7y ago
This is well attested over the years with stay at home wives unhappy with the disruption of their routine when the husband retires (especially culturally prominent in the salaryman class of Japan). Hou can also buy a yacht cheaply in Fiji because of the number of people who think it would be great to Sal together and, after a few months, realize it would be better to stay together than to live on a boat. My wife and I married after traveling together and I think in retrospect that was smart/lucky....at least it worked for over 20 years.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  > My wife and I married after traveling together I think everyone should spend a week (min) or two traveling with their prospective partner before committing to a lifetime together. You learn so much about people when you remove them from their daily routine.
  - citizenkeen 7y ago
    When my now-wife and I had been together for about six months, and she was thinking about moving with me across the country to start law school, my FIL said "Congratulations. To celebrate, I'm buying you a long trip to Disney World." It seemed very kind, until years later when he and I were talking, and he said that if she was going to follow me to school, he wanted to make sure she could stand me for an entire week at a theme park. That was ten years ago. Things are going well. I agree with you completely.
- nefitty 7y ago
  At the end of No Country for Old Men, the sheriff retires and is speaking with his wife who works on the ranch and at home. He says something like, "What should I do right now?" "Well, I can't plan your day for you." "Maybe I'll help around the house." "Better not. How'd you sleep?" "Had dreams." "Well, you got time for 'em now."
- MisterBastahrd 7y ago
  I had a period of time where I had to stay with my folks because of a period of not quite making enough money following Hurricane Katrina, so because of the shift work, I got a first hand view of my mom's routine as a housewife. Basically, she'd mop, do some laundry, and start cooking about 4pm. Her overall labor took about 1 - 2.5 hours a day, maybe a bit more if she needed to go grocery shopping. Essentially, not much more than any single person would do anyway, with a bit maybe shifted toward the weekends. So then my dad retired, and he expected to behave like a retiree. He helps out: mopping, washing clothes, even cooking occasionally. She's constantly trying to find him extra stuff to do outdoors. Why? Because she enjoyed the domestic side of the domestic life of a housewife: spending hours watching tv and / or gossiping with her friends in the comfort of her home. For 30 years, she had a routine, and was essentially married to the routine as much as the man.
  - mooreds 7y ago
    To be fair, things were probably a bit different when she had kids at home.
    - MisterBastahrd 7y ago
      Well, sure during the summer. But then the fall would happen and she would have the place to herself again. The neighborhood was full of single-paycheck households and the women were almost all the same age with similarly aged kids, so the families basically all bonded through the mothers first, then the kids, and finally the fathers. The women largely learned how to get along, the kids all did, and the fathers did to a degree but they had the largest separation in personality and past times, probably because they had the least free time / most money and wanted to make it count.
saiya-jin 7y ago
Yeah its called 'submarine disease', usually visible after +-1 month of continuous travel / any other way spending 100% time together. People become more irritated by small things that usually wouldn't be an issue. It happens much more often than doesn't, not only in couples but also among friends. The cure is simple - spend at least few days apart. Not so easy in more dangerous countries. Rather plan ahead with this in mind. On the other hand, it brings people much more together - backpacking 6 months in india brought us together more than many married couples after 10 years.
- mordechai9000 7y ago
  I've worked in a remote location with a small group of people. I found that small annoyances and minor personality traits both become greatly amplified. In this situation, we didn't have the benefit of a shared mission or sense of purpose. It was just a job, and a more or less random group. The one thing we had in common was that we were all in a place in life where we were willing to take a job in the middle of nowhere for months at a time. Some people were there for an adventure, some for money, and some to get away from their problems. It turns out, their problems followed them.
  - brownbat 7y ago
    > Some people were there for an adventure, some for money, and some to get away from their problems. It turns out, their problems followed them. This sounds like a great tagline for a novel.

murph-almighty 7y ago

I had a similar experience recently with my family- that is my dad, mom, grandfather and siblings. Doing _everything_ together is a socially exhausting experience. The way I coped with it was to find some bits of spare time to go do my own thing. For me this was something mundane- I wanted to find a popular ruin bar in the area, but in the process I found a backpack I really liked and later purchased. This might be a more complicated situation given it's your girlfriend but taking a bit of time to solo it helped me a lot.

gumby 7y ago

This is well attested over the years with stay at home wives unhappy with the disruption of their routine when the husband retires (especially culturally prominent in the salaryman class of Japan). Hou can also buy a yacht cheaply in Fiji because of the number of people who think it would be great to Sal together and, after a few months, realize it would be better to stay together than to live on a boat. My wife and I married after traveling together and I think in retrospect that was smart/lucky....at least it worked for over 20 years.

stronglikedan 7y ago
> My wife and I married after traveling together I think everyone should spend a week (min) or two traveling with their prospective partner before committing to a lifetime together. You learn so much about people when you remove them from their daily routine.
- citizenkeen 7y ago
  When my now-wife and I had been together for about six months, and she was thinking about moving with me across the country to start law school, my FIL said "Congratulations. To celebrate, I'm buying you a long trip to Disney World." It seemed very kind, until years later when he and I were talking, and he said that if she was going to follow me to school, he wanted to make sure she could stand me for an entire week at a theme park. That was ten years ago. Things are going well. I agree with you completely.
nefitty 7y ago
At the end of No Country for Old Men, the sheriff retires and is speaking with his wife who works on the ranch and at home. He says something like, "What should I do right now?" "Well, I can't plan your day for you." "Maybe I'll help around the house." "Better not. How'd you sleep?" "Had dreams." "Well, you got time for 'em now."
MisterBastahrd 7y ago
I had a period of time where I had to stay with my folks because of a period of not quite making enough money following Hurricane Katrina, so because of the shift work, I got a first hand view of my mom's routine as a housewife. Basically, she'd mop, do some laundry, and start cooking about 4pm. Her overall labor took about 1 - 2.5 hours a day, maybe a bit more if she needed to go grocery shopping. Essentially, not much more than any single person would do anyway, with a bit maybe shifted toward the weekends. So then my dad retired, and he expected to behave like a retiree. He helps out: mopping, washing clothes, even cooking occasionally. She's constantly trying to find him extra stuff to do outdoors. Why? Because she enjoyed the domestic side of the domestic life of a housewife: spending hours watching tv and / or gossiping with her friends in the comfort of her home. For 30 years, she had a routine, and was essentially married to the routine as much as the man.
- mooreds 7y ago
  To be fair, things were probably a bit different when she had kids at home.
  - MisterBastahrd 7y ago
    Well, sure during the summer. But then the fall would happen and she would have the place to herself again. The neighborhood was full of single-paycheck households and the women were almost all the same age with similarly aged kids, so the families basically all bonded through the mothers first, then the kids, and finally the fathers. The women largely learned how to get along, the kids all did, and the fathers did to a degree but they had the largest separation in personality and past times, probably because they had the least free time / most money and wanted to make it count.

saiya-jin 7y ago

Yeah its called 'submarine disease', usually visible after +-1 month of continuous travel / any other way spending 100% time together. People become more irritated by small things that usually wouldn't be an issue. It happens much more often than doesn't, not only in couples but also among friends. The cure is simple - spend at least few days apart. Not so easy in more dangerous countries. Rather plan ahead with this in mind. On the other hand, it brings people much more together - backpacking 6 months in india brought us together more than many married couples after 10 years.

mordechai9000 7y ago
I've worked in a remote location with a small group of people. I found that small annoyances and minor personality traits both become greatly amplified. In this situation, we didn't have the benefit of a shared mission or sense of purpose. It was just a job, and a more or less random group. The one thing we had in common was that we were all in a place in life where we were willing to take a job in the middle of nowhere for months at a time. Some people were there for an adventure, some for money, and some to get away from their problems. It turns out, their problems followed them.
- brownbat 7y ago
  > Some people were there for an adventure, some for money, and some to get away from their problems. It turns out, their problems followed them. This sounds like a great tagline for a novel.