How one couple navigates travails of traveling together

I’m remembering a single moment – a rather inglorious moment – at the Castle Harbour Hotel in Bermuda when I realized that, at least symbolically, the honeymoon was over.

My new husband and I were preparing to go to dinner in the hotel dining room, and I was late.

I’m always late. Always have been.

No matter how desperately I try to be punctual, something always gets in the way.

And on this July evening, five decades ago, my bridegroom was starving.

“Are you ready yet?” I remember his snapping at me. I wept. I was, after all, a wife of less than 72 hours.

From that day to this one, not much has changed in that department.

I’m still prone to unfashionably late departures.

He’s still irritable when he’s hungry.

Only now we know to bring snacks with us wherever we go – and that includes trips to foreign countries.

It may be the dirty little secret of vacationing couples – at least it seems that way, since nobody talks about it. Vacations breed arguments. And vacation fights can be nasty.

Two people who haven’t spent intense, uninterrupted time together in a while are suddenly locked into constant togetherness. And you know what they say about familiarity.

I don’t think my true love and I have ever been on a vacation of more than five days when something hasn’t set the sparks flying.

For years, patterns would just repeat themselves. Endlessly, it seemed.

He’d want to be at airports long before I thought it sane and sensible – especially since I was likely to still be searching for a pair of pantyhose without runs while he was pacing by the car – with the engine running.

Ah, what we’ve learned along the way!

Now, we never book morning flights, since morning is my personal Waterloo. And I don’t wear pantyhose when we travel. My husband is conditioned to expand his time horizons to normal levels. It takes 45 minutes, tops, to get to Philadelphia International Airport from our South Jersey home – not two and a half hours. We compromise in the name of tranquility, and split the difference.

Over the years, we’ve managed to pick up what the experts would call “interpersonal accommodations” when it comes to travel. We know, for example, that we do best in places where I can shop and he can abstain. He can rise with the dew. I can sleep till noon. I can sit by a pool all day and do nothing but stare into space.

And he can roam around to find a newspaper.

I’m married to an acknowledged news junkie, and it drives me crazy that no matter where we are, he must spend vacation minutes, and sometimes hours, on his mission to find all the bad news we should be leaving behind.

It’s taken years, but now I no longer start the fury going by commenting about how “some people just don’t know how to relax.” Now, in a show of grace and nobility, I accept that if he needs his newspaper fix in the Caribbean, so be it. But he’s on his own. His newspaper searches are solo flights.

As we’ve traveled the road of life together, occasionally snappishly asking why we ever bothered, we’ve come to understand that there are bound to be bumps.

So what do two people with sometimes opposite needs and natures do to make their traveling duet harmonize?

Here are the Friedman Rules of Happy Travel:

1. Pack lightly. Don’t just say you will.

Realize that one or both of you will have to be schlepping all those bags containing things you don’t need and will never use through airports, hotel entrances, hallways.

The course of true love never did run smoothly when he is demanding to know why you need five suitcases, one overnight bag, two carry-ons, and a makeup case for one week in a place where the mood is presumably native.

2. Spend time apart. I know – I know – it sounds like heresy.

But 24-hour days for a week or two can tarnish the brightest romances.

Take a walk alone.

Sit on a terrace alone.

Shop alone.

But definitely, absolutely take “time out” from all that togetherness, or chances are that you’ll find yourself wondering why you married this person who cracks his knuckles in that way that makes you want to scream, or why I always leave my shoes in the middle of the hotel room floor.

3. Think before you speak. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But I’m a slow learner.

On our marriage travels, for example, it has generally proven counterproductive for me to mention that the Death by Chocolate dessert – the single most decadent and fattening thing on the menu – is probably not a perfect choice for the man who is presumably sticking to a careful diet.

Of course, dieting on vacation is senseless on its face. But chances are that somewhere toward the end of several strained days of sitting across the table from a man who should know better, I – who should also know better – will utter the words that plunge us into World War III.

4. The driver is the captain. Car trips are breeding grounds for hostility. In our pairing, I’m the cowboy and he’s the law-abiding, stick-to-the-speed-limit stickler. We each find the other’s style unbearable.

Time was when I’d inject my thoughts about opportunities to pass the pokiest drivers on the road while he occupied the driver’s seat on our little travel odysseys. Time was when he would apply his imaginary brakes in the passenger seat, groaning audibly and covering his eyes, when I did the honors.

Then we devised a contract that is painstakingly observed, if not legally binding. He/She who drives, decides.

Does it work?

About half the time.

5. Release the control-freak reins – every other time. We’ve stumbled on a creative solution to the “Where should we go?” issue, which used to get so tangled that we didn’t go anywhere: One of us plans every other vacation.

Complicated?

Not really.

My husband is inclined to plan the more extensive and expensive trips. (I’m the saver; he’s the spender.)

I’m prone to domestic destinations where the splurge is on accommodations. I prefer splurging on the delicious indulgence of checking into a Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons hotel, even for one night, especially if it involves a room-service breakfast.

He prefers spending on airfare to faraway places. So thanks to my husband, we’ve “done” London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Israel. We’ve gone in high season and low season, and roughed it, or done it royally.

We’ve also learned that we divvy up the responsibilities. He always carries the passports – I’ll spare you the tale of the time I left them on the hood of a rented car in Israel.

I make the dinner reservations. I’m good at that.

Final thoughts: When you committed to “for better or for worse,” you may have thought that togetherness was automatically bliss. After all, nobody talks much about a couple’s Travel Compatibility Quotient.

Despite the fights about time, food, and how long is too long to be on a plane – despite colliding body clocks and sleep patterns – in our marriage, travel has been a growth industry. We’ve had some astoundingly good times, and we’ve even returned feeling far closer than when we left.

But no matter how far we roam, or how glorious the vacation, we invariably recite this silly little phrase the moment we pull into our driveway from wherever:

“Good to go away . . . better to come home!”

And we mean it.

 

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traveltalk@phillynews.com