Frequently asked question: "What about your husband...is he going with you?"
The short answer is no - mainly because he doesn't want to (he has never wanted to travel to South America, much less spend any significant amount of time there), and partly because this is my dream, and a learning experience I want to create for myself.
People are generally excited for me that I'm doing this, but we've both heard mixed reactions from our family and friends when they learn that I am doing this without him. ("But...you're married." "It will be nice to have a break from your marriage." "It's healthy for people in relationships to do things on their own." "Are you going to open up your marriage so you can have an affair?" "What are you going to do with your husband while you're gone?" "People do this. It's okay.") I've gotten half-reactions and non-reactions, too, which may or may not have anything to do with thoughts about our not doing this together. My relationships with family and friends mean a great deal to me, and I really value the endorsements, the resistance, and the reactions in between. I don't live my life in a vacuum, and I love that our people are looking out for me, for him, and for our relationship.
Before I gave a green light to this adventure, Dan and I talked about how/if this would work for our lifestyle (can we afford this?), how/if this would work for our relationship (can we be apart for a few months? what happens to the relationship when one person experiences something totally different?), and how/if this would work for us as individuals (our life goals). In short, my going to Chile for four months works for us. Dan will say that it's unreasonable for our passions to always be in alignment. I will say that I'm a bit uncomfortable that this adventure is rather Kat-centered, but is a LOT cheaper than my doing something like grad school. And the only way we're going to find out that this new-ish type of thing does (or doesn't) work for us is to do it.
It is a bit of a paradigm shift for me, though. It is true that our individual interests haven't always lined up, and we've always embraced that in our relationship. And yet - how we each spend our time on our individual pursuits has never looked anything at all like spending four months on different continents. (This adventure isn't simply a bike ride to Saint Paul, after all!). Nobody in our circles (our siblings, our parents, our friends) do the "big things" without their partner, if they are partnered, so there isn't exactly a model for us to follow. Yes, other couples do things like this, but since we don't know them I've had a little bit of a "one of these things is not like the other" thing going on. In terms of our relationship, we say that four months will either a) fly by, and we will wonder what the fuss was about,
or b) what? Fill in the blank __________.
Before I gave a green light to this adventure, Dan and I talked about how/if this would work for our lifestyle (can we afford this?), how/if this would work for our relationship (can we be apart for a few months? what happens to the relationship when one person experiences something totally different?), and how/if this would work for us as individuals (our life goals). In short, my going to Chile for four months works for us. Dan will say that it's unreasonable for our passions to always be in alignment. I will say that I'm a bit uncomfortable that this adventure is rather Kat-centered, but is a LOT cheaper than my doing something like grad school. And the only way we're going to find out that this new-ish type of thing does (or doesn't) work for us is to do it.
It is a bit of a paradigm shift for me, though. It is true that our individual interests haven't always lined up, and we've always embraced that in our relationship. And yet - how we each spend our time on our individual pursuits has never looked anything at all like spending four months on different continents. (This adventure isn't simply a bike ride to Saint Paul, after all!). Nobody in our circles (our siblings, our parents, our friends) do the "big things" without their partner, if they are partnered, so there isn't exactly a model for us to follow. Yes, other couples do things like this, but since we don't know them I've had a little bit of a "one of these things is not like the other" thing going on. In terms of our relationship, we say that four months will either a) fly by, and we will wonder what the fuss was about,
or b) what? Fill in the blank __________.
*Also, I'm not going solo. My friend Alicia and I are going together! How that came together is another story, and one that both of us are a little fuzzy on the details about.
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