How-to: Vacationing Without Your Spouse

My mother once told me that you could always tell when there was problems in a marriage when the couple took separate vacations. I, however, have found the opposite to be true in my 20 plus year marriage.

Ingredients:

1.  A spouse who loves cities where there are cool museums, art galleries, neat old buldings, cool shops and pretty scenery in general.

2.  A spouse who would rather be golfing.

3.  A spouse who has a close friend or friends who loves museums, art galleries, cool shops, old churches and buildings and pretty scenery in general.

4.  A spouse who has a close friend or friends who would rather be golfing.

5.  A spouse who loves to shop in stores unique to certain cities, not necessarily to buy stuff, but just to experience it with her friend or friends who are of the same mind.

6.  Two partners who love, trust and respect each other.

Steps:

1.  Wife says, "I want to go to Paris" and husband says, "Cool" and so wife says, "So you wanna go too?"  Husband says, "Not really no."

2.  Wife then explains that she'd be happy to go with her friend who she's gone to New York City with before and they know they travel well together, which is not always true of friends.

3.  Husband then arranges his work schedule so that he is able to take care of the kid's stuff so that his wife can go worry-free.

4.  Wife is ecstatic because she knows her husband would be bored stiff going through all the shops and museums and art galleries in the painstaking detail that she would want to explore them.  She would then feel pressured to hurry and would not enjoy herself quite as much.

5.  Husband is happy because he gets time with just the kids AND, when the opportunity arises, and it will, he will be going golfing with his friend or friends, a trip that would not excite his wife.

6.  And finally,after all this fun, ther must still be vacation time for both family vacations with the kids and get-aways for just the parents.