The 48th thing I’ve learned in 65 years: “Take a vacation with no hotel reservations”
This week it's #s 43-49 out of 65 things I've learned in 65 years. These are mine, peculiar to me, given my DNA and my experiences and my environment. Think about them and see what fits for you.
Long-term relationships
It takes two to tango. In front of you could be the best tango dancer in the world... able to spin and gyrate and strut like no one else... a world champion... but if they don't have a willing partner... they can't tango. They can NOT dance. And there is nothing they can do about it.
More than skill and expertise and effort and love, a good long-term relationship takes two willing parties. Two! Both willing and interested.
Even if you've sucked at relationships in the past... maybe you just didn't have a willing partner. Maybe you just got a hard-to-get-along-with partner. Maybe you can tango but you just haven't found your match.
Or, sorry, you might just suck at relationships.
Compromise is quality number one. At least for long-term relationships. I know, I know, that is the height of unsexiness. But I still think it's true.
What is my version of compromise? Acceptance, appreciation, respect, equality, balance, deference, adjustment, graciousness. And sometimes just keeping your mouth shut when you really want to say something. “Total” honesty is overrated. Finesse is underrated.
A long-term relationship mellows like fine wine. Look forward to pure synchronicity one day. Look forward to true partnership. Look forward to the peace that comes with someone loving you almost as much as you love yourself.
Invest in it. Compromise for it. Think about it. Brainstorm. Stick with it.
It's worth it. It has been for me.
Bond over a great TV series. Don't have as much in common as you'd like? Then find your shows. Maybe Modern Family or Suits or Yellowstone or Friday Night Lights or Grey's Anatomy... shall I go on?
We find enormous joy watching shows together, yelling at the TV when the writing is bad, stopping to rewind when it's good, and crying together when Beth Dutton loses it after her father dies.
The pause button is crucial. As is the rewind button. The room being a little dark... that helps too if the tears come.
Try pickleball. See my essay on the topic. And now that it's been a year since writing it, I believe it even more. Sometimes the dumbest-sounding thing can change everything.
Take a vacation with no hotel reservations. Yes, you heard right. Go to a destination, even a foreign country, with no hotel reservations and wing it. Find a place to stay once you arrive, some quaint spot you never would have found otherwise, some place very few people know about because it has no online presence.
Yes, it's unnerving. Yes, risky. Yes, you may end up sleeping in your car one night. But it will be thrilling when you find that iconic spot that you talk about for the rest of your marriage.
Like that locals-only hotel in Florence, with a small balcony overlooking a quaint Italian courtyard, Italian music filling the air, kids playing soccer, the smell of pasta in our breath, a bottle of red on the dresser that we snuck out of the classic, red-checkered pizza joint downstairs, sleeping in a single and a rollaway bed that barely fits. Yes, that room and that night—after a fourteen-hour flight and two hours of driving—is one of the best vacation nights of our 42 years of marriage.
Or … doing something like this might lead to divorce....
Ha! Just make sure you talk about this idea beforehand, play it out in your mind, think of worst-case scenarios like sleeping in your car, and give your spouse plenty of time to mull it over, feeling absolutely no pressure from you.
Learn your partner's love language and adjust accordingly. This is marriage 101. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google it right now and learn. Then adjust accordingly.