When I met my husband, he owned an established backcountry ski and hospitality business. He loved the outdoors and exploration; they were woven into his day-to-day life.
I, on the other hand, was just beginning to reinvent my career, shifting from lawyering to freelance writing and consulting. During our first five years together, I often set aside my own ambitions to help his business. In doing so, I always reasoned that his business was profitable while my career was still in the startup stage and not yet earning much money.
Shifting our collective energy toward my career was one of many factors we considered when he decided to retire four years ago. At the time, he was 56, and I was 41. In explaining his decision to sell the business, he said, “It’s your turn now.”
I thought it would be that easy, that we would quickly slide into the next phase — him having more time for fun, me having more time for work. It wasn’t that simple.
My husband wanted me to join his adventures
One year into his retirement, we stood on a stretch of white sand in the distant reaches of the Caribbean. We were a few weeks into a two-month stay in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been and, we were hours into one of the worst arguments we’d ever had. Rehashing the same misunderstanding we’d had for months, the conversation had deteriorated to absolutes.
“I just wish my wife wanted to spend time with me!” he said while I retorted with something about how I wished my husband wanted me to have a career.
This particular clash had begun when I decided to work instead go kitesurfing, but we’d had similar disagreements over skiing, hiking, and sailing on other trips we’d taken and in our lives at home.
Because I could work from anywhere, I’ve been able to join my husband wherever he wanted to be in the newfound freedom of retirement, which is how we ended up on that white sand beach, not understanding each other’s motives. My husband saw those two months as vacation, I saw them as regular life, and this led him to resent me for working too much on vacation, while I resented him because I wasn’t working enough.
Learning to say no was hard but necessary
This marital tension was something I’d been totally unprepared for. I’d thought once money was out of the equation — unlike helping with his business, going kite surfing didn’t earn any money — it would be easy for both of us to prioritize my pursuits. But that didn’t happen on its own.
Eventually, our ongoing challenges made me realize that my drive to start a new career hinged on self-discipline. I had been waiting for something outside myself, namely my husband, to give me permission to prioritize my career in a way that made sense to me. Of course, he wanted me to be fulfilled as much as I did, but only I could know what that looked like for me.
With this realization, something else came into focus. Looking back, I saw that my husband had never asked me to help with the business as much as I did, and now, in his retirement, I was falling into the same patterns again. Once I recognized my role, it became easier to set boundaries and say no.
At first, I skewed a little too far toward my career, skipping out on sailing in the Sea of Cortez, kitesurfing in Turks and Caicos, and monthlong visits to the Italian Alps. This left us spending months apart, which was something neither of us wanted.
But that boundary-setting, even if a bit overzealous, nudged us to find a better balance and recognize that constant travel wasn’t something we wanted to do, especially apart. After much trial and error, we decided to move part-time to Northern Italy, where he can explore, and I can sometimes join, while also finding my own rhythm.
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