Where Are We Going? Planners and tagalongs

Someone posted on social media recently: Marriage is when one person handles the flights, the passports, the bags, the hotel bookings, and the other one asks, “Where are we going again?” I hate to admit it, but I am the tagalong. 

Oh, I can pack myself and everyone else in the house day by day, outfit by outfit, and nobody will miss a thing. Nor will they have a pile of superfluous things springing out of their bags. An efficiently packed suitcase is an art, I say.

Just don’t ask me to make the reservations. 

I always wanted to be the whiz mom who plans fabulous vacations on which everyone laughs for days and learns about history and sees sights they will remember forever. Instead, I’m the one who – for two years in a row – made the airline reservations for summer camp landing in the wrong city. I’m also the one who has dragged my entire family to many a “local-favorite, authentic” restaurant, which really is code for “not good enough for anyone to travel to.” 

So I am thankful every day for a husband who handles the flights, the hotels, the restaurants, all of it. He knows what he wants, and he makes it happen. I don’t even care if the bottom line is that he doesn’t trust me to handle the plans. I have other strengths.

A good friend – she and her husband are what we call “empty-nesters gone wild,” meaning they’re having a great time in this chapter – claims her husband will literally get on the airplane, turn to her, and say Tell me again where we are going. 

“I don’t mind it at all,” she says, “because I like things the way I like them. He knows generally where we’re going, but he doesn’t know about our hotel, or the room, or what we’re going to do. He just isn’t as detailed as I am. He doesn’t like the research that goes into it like I do.

“Really it’s about passion,” she says. “I have a passion for travel. I love the research, I love learning about the place, the vibe of the city, where the locals hang out. I envision myself there, so when I get there, I’m ready to dive in. Unless you hire a travel agent, it really helps when one of the couple has the passion.”

This friend also is a self-proclaimed hotel snob. “[My husband] knows his room is going to be just fine, so he doesn’t have to worry about it. He knows if we get there and it isn’t just what I had booked, I am going to make it right. Once we walked into a room in Rome – I was offroading a little bit because I was using some little guide I found. We walked into the room, and I was like Nope. Someone else might have said the room was spacious, but I found it cold. I called the front desk, they said let us show you some other rooms, and we wound up with a fabulous room to stay in. He might have looked at the room and said, Oh, I guess you’re right, but he doesn’t really care. I’ll fight tooth and nail for what I want.”

Then there’s the bad side of that story. Another friend, now divorced, was the constant planner in her relationship. “I’d plan all these great things we could do, and at the eleventh hour, he would be like Why aren’t we doing this? It made me feel unappreciated and always resentful.

“It’s kind of like when you try to be the best parent in the world, and you buy a giant bunch of balloons for your kids, and then they’re like Why didn’t I get a red one? It’s the perfect storm, like a clash of personalities.

“But my sister will plan a trip for everyone, and if you like it, great. If you don’t like it, she doesn’t care. She just doesn’t take on the energy of it. I guess if somebody’s disappointment is going to bother you, you shouldn’t be the planner.”

Now that this friend is no longer married, she says she’s completely given in to someone else’s planning. “I’m going on a trip with people whose kids went to school with mine,” she says. “They’re planning everything, down to being on the same flight. I told them I don’t care about any of it. They can have all the responsibility.”

Same. Just tell me where to show up.