Married 38 years. For the sake of discussion, I’m going to stipulate the OP is being honest, that he’s having some sort of midlife restlessness, and he wants to step just a little bit outside his comfort zone, but keep the training wheels on so to speak, by going to a familiar place.
So here’s my Option #2. Pick an American city. Any American city will do, but preferably one that has an attraction known world wide: San Antonio and the Alamo; Buffalo and Niagara Falls; St. Louis and the Arch – it doesn’t matter what the city or the attraction is. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been there before. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been there with your wife, because you can always go back there with her.
Book a two-night, two-day trip. Spend Day One visiting that world-famous attraction and all the related places around it. Start early in the morning, have a busy day, go back to your hotel and get a good night’s sleep.
Day Two - You have 24 hours in city where you’ve already seen the most famous thing there is to see. All the natives speak English. You can get around with just your cell phone apps. You have no agenda and are free to do anything from staying in your hotel and watching cable up to and including cheating on your wife with a hooker, buying bad drugs on the street and dying from your first time trying drugs. What do you do?
Mr.Wrekker vacations alone. Hunting and fishing trips. I’m not going on those trips. Nope. Ain’t happening. It doesn’t matter because I’m a troubling traveler. I’m phobic about almost everything associated with traveling.
I wouldn’t deny him the chance to travel for anything. He worked very hard/many years to provide us a nice life. In his retirement, he deserves to travel, if he wants.
I have zero problems with it.
As far as I know I’m being 100 percent honest. I want this resort because I’m comfy there and no exploring, which would be hugely insulting to my wife.
I know of no place in US I’d like to travel to solo, or if nothing else would be tremendously more fun with a partner. I think going somewhere in US for no particular reason is a dick move.
I want to want to go to my destination, not just throw a dart at a map. My outside interests are very limited. Love to go to Vegas with my boyz, but I have no boyz to go with. I’m looking to get out of my comfort zone a little. When we travel, and we do travel a lot, usually I’m just the pack mule. So yes, this would be a challenge
There are no outside agendas beyond what I tried to explain in my OP. Just want to go somewhere I enjoy and be in charge of my time. I don’t drink to excess. No drugs. Married so long I’m pretty sure I couldn’t chat up a pretty girl even if that was my goal. Which it’s not.
I don’t think anyone here has had a problem with the OP taking a solo vacation, or dealing with his wife’s concern about foreign solo travel. It’s this particular trip and the reasons given for choosing it that seem to be triggering some flags. It may be coming across as “I want to take a trip we’ve previously taken together, and both enjoyed. But the only difference this time is I’m going to leave you at home because of reasons that I can’t articulate very well.” Even removing concerns about cheating from the equation, it just comes off a little odd, in a way that taking a trip to a new place wouldn’t, IMO.
The wife seems perfectly fine with the OP having a solo vacation as long as its in the US. She travels without him all the time with no prob, so presumably she’s not anxious because she can’t bear to be without him. She’s just anxious because he’ll be in a country with a violent reputation, which is perfectly understandable. Based on what diggerwam has shared with us, the wife’s position actually seems pretty dang reasonable.
It seems to me diggerwam has experienced “alone” time before, because he says his wife travels without him frequently. I understand having the house to oneself for a few days isn’t the same thing as laying out on the beach with a fruity drink. But surely it provides the “existing outside of my existing role” experience that diggerwam seems to be hungering for. If it hasn’t satisfied that particular itch, the question is why not? And what makes diggerwam think a solo trip to this particular resort will be the magic key, but a solo trip closer to home won’t?
Because I don’t have any solo trip close to home that interests me. Period. I’d like to go some where I want to go, not just some random city on a dart board.
If I went to some random city, the trip would be infinitly better if I went with my wife. Point is not simply getting away, it’s going somewhere I want to be.
I agree with LHoD in that your idea is baby steps. However, in your own words, going there is what is hugely insulting to your wife. You need to have a talk with her & articulate what you said here - that you don’t want to go somewhere new w/o her. Then you need to listen to her objections & come up with some compromise.
If you’re only going to a resort & hanging around the pool there are literally hundreds of them in the US that can accommodate you; it would be a little bit more outside of your comfort zone, but not much. I inclined to think that she’d be much more okay with that.
If she had brought a similar situation to you, how would you react? If she said “I want to go that Mexican resort that we have fun at, but I want to go by myself.” how would you feel? Perhaps at this moment you’d be okay since you want something similar, but what if was before you had this idea? Let’s say 10 years ago she said she wants some time to vacation by herself. Even if you agreed, what concerns would you have? Would you be worried she was having an affair, was getting tired of you, didn’t like vacationing with you, or something else?
It sounds like the married couples which take separate vacations do so because the purpose of the vacation is only interesting to one spouse. But it seems rare that couples would take separate vacations that would normally be shared. So if they both like going on cruises, it would be odd if they took separate cruises, and even odder if they took the same cruise but at different times.
OK, these are explanations that make sense (although I don’t understand why you can’t find a similar resort in the US). You just want to chill out on the beach and be the master of your own time and energy, without being a pack animal. So that’s how I would explain it to your wife. The desire to “exist outside of your role” is a topic for a deeper conversation.
Fine. Do whatever you want. You asked for opinions, and the responses were pretty consistent.
What factors CAN you change, and which CAN’T you? Your choice of destination? Your wife’s opinions? How you FEEL about your wife’s opinions? Something about the context surrounding this proposed trip? And, of those you CAN change, which are important enough to go to the mat for?
Hell, with most couples I know, there are plenty of ready opportunities to piss each other off/hurt each others’ feelings, that there is no need to go to the lengths you propose…
I prefer to vacation outside the US because I live in the US, surrounded by other USians. I prefer the Caribbean, but I can understand someone wanting the “foreign” allure of Mexico.
I particularly like St Martin because of the “feel” of the island. I like knowing that the money I’m spending on vacation is benefiting a country that needs the help. We vacationed there not long after Hurricane Irma. They were not really ready to receive visitors, but it felt good bringing a cash infusion when it was needed most.
You do realize that “somewhere” is defined as a single resort in Mexico sometime before August 2019. There is no other possible trip to any place on the planet that you are willing to accept as a substitute. There is no alternate activity besides this resort, no possible time except before August 2019.
This is an extremely specific desire. It doesn’t have the innate specificity of wanting to see Las Vegas, or the Pyramids, or the Eiffel Tower, its only uniqueness is that you’ve been there before. It’s also not unique because you want something that is specifically wonderful there, just that you were comfortable there, and expect to be comfortable in a future trip.
You are putting a great deal of importance on an aspect of this proposed vacation that is not normally so highly valued.
I’d also throw out there that your wife doesn’t seem to think that a trip to explore a US city by yourself would be an insulting dick move. She seems to be suggesting just that type of trip for you.
67, married 40 years. Trips by yourself are very good. My wife and I visit our grandson by ourselves, because that doubles the time and because that way we have him to ourselves while visiting.
But it sounds to me like the OP really does need to get out of his comfort zone, and going back to a resort ain’t going to do it. That is unless he is so petrified of travel by himself that this is a necessary baby step, and that doesn’t seem to be the case. A resort in the US hardly counts as exploring. And getting some outside interests is a must, since I doubt he wants to do nothing but stare at the TV when he retires, not to mention being in big trouble if something happens to his wife and he has to make it on his own.
It might be a bit uncomfortable, but it will be worth it. And it won’t get any easier as he gets older.
One of the reasons I prefer cruises ( and the same is probably true of resorts ) to other types of vacations is because cruising involves the least compromise. I can lay on the sundeck while my husband is in the casino , or watch a show while he’s in the bar watching hockey or play trivia while he’s playing bingo. We can spend the whole week together only for meals if we want to.
But I think the OPs problem goes deeper - I think this is his real problem : " My outside interests are very limited. Love to go to Vegas with my boyz, but I have no boyz to go with. " He doesn’t have much in the way of outside interests and doesn’t have the sort of friends he might go on a trip with. Now there’s nothing wrong with that- but I suspect he’s not happy with that state of affairs and that’s what he means by a well-rounded life and existing outside his current roles. And If I’m right , a week or two at a resort in Mexico isn’t going to fix the problem.
Just curious, why did you write this? What would you do in Vegas if you HAD boyz to go with?
I’ve declined several opportunities to visit Vegas w/ different groups of “boyz.” Each excursion involved large portions of golf, gambling, and strip clubs, drinking to excess.
Coming at it from another direction, exactly what is it you intend to do at this particular resort that you couldn’t do in the US? Because I don’t think I’m the only person here who doesn’t get it.
I’ve never encountered anything on a boat that I couldn’t find better on land (absent the mobility.) So I’d prefer a beach near a city and other recreation facilities. That way, if I want to golf and she wants to lie by the pool or go to a museum or spa, we can meet up for dinner. Or heck, we can decide if we want to walk down the beach together - or head in different directions.
IME, most cruises aren’t just about the boat, they’re about what you can do in the ports of call, as well. The features of the cruise ship are things to enjoy during the evenings, and if your particular cruise route has an “at sea” day or two.
