Traveling While Your Husband Still Works

I have a confession.

When I imagined early retirement, I imagined us. Plural. Two people with nowhere to be, packing bags for places we’d always talked about visiting, finally free to just go.

What I didn’t imagine was sitting across from my husband at dinner while he talked about deadlines and deliverables and I tried to remember what day it was.

He’s still working. Through the end of 2026 at minimum. Maybe part time after that. And I am thrilled for him — he’s good at what he does and he’s not ready to stop. But the timing is complicated. When you retire before your partner, you get the freedom you dreamed about. The person you most wanted to share it with is still on a schedule.

I’ve been figuring out what to do with that.

This summer he had a work trip to Boston. I went with him. He went for the meetings. I went for the city.

It was hot. The kind of hot where you check the weather at 8am and immediately start negotiating with yourself about what you're actually willing to do. I bought a ticket for one of those hop-on hop-off buses and spent the day doing exactly what I wanted, at exactly the pace I wanted. I stopped at Cheers and had a beer by myself at the bar, which felt like either a very sad thing or a very free thing, and I’m still not sure which. By the time I got back to the hotel I was done. Completely done. I showered and sat on the edge of the bed and that was the last thing I remember.

He called when they were heading to dinner. I told him I wasn’t going to make it. I felt bad saying it.

When I woke up later I expected to feel worse about it. Instead I found out it had been a good night — real work conversations, the kind that are easier without a spouse at the table. My absence had made space for something that needed to happen without me.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Not just because it was funny, a retired woman who can sleep whenever she wants, asleep by eight on a Wednesday. But because of what it told me about this season we’re in.

He works. I wander. We meet in the evening and I show him the city through my eyes. And sometimes I fall asleep before dinner and it turns out everyone is fine.

It’s not what I pictured. But I’m learning that the thing I pictured was a little bit selfish — two people identically free, on identical schedules, doing everything together. What we actually have is more interesting than that. And harder. And occasionally, accidentally, better.

I got the dream. He got the Monday morning meeting. I’m still working out how to feel about that.

Is there something about your version of freedom that you haven’t quite let yourself enjoy yet — because someone you love is still on a different timeline?

If this landed somewhere true for you — share it with a woman who needs to read it. And come back next Monday. We’re just getting started. 🌿