This was hard! Our relationship has been difficult for a while, but I still care deeply. And today I had to hurt her, and be honest. Lots of tears...and I feel selfish - but this is something I'm gonna do - and I hope she joins me at parts. But we'll see. She loves being on the bike...we'll see.

Deflated, questioning, sad, and strangely relieved, cause this day had to happen......

sigh.....

I am leaving to go RTW in a year, if things are open enough. That was the news I broke today.

Been there. Now you have to settle the issue, is she more important to you than your bike and trip?

The bike is an imamate object with passing attachment. The trip is a spiritual venture first and foremost. I'm going. She has to decide if she wants to be part of it, or move on. We are still talking.....that's good.

I'm not a young man. The trip is partly a reaction to being a caregiver for over 11 years, and continuing.....dementia really sucks, and watching someone you love more than your own life slowly fade away steals a part of you.

I need to be away - for an extended time - to never see these streets laden with ghosts and layers of memories. This is my last adventure.....really it is. And I'm going.....

...are YOU important to HER is the critical corollary. If she values you, and your soul, then she'll support you.
Best of luck!

__________________
Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------
Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Thank you. I really needed to hear this....time will tell. .

There are quite a few ways of looking at this. For one, don't be so certain this is your "last adventure," or even more so your last chance for adventure. For another thing, best you try not to think in polarities: she decides whether to be a part of it or if not, to move on. She can support you with or without joining you, and YOU can support HER while still taking the trip of a lifetime. You can wait for each other--this is commonly done--in various ways.

I could go on and on...but I'm trying not to do that so much. FWIW, the last time I was in that position--before I started riding but with a backpack and a year off--my g.f. decided at the last moment to join me, which worked out perfectly fine. Throwing down the gauntlet or thinking either of you know what's really going on a year or more in advance seems to me a bit premature.

Hope it works out, in whatever undreamed-of form!

Mark

Just what i was thinking Grant, the old saying goes "if you love someone set them free, if they return they are yours, if they don`t they never was" or something along them lines i forget now, but its so true.

She should just say "have a safe trip, you know where i live" end of conversation.

Mezo.

I agree with Markharf - don’t be black and white, all or nothing. If we take any thing from Covid it’s learning to be flexible.

I went travelling in my early 20s, I had a girlfriend I really loved and to be honest I thought we’d get married etc....
But..... I had to do the travelling thing. I asked her to go with me but it’s just not her thing so she said no. She also decided that we should have a clean break, I think she wanted me to feel free - I had thought at one stage that I might emigrate to Australia.

Anyway when I came home I still wanted to travel and she still didn’t - even though we loved each other we didn’t rekindle our relationship. In the end we both made the right choice.

I would just go but communicate to her that she can get involved at any time, then, enjoy the trip and just see what happens.

PS I can see you’ve had a hard time lately but, personally, I don’t think it’s good to travel in order to escape. I believe it’s better to leave in a happy state of mind. Difficult, no doubt but just my thoughts.

Well, you've told her something is more important to you then her. Good luck with your trip, if it's not too long then maybe she'll wait for you. If it's an extended trip, well, you've made your choice.

Happy is a transient, impermanent state that fluctuates day by day, moment by moment. I do not seek happiness in my travels, nor in my life. I seek a deeper state of awareness where happiness and unhappiness are the same. Just passing emotions that are both the essence of life, and nothing at all.

I'm not traveling to escape, or run away. And yes, life has been challenging, and also being a caregiver has been the most important and wonderful thing I have ever done with my life.

This trip is about a lot of things. One is attachment. To let go of everything I know. To explore MY life through the eyes of others. To see a world when there's one to see, and I'm not too old. And to do the two things that I've done why whole life as a living - Music, Motorcycles. Its about challenging myself to think, see and react differently - to break patterns. To learn a language, get out of the comfort zone, and feel truly fully completely present to the moment.

Ya, you don't need to travel the world to do all the above - but it sure puts you in a good place. I have ridden a lot, in India, all over North America. Its time to go.

Thank you for the post....

Nice one, have a great trip

It's taken me 41 years to learn this simple rule.

Don't commit your life or heart to someone who you are not really compatible with long term.

If you think you're going to spend a life travelling the world, don't get involved with anyone who doesn't share that same dream.

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Said the proud father of the baby teds

We will ask you again in 20 years, how happy you are in your life Do you not think you could be feel good with?

Therefore I`m (47y) just now very very in love and are thinking about kids with my love (35y) and skipping further travelling - what do you suggest?

Think with 110`000 Travelkilometers and over one year living in my car - sometimes it could be enough? Or does travelling really outperform everything else in our life?

To settle down, is a own adventure - indipendend if the kids will come or not.

I feel the travelbug is there very small - but still there. But there is too the love of my live, and I`m shure I would not be happy to be on tour without her.. And I`m shure, If i really love to go, she will join - just to make me happy. Same as I would..

Surfy

__________________
About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

My fiancée also loves travel. But travel with a baby and no job is not my idea of fun at all.

I'm 40 and my fiancée is 37. We both have no children.

We planned to have a couple of more years of selfish free years and travel together and then think about a family. 2020-2021 was meant to be the years of these travels but say no more about that.

I don't agree with people who have a baby and then leave the family behind for months whilst they do a selfish trip. For many reasons. And I'm sure the mother would certainly be unimpressed too. In these days, no woman would stand for that. It's not the world we live in anymore. Not in the West anyway.

If we have a family in the next couple of years then I will still travel. But I think that it will be 2-4 weeks. You can do a lot of that time. The times of my 6 month plus trips are behind me already. They are far too expensive and as I get older, they are far too disruptive to my business and career. (I'm self employed).

Any travel alone when you have a partner is a negotiation.

My partner works for the NHS. She gets 3 weeks holidays a year. Like most people. I am self employed. I work like a bitch all summer and then take two months off in the winter and try to escape. This is obviously causing a few rifts.

We are yet to find the compromise. I maybe divorced before I am married

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Oh dear, all this stuff is so much more difficult than the usual what overhead underhanger should I use.

People come to travel for all sorts of reasons, both positive and negative. A few years ago I met someone on a bike trip while we were both sheltering from a rain storm under a bridge somewhere in Nevada or California. His story was that he'd been married for thirty years and worked the same job all that time to support his wife and family. The kids had grown up and left home and one day a few months earlier his wife had suddenly said she was now unhappy and was leaving as she needed 'to find herself'. A few weeks later she still hadn't returned so he decided he'd 'find himself' as well. He sold the house, bought a bike (he'd never ridden before so picked some sort of cruiser) and headed south. He'd been on the road for a few weeks when I met him and he was heading down to Mexico. He seemed happy enough - on the surface anyway - but whether the trip was actually proving cathartic or just papering over the cracks only he would know.

Quite where travel sits in the pecking order of desires obviously varies from person to person. I'd guess for many here it's rates quite highly but for others it's not something they're bothered about at all. I've heard it said (or read it anyway) that we're only entitled to one great passion in our lifetime, be it another person or an activity or a sport or even an idea, but once the flame is extinguished it can never be relit. It's never the same second time around. If that's the case and you're throwing everything up in the air to follow your passion it would make sense not only to be sure it really is what you want but what you're going to get from it is what you really want to achieve. To get that wrong, to throw away what is really important, is the first step down a road of regrets.

For those of us having to juggle travel with other responsibilities it seems to me it's easiest to get away when you either have nothing or you have everything. The bit in the middle where, to paraphrase Disney, it's more like "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go" are the difficult times.