On Being a Couple

Bad4Shidduchim had a post up entitled "You Know Your Parents are old When...They go on their own chol hamoed trip." http://badforshidduchim.wordpress.com/ Now granted, bad4 tends to write tongue in cheek rather often but this little gem caught my eye: "I mean, there are stages in life. You get married, and you go on trips like they’re dates. Very cute. Then you have little kids, and you take them places that are fun and educational. Then you have big kids, and they inform you where you’re taking them. Then you have teens, and they’re planning the trips, often leaving you behind. Then your kids are all out of the nest, and you get to sit at home sipping green tea and reading the Jewish Press Chol Hamoed Trip supplement, very happily enjoying not being at any of the places listed. And then when you’re really old you get nostalgic and bored and decide to go on a trip together. Like old times. Very cute."
I'm not sure whether to laugh first or to howl. Amazing just how different the perspective is depending on how old you are and where you are holding in life. "Like old times"? Nope, more like new times and a new stage in life. "Bored and nostalgic"? Hardly. Try finally having some time together as a couple with no one else around. Try having conversations with each other without having lots of other ears that could be listening in. Try two adults who have spent years in a mediated togetherness, never truly being alone, suddenly redescovering why they married each other to begin with. We frum people spend so much time emphasizing that the purpose of marriage is to have children so klal may continue that we've lost track of the fact that child raising and day to day involvement with children on a basic level comes to an end. We are living longer and longer today and there is going to be a time period where marriage is NOT going to be about having and raising children. It's going to be about building the somewhat interrupted relationship of two people, not seven. It's about preparing for the future, not staring bemusedly and wistfully at the past.

My husband and I have been going away together on vacation about twice a year for some time now. When we first went away someone asked me in all seriousness what we had to talk about for a week. Didn't we find ourselves getting bored without others around us? Honestly, boredom never enters the picture. What we did discover on that first trip, and on the others since then, is that we do pretty well as just the two of us. We have time to talk about whatever we want to. We can go and see any place we want to, without anyone voting but the two of us. We have time to figure out where we are going to go from here. What we've both discovered is that we still have dreams of things to do and places to go: life didn't end for us when our kids hit adulthood. And yes, one very important thing we discovered: absent children we function perfectly fine.

Not to say that we still aren't involved with our kids and our extended families--we are. But the years that are coming up for us aren't about raising children any longer, and they very much are about us. Whatever spark drew us together many years ago is still burning bright. Far from being something to joke about kinderlach, those "little excursions" that parents go on by themselves are something to file away for when you get to our position in life.