I Told My Husband To Travel Alone, but I’m Feeling More Than a Little Jealous

He’s in Berlin all month, and I’m at home parenting our kid.

Darcy Reeder
4 min readOct 20, 2022
a variety of colorful, wheat-pasted street art in Berlin
Berlin street art. Photo taken by my husband.

It’s been two-and-a-half weeks. Two-and-a-half weeks since I’ve touched my husband. He’s in Berlin all month, and I’m… well, I’m at home, parenting our kid.

I’m getting up at 6:50 am every school day to make breakfast yet again; crafting silly faces with cucumber eyes, peanut butter spoon noses, and bagel mouths that say, “Oh!”

While he gets the most incredible meals in Berlin, starting each day with espresso and a vegan pastry at a café, I’m looking at his trip photos and feeling happy for him, but also feeling… jealous.

The thing is, I’m the one who suggested he take this trip. We’ve been lucky enough to travel many times as a family, and we’ve seen and done incredible things together. But each time, he’s expressed to me how much he misses the traveling he did in his 20s: free, untethered, no one to compromise with, every day unknown and totally up to him and to chance. No naptimes or bedtimes, just… freedom. So I told him, pick somewhere I don’t care about and just go. Alone.

So he did.

Good for him.

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Darcy Reeder

Empathy for the win! Published in Gen, Human Parts, Heated, Tenderly —Feminism, Sexuality, Veganism, Anti-Racism, Parenting. She/They