A frustrated husband posted on Reddit because his wife told him he can’t take a solo trip to Yellowstone without her. The kicker is, she doesn’t want to go.
She has no interest in the National Park, but he does, and instead of just sending him off, she is insisting that a married man shouldn’t be traveling without his wife. Apparently, the rules don’t apply to her, however. She goes on trips with her friends.
A husband said his wife is forbidding him from going on a solo trip to Yellowstone.
The husband explained that he had been wanting to visit Yellowstone National Park for a while and hoped to travel there for about a week this summer. His wife, however, isn’t interested in the park and doesn’t want to go with him. Because of that, he figured it would be fine for him to travel alone.
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But she disagreed. “My wife says that since I’m married, I shouldn’t be traveling alone without her,” he wrote. That doesn’t make much sense to him, especially since the couple doesn’t have kids. “It’s not like she’d be more stressed with me being gone,” he added.
One key point in his argument was that his wife had traveled without him before, being accompanied by her friends. Her counterargument? That her trips were different because she wasn’t alone.
The wife might be struggling with underlying trust issues.
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It’s hard to say whether this wife is afraid of being alone for a week or whether she is harboring some major trust issues. It’s likely the latter, though. If she genuinely felt like being away from her husband for that long would be scary or lonely, she could just go with him and spend a day at the spa while he hiked around the park.
Trust is, as marriage.com put it, “the glue” of any healthy relationship. In fact, a 2023 study found that without a healthy foundation of trust, partners were more likely to lie, be generally unhappy with the relationship, and even display attachment anxiety.
Guess whose behavior fits the definition of attachment anxiety? According to clinical psychologist Arlin Cuncic, this unhealthy attachment style, which is characterized by a chronic fear of abandonment, is usually founded in negative childhood experiences.
Basically, her argument for why he shouldn’t go on this trip really doesn’t make sense. If he were going with a friend, chances are her opinion wouldn’t change. She is trying to cover her insecurity and fear of abandonment with the married people shouldn’t travel alone reasoning.
That doesn’t make it right, but it makes it more palatable. Deep down, she’s scared. Something happened to her when she was young that messed with her attachment style, and the best thing this husband can do, according to Cuncic, is explain to her why her fears are hurting him. He should encourage her to talk to someone professionally as well.
Being married doesn’t mean you have to do everything together. Couples who trust each other and exhibit healthy attachment styles understand that.
Matt Machado is a writer studying journalism at the University of Central Florida. He covers relationships, psychology, celebrities, pop culture, and human interest topics.
