“It’s cheaper than divorce,” I half-joked to my husband, Mark, as we calculated the cost of childcare so we could escape to Puglia for a week without our son.
We took him there last year when he was three. I envisioned days by the sea, with Alexander digging in the sand with his toy shovel or paddling in the shallow water. But he didn’t like the beach. Or the heat. What he enjoyed was racing his toy trains across the stone floor in the cool of our room.
“We might as well have been at home,” I had mused, longing for the shimmering blue of the nearby Adriatic. Back in London we had Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park on our doorstep, plus a nearby square where all the children played. Endless fun for him – and for us.
It wasn’t that Alexander liked the hotel either; a 16th century farmhouse, surrounded by centuries-old olive groves. No, he preferred the plastic swings at our local playground. So we planned a return trip – only this time, we decided, we would come alone.
When I was pregnant, we promised each other that we would not let our eight-year love affair deteriorate. Even in our 40s, we saw friends’ relationships battered by the demands of parenthood. Only we hadn’t taken into account how treacherous the exhaustion and lack of time would be. And having a child who, without exception, woke up at five in the morning and only slept ten hours didn’t help.
We tried weekly date nights, but quickly admitted that it wasn’t worth paying a babysitter just to sit across from each other at a restaurant, yawning and struggling to make conversation. Instead, we had become roommates and caretakers. “Where’s Alexander’s sweater?” Mark asked, without saying good morning, as he hurried to get our son dressed before going to work. “Why are you in my way again?” That’s what I thought as I walked hungrily into our narrow kitchen and he was boiling the stove and making porridge. After Alexander’s bedtime we sought solace in Netflix, not in each other.
In an effort to keep our promise, we decided that what we really needed was to spend a fair amount of time alone. Alexander’s grandparents are too old to care for him, but we are fortunate to have – and can pay for – a wonderful woman who is happy to take him into her home.
“Freedom!” we exclaimed, on a Sunday morning in November 2021 as we left our son for the first time. After spending much of the last twenty months – thanks to lockdowns and isolations – in a one-and-a-half-bed flat, it has been particularly nice. We drove cheerfully through the quiet streets of London towards Kent. We ate lunch at a favorite restaurant, at Canterbury West Station, where on our previous visit, just before our third (and we agreed, final) round of IVF, I was anxious and depressed.
Now we had our beloved son, but it was a relief not to have to rush through our meal before he started screaming, or worry about moving all the glasses on the table to make sure they didn’t get through to his little hands were swept to the ground.
I have to admit, I didn’t miss him during our 48 hours away. I was too busy rediscovering how—despite our grumpiness and exhaustion—my husband and I still liked each other. We did the things we used to do: take long walks, our hands intertwined, without holding the handlebars of a buggy or a child’s; enjoyed an early evening movie; sipped pre-dinner cocktails on a couch by a fire; took an afternoon nap; had sex.
It was the wake-up call we needed and we’ve since found a rhythm that works for us when it comes to holidays: a European-only holiday in early summer, followed by a weekend away in Britain every autumn. In between, we schedule our breaks so that we take our son somewhere he will really enjoy.
“Do you feel guilty for leaving him?” I get asked every now and then – almost always by mothers. Not me. He is cared for by someone he loves, and his parents remember that they really like each other – something that Alexander should certainly benefit from as well.
On our return trip to Puglia, I lay childless by the pool and watched a woman hug her young daughter. I longed for my son; that was until a few hours later when I saw the same child throwing pasta with tomato sauce over a white tablecloth. It suddenly made me grateful again for my week’s reprieve.
But our stays alone are not just for spending time with each other, we allow ourselves to indulge in the things we want to do for ourselves. During that week in Italy, I spent mornings on the beach, reading and swimming, while Mark took photos in local towns. We met again for lunch and had things to talk about: the enormous Egyptian-inspired cemetery he chanced upon, or my novel, about a married mother who fled her life in the suburbs to sleep with her young lover in London. sit down.
“I hope we never break up,” I remember saying, thinking it wasn’t inconceivable that the burden of parenthood could erode our relationship over time. But luckily our journeys always close the cracks between us; at least, for a while.
A few weeks after returning from Puglia, with memories still clear, we took Alexander to York, where every day we patiently trudged through the cavernous shed of the National Rail Museum, looking at every locomotive and carriage.
But by autumn the memories had faded. Just before our October vacation, we had a breakdown, fueled by deeper-than-normal exhaustion, thanks to our son’s new habit of climbing into our bed at 2 a.m., spreading his limbs, and repeatedly kicking us awake.
Our battle was the same as always: who did more childcare. I dared to go out three nights that week, while he dared to go to the hairdresser on Saturday afternoon, leaving me at a party full of sugar-crazed kids. “Maybe we should start keeping time records,” I snapped.
When we left for our weekend in Bath and said goodbye to Alexander, I wondered if I wanted to go away with him. But just a few hours later we were strolling hand in hand across the dimly lit Pulteney Bridge. After descending the steps on the south side, we kissed by the banks of the Avon. “Next time we’re sick of each other,” Mark said, “at least we’ll know there’s a cure.”