Work trips or the respite from being without a partner for a couple of days are back: unrecognized pleasure?

George Clooney, star of ‘Up in the Air’ (2009).Uppers.

Few people do would admit in public, although in the private sphere it is common for it to be recognized without ambiguity. We refer to the business tripsthat parenthesis from the family routine and the life of a couple that is included in the Business tourisman activity that in Spain attracted more than five million travelers in 2019, according to data from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

In 2020, the numbers were reduced to just over one million, but vaccines have caused the sector to begin to recover. The professional travel is back and unacknowledged pleasure, too. Both for those who travel and for those who stay at home. “It is difficult for us to recognize that traveling, being away from home for a few days, is a pleasure because It seems like we are a bad couple. if we don’t want to be living together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These trips are a super nice parenthesis. In fact, many people in consultation have told me that I wanted them to come back business trips,” he says. Lara Ferreiropsychologist, sexologist and couples therapist.

There are many reasons that make this type of trip a recommendable experience: “they are a respitesomething completely desirable because they comply different objectives: You can miss your partner and you also have private, individual time for yourself. You don’t have to be either relationship pending and conflicts decrease,” explains the therapist. “Some even they recover the erotic part because they think that by being away, their partner may meet other people. They have an aphrodisiac effect,” adds this expert.

Business trips can be harmful in emotionally dependent or pathologically jealous people. “In these cases many fears can be triggered. But, in the end, if it is a mature and trust each other, this brief separation is good because it helps to miss each other, but also to recover spaces. They are a incentive for life together”, assures Ferreiro. This, at least, has happened in two of the three cases that we have found.

“For the first time, happy to sleep alone” (Lola, 56 years old)

The pandemic has changed the uses and customs of Lolaa 56 year old literature teacherand Pablo, journalist and the same age as his wife. Although work trips are not part of this couple’s usual routine, the times that Pablo had to be away had always been the incentive which the psychologist Lara Ferreiro talks about. “Pablo’s trips have always been short. And they always seemed long to me. I was looking forward to your return. We have been married for more than 25 years and living together is difficult. That’s why it always surprised me that I missed him so much when he was gone. Until now”.

The ‘now’ that Lola refers to is a lightning trip from Pablo just a week ago. “For the first time, I was wishing it would go away. I knew it would be two days of not having to negotiate anything or give explanations… Of being alone in bed… And for the first time in all these years, I have been happy sleeping alone,” explains this teacher who, however, He doesn’t want anything to change in his life.: “I have been very comfortable for a few days without a husband, but daily life, with my son, with dependent parents… it gets along better between two. And, furthermore, I can’t imagine life without him.”

“I discovered that alone with my two daughters I lived much better” (Joana, 50 years old)

In Joana’s case, work trips they changed lives before the pandemic. Joana is an event organizer. She was born in Valencia, but has spent her entire professional life in Madrid. The sentimental one, too. She married Nacho 20 years ago and they have two daughters. A marketing expert, a few years ago she decided to make her work compatible with the organization of events and meetings aimed at personal development. She was a pioneer of networking and social entrepreneurship. And something clicked. “Meeting other people who wanted to change and improve, also I started to consider some thingsalthough, the truth is, I don’t know if I had already started to change before or if meeting other people made me question my life,” he says.

With her husband, Joana had achieved that cruising speed at which everything flows. But a trip to China changed everything. “Pablo works in a logistics company and a couple of years ago he had to spend almost a month near Beijing. Before he left, I was horrified. I couldn’t go, my daughters couldn’t leave school for a month in the middle of the school year either. She thought that the day to day routine was going to be able to with mebut…”.

What Joana discovered surprised her greatly. “I realised that alone with my daughters I lived much better. Calm, happy, happy to organize our time. When she came back, I told her the truth: that I preferred to be alonethat if I had been so comfortable without him, without missing anythingit just didn’t make sense for us to stay together,” he says.

They separated and it seems that the decision has been good for both. Joana has left what was her main job and is now dedicated to connect people so that they join projects or are happier. And the? “Nacho is phenomenal. With the girls he is better than before. I see him happier. Even she has lost weight and exercises. Now he is cannon! “She assures her amused, but without hints of nostalgia.

“Being just me in a hotel room” (Marcos, 53 years old)

With the pandemic, frames, lawyer at a major banking entity, he had stopped traveling. In fact, his professional routine was completely altered: changed the office for the living room and work meals for the homemade menu that he, his wife and his mother-in-law, who was caught by the pandemic at her daughter’s house, agreed, bought and prepared every week.

For the first time, accustomed to spending many hours away from home, he was aware of what it costs to balance work and home life. “I thought I always had collaborated with the housework, but during confinement I realized how much work it takes. There is no rest. My woman and I we arrived exhausted at the end of the day,” he explains. More or less than before the pandemic? “My job at the bank is also exhausting, but it is a different kind of tiredness. You didn’t have to change the chip so much. And, also, from time to time I had a trip that served to decompress a little,” he says.

Marcos is one of the few people who admit that traveling, for him, has always been a balm. “It was my time. Even if I had some complicated meeting, the time of the trip, disappear from the radar for a couple of days, become independent againbeing just myself in a hotel room… It always seemed like a privilege to me and now I have returned to it with enthusiasm.” Marcos made his first trip of this strange normality just a week ago. And he enjoyed it. “Yes, and I’m looking forward to returning home, I don’t want to be misunderstood. But “Those 48 hours on my own give me life”.