RVing is good for marriages??

[honda03842]

Today we went to lunch with 5 RV couples, all married over 50 years. I once emceed a 50th wedding anniversery of a pair of RVers, most of the attendees were RVers.

I had discovered that only 5% make it to their 50th. I mentioned that as emcee. Of the group more than 10% were married longer than 50 years.

I wonder if people who like each others make succesful RVers or if RVing leads to long marriages because of reduced stress.

Not that our marriage needed strengthening but I think it's stronger after 12 years on the road.

Safe and loving travels to all.

[Cathy P.]

I'm thinking that if someone has a bad marriage to start out with that moving into an RV or even extended travel would definitely "make it or break it". Rving is not a cure for a bad relationship, well, unless you consider the death of it a cure.

[honda03842]

Cathy, I agree that people who have a bad relationship may never take up RVing. However, though I believe most people have a hard time changing, I do believe it's an opportunity to change, actually an opportunity to change in a less stressed environment than most continually face.

No working stress, no family stress, less home stress, ..... a chance to go back to when it was just two people looking to take on life together.

Of course I'm the perpetual romantic believing we can choose to make life good. Safe travels.

[Byron Kinnaman]

In my life experiences a good marriage is a good marriage, RVing works because the marriage is good and both enjoy much of the same life style. A bad marriage is a bad marriage. Things don't work because one person wants to go this and the other wants to go that way. There's lots of bad marriages that will remain bad marriages because they're both too stubborn to fix things.
Rving couples that both seem to enjoy Rving is an indicator that the negative things have been worked out. I believe it more so for couples RVing in a small trailer.
Long marriages are NOT necessarily a sign of a good marriage. We were camped next to a couple this winter that had been married for a number of years and fought from the time they woke up until they went to bed almost every day. No day went by with a fight. Across from us were a couple that had also been married for quite a few years and they seemed to be doing just fine. Both couples full timing.
I consider my self very lucky. After a failed marriage, I found a lady or maybe she found me, that I consider my very best friend. We've been together for just over 30 years and manage to be together 24/7. Living in our 13' Scamp is a real joy and tons of fun. We manage to give each other enough space so that nobody feels smothered, and still enjoy doing lots of stuff together. We even share many of the same hobbies.

[honda03842]

And Byron and Anne are really good with the hobby side. Paintings all over the walls of their house, great wood carvings abound, and the best Scamp cabinet doors I've seen or could even imagine...solid maple, with a mountain scene on them done by these happy artists.

[Otters]

We've found that the key to us maintaining a good mariage while RVing is for the hub to do his backing in to campsites without input from me. We laugh about it though! For some reason he doesn't take kindly to my back seat driving either. Calls me his nagagator (lol). Otherwise, love our time together. So much togetherness and we love it.

[Hazel in Sk]

It seems to me that it is true that a good marriage is good and vice versa. It involves give and take. Otters has summed that up nicely, I think. We each have different skills and learn to appreciate those of our partner (and to shut up a bit, when necessary). For us that means I organise the packing for all the 'domestic' items - he is responsible for the items relating to repairs, propane etc. We share the cooking and dishwashing. He would be happy to have everything chucked in somewhere - I tidy up!

[Jim Bennett]

For us, there is definitely more calm surrounding our relationship when camping, whether it be on a canoe trip, or in our trailer. I think it has a lot to do with withdrawing ourselves away from all the factors that cause stress in the first place, the things we leave behind us.