How We Kept Marital Peace while Traveling the World with Our Kids

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By Margaret Bensfield Sullivan

Traveling with your significant other, with or without kids, can be one of the most rewarding ways to spend time as a couple. It can also be a minefield of finger-pointing and squabbling. So many potential pitfalls! “I thought you booked the rental car!” and “How come I’m always the one who”—you get the idea.

A few years ago, my husband, Teddy, and I quit our jobs, pulled our two small kids out of school, gave up our New York City apartment, and left the country to travel around the world for a year, hitting 29 countries across six continents. That’s a lot of togetherness.

We’d always been a compatible couple, but then again that was easy to claim when our life before the big adventure was so transactional and routine: commute, work, bedtime, playground, rinse, repeat. A year of unbroken togetherness was different. It meant figuring out how to see eye to eye on every detail of our 24/7 family co-existence, from how we spent our money to the ways we disciplined our children. Not long after we set out on our adventure, the lessons came hard and fast.

Learning to Let it Go

One morning about six weeks into our travels, we attempted to get our bearings amid the miles of Valparaiso, a Chilean seaside town known for steep, maze-like streets of crumbling colonial-era buildings coated in bright murals and graffiti. We had a loose destination—downhill toward the water’s edge—but first, we needed to figure out the best path. The kids asked their usual questions (Where are we going? How long will it take? Can we have a snack?) and a stray dog ambled over, probably wondering some of the same things. Teddy and I tuned them out as we opened Google Maps. 

This had been our deeply flawed MO: Both of us consulted individual maps, then followed whoever got the navigation sorted first. When Teddy got the route, I’d follow trustingly, enjoying the scenery. When I took the helm, however, Teddy would follow closely behind me, nose still in his own map, wondering aloud if this was really the best way to go. It irritated me. Not because I felt controlled, but because I felt judged. I knew that his “trust but verify” approach came from years of enduring my—I admit—meandering, perhaps not always totally reliable, navigational style. 

That morning, I got the directions on my phone first and started downhill. Teddy, the kids, and the stray dog followed. We hadn’t walked half a block before I heard it: “Are you sure we don’t go left here?” I stopped and took a deep breath. Turning to face him, I zipped my phone into my fanny pack with a flare of my nostrils. 

“Why don’t you do the map thing from now on,” I said, the slightest edge to my voice. He looked up from his map. There was a pause when I thought he might be on the brink of apologizing or even taking the bait to ignite a fight. But instead, he was just checking to see if I was serious. Noting that I was, he took the lead down the street, dog at his heels. 

Annoying? Mildly. But more than anything, I was grateful we could solve a source of friction: Two people handling navigation was one too many. I had no interest in being the cliche couple bickering over a map in a foreign city. Teddy relished studying where we were and getting oriented—so why not just let him do that job?

Assign Jobs

This was part of the learning curve that would save us. We were quickly developing a system in which we each had distinct roles and responsibilities. Keeping the marital peace meant embracing “jobs” like Chief Navigator, or, as we eventually came to call Teddy, Map Guy.

We applied the lesson to our homeschooling routine, dividing and conquering so that Teddy was responsible for teaching our pre-schooler and I our first-grader. We split packing duties along those same lines, Teddy in charge of my son’s suitcase and I for my daughter’s. This meant packing, unpacking, and being responsible for any lost items or clothing in need of replacement for our respective charges. 

Soon, Teddy would become Minister of Finance, a job which included withdrawing local currency and tipping. And, given my track record for misplacing things, he became the guy who carried our important documents. By the time we landed in South Africa, he added Left-Side-of-the-Road-Driver Guy to his CV, a role he fulfilled across Australia and New Zealand, too.

As the amateur photographer and former communications professional, I took over all things “content.” I was responsible for recording our trip, the photo-taking and archiving, all social media posts, and any kind of historical documentation. Whenever I wanted Teddy to take a few pictures, I delegated with specific instructions. He took pride in referring to himself as the Content Intern.

Dividing is Conquering

We’ve been home from our adventure for a few years now, and like so many lessons from our travels, our jobs system has stuck. Teddy is responsible for all things Car. I manage the firehose of School Emails. Teddy owns HVAC Maintenance. Groceries are all me. 

Just as it did on our travels, this allocation of responsibility pays big marital dividends. Not only does it translate to a partnership that hums, it saves us a lot of pain. Logistics rarely fall through the cracks, and almost never do we feel resentment. We’ve never succumbed to the age-old “how-come-I-end-up-doing-all-the-work?” bickering. We divide to conquer, and there’s almost no crossing into someone else’s turf — why would there be when we have an equal share of unglamorous assignments? We’re just grateful someone else is dealing with all that. 

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