Had our first fight in years on day 9 in a konbini parking lot, is my planning ruining our trips?
Ok I need to vent and also genuinely ask because I can't tell if I'm being dramatic.
We just got back from 16 days traveling around Japan (Tokyo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Naoshima, Osaka) and my partner and I had our first real fight in years on day 9. Over an itinerary. In a parking lot. At like 10pm eating convenience store sandwiches.
Backstory: I am a planner. Spreadsheets, backup restaurants if the first is full, walking routes optimized so we don't cross the same street twice. She wanted to "leave room to wander." I said sure, of course, wandering is great. And I meant it.
But then in practice, her version of wandering meant every morning we'd sit in the hotel until 11 debating what to do while I watched our lunch plans disappear and felt my eye twitch.
By Kyoto, I had already missed a few reservations I'd spent a lot of time trying to get. One was a special dinner I had been looking forward to for months. She felt like I was treating the trip like a checklist. I felt like I was the only one doing any work and then being made to feel bad for caring. Both were probably true.
The fight itself was honestly stupid. She said, "You don't even enjoy things, you just complete them." I said something back that I won't repeat here. We sat there in silence. A very kind older man walked by with his dog and the dog just sat next to me for a full minute. I almost cried because apparently that was my breaking point.
The weird thing is, the second half of the trip was the best part. We basically made a compromise where mornings were hers (slow, no plan, walking around) and afternoons/evenings were mine (reserved places, planned activities). And it worked.
We were actually kinder to each other after that. Some of the unplanned moments ended up being my favorite parts of the whole trip.
Now that I'm home, I'm questioning the way I travel. Like, my sister takes trips where she barely plans anything and somehow enjoys herself more than I do. She just shows up and experiences things, and she's not constantly checking maps, schedules, and reservations.
Am I confusing planning with caring? Is all this preparation actually just my way of controlling anxiety and then calling it being a thoughtful partner?
I don't know. I loved Japan. I love my partner. I just think I might be someone who accidentally makes vacations harder than they need to be.
Has anyone else had a trip fight like this? Did it change how you travel together afterward, or was it just a one-time thing? And honestly, is the "leave room to wander" person right, and I'm just refusing to admit it?