December 30, 2024 • 16 mins
What if a simple travel suggestion could save your marriage? After facing the heartache of losing two children, my wife Melanie and I found ourselves at a breaking point. It was travel that became our unexpected lifeline. Join me as I open up about how our journeys allowed us to confront old wounds, shift my mindset, and embrace a newfound commitment to our family. By sharing how travel transformed my marriage, I hope to inspire listeners to consider the profound impact that venturing into the world together can have on their own relationships.
Throughout this episode, I'll reveal how travel can act as a cost-effective alternative to traditional therapy, offering couples a chance to reconnect without the heavy emotional and financial burdens of separation. We'll explore the idea that traveling can foster unity and personal growth, serving as a catalyst for healing and transformation. As you listen, reflect on your relationships and consider the potential of travel to strengthen your family's bonds. Melanie and I invite you to discover the power of shared experiences and the unexpected paths to unity they can reveal.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You are listening to.
Travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I will provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost.
So let's get into it.
We, as humans, are meant to betogether.
We are pack animals in a way.
Be together.
We're pack animals in a way.
(00:49):
We're not really meant to beapart.
We're not meant to really to bein a place where we're isolated
or alone.
It's important for us to reallysee that being together in a
family is exactly what bringsreally lasting happiness.
This is one of the lessons thatmy parents taught me by the
(01:16):
actions that they took bydivorcing each other, by putting
us in a place where we had nofather in the home, by putting
(01:36):
us in a place where we had nofather in the home.
It places in a situation where,well, because of the divorce of
my parents, my mom was not evenin the home either.
So really, we almost wereraised on our own, and there are
side effects of that somenegative, some positive.
One of the positive sideeffects of what I went through
was that my siblings reallyclung together.
Me and my siblings have apretty decent relationship
(01:59):
because of what happened.
I believe it's because of whathappened.
What my parents taught me bywhat happened is that we it's so
important for us as humans,especially when we make a
commitment to the other person,as I did to my spouse it is so
important for us to cleave toeach other, to do everything you
(02:26):
can to keep it together,because if you tear apart
something so beautiful and itaffects not just you and the
other person but affects thepeople who are underneath you,
if you will your children See itcan be such a selfish decision.
It can be such a selfishdecision.
(02:47):
It'd be such a selfish decisionto say I'm gonna go off and do
what I want to do everythingthat I have done since.
Well, let me back up whenmelanie and I first started our,
our marriage.
There was some struggle thereand I had a tendency to to as I
(03:13):
say to my wife and I'll say toyou guys too, to my eternal
shame, I spent most of the timepointing fingers at her.
You're the problem.
I said that because she hadbeen through so much in her life
and I thought that she wasn'tthinking properly.
But she really wasn't thinkingat all.
(03:35):
She was feeling.
She was a big feeler and me asa thinker I really couldn't
understand that Becauselogically, as it were, it didn't
make any sense to me.
So I pointed fingers you're theproblem, you're the problem,
you're the problem.
So that was the beginning ofour marriage, and as we
(03:57):
progressed through we learned tolove and live with each other
for a while and then everythingwas.
Then things got really, reallystressful.
We lost a couple of children,and when we lost those couple of
children I don't know if you'veknown anybody I know my wife
knows she has a relative Ishould say and she's told me the
(04:18):
story herself of this relativeat least that when they lost a
child it destroyed theirmarriage.
We lost two children and italmost destroyed ours.
But the destruction isn'tbecause of the child being lost.
It's because there's underlyingissues that were never taken
(04:38):
care of.
That's what I realized in mymarriage, because at the time my
wife was holding down so manythings that were bothering her
and I thought everything washunky-dory.
I was whistling past thegraveyard, if you've heard the
term, and so I spent so muchtime pointing fingers or her at
(04:58):
the earlier part of marriage,thinking everything was fine,
towards the middle and to wherewe're at.
I'm not hoping this is not theend, but where we're at now in
the present, probably about Idon't know about a couple of
years ago.
Well, it really started from thetime when she said we need to
travel more, right?
So there was all that.
And then you've heard the storybefore and if you haven't, this
(05:21):
is your first episode she cameto me and said that we need to
travel more and we didn't havethe money.
So I went and tried to find away for us to travel without
money, and that's where I builtthe TravelPoint system that I
teach, where I become known as aTravelPoint dad.
So I started working on somethings with the traveling, but
(05:45):
through the traveling, throughthe traveling, through the
traveling, we realized or Irealized, I should say that when
I was pointing one finger ather, as the analogy goes, I was
pointing three fingers back atme.
I never in all the times, to myeternal shame, as I said before,
I never in all the time reallylooked at myself as the problem
(06:07):
because I thought she was aproblem because of what she went
through.
What a terrible thing to do toa person who's been through the
victim excuse me, who's been avictim of so many things as she
has Not realizing that I was notholding or opening my heart to
her.
And all this started to come tofruition because of the
(06:27):
traveling we have done.
It brought us closer togetherbecause she was able to express
what she felt, and then Istarted to understand more as I
started to open my heart to her.
So my parents taught me that,no matter what we need to come
together, we need to be together, that, no matter what happens,
(06:50):
it's so important for us not totear apart what we have built
Just because there's a couplerough years.
It taught me that this is soimportant.
This is so important Not onlyfor the kids, but even for our
own selves.
It is so important for us tofind any way possible for us to
(07:14):
stay together.
It is so important for me tochange Because, as I change, she
was already trying to change.
She's always been trying to pullherself out of this mess that
she was put herself through Notput herself through, but other
people sorry, pardon me, put herthrough by the things that they
(07:36):
did to her.
She's always trying to change.
I just wasn't with that becauseI always thought she was a
problem.
It's a terrible way to do amarriage, by the way, as I've
realized through this process,it's a terrible way to do a
marriage.
I always look at, so, what I'vedone because of the experiences
(08:00):
that we have, because of thisstory about how she came to me
and honestly, I started to lookat myself.
What am I doing?
Because she came to me one day.
I will always remember this andit's really again a very sad, a
(08:20):
really terrible, I don't knowconviction of me, I guess, or a
really bad thing that I realizedin the retrospect.
But she had been going to acouple of counselors and other
things for some things that shehas been.
She still has going through herbecause of the mess that she
(08:42):
for, the people who raped andsexually abused her, and so
she's been going through manycounseling and every single one
of the counselors said, well, itsounds like he's the problem.
It's funny that once she toldme that I woke up and said maybe
(09:05):
I am the problem, maybe I amthe problem.
So what I've done since thatpoint forward and it really
hasn't changed is that whenthere is some sort of a
disagreement, I always look atmyself first.
I look at myself first and thenI look at her.
(09:29):
My wife bless, I love her somuch she has a tendency to
always look at herself firstbefore any of this.
She's always been that type ofunselfish, beautiful person.
She looks at herself firstalready before any of this.
(09:49):
And now we both basically lookat ourselves first before we
blame the other person.
Always continually trying toimprove, always continually
trying to improve.
It's so easy.
It's so so easy, not just withour spouses, but literally
anybody we meet on the street.
It's so easy to point fingersand say that this person is the
(10:13):
problem Without looking atourselves first.
It's such a terrible, terriblementality to have, terrible,
terrible mentality to have.
(10:33):
This brings me to anotherattribute that I believe is
always also important, thatbrings us together, and that is
the attribute of forgiveness.
Sometimes I don't really knowwhere these episodes are going
to go, but I feel reallycompelled to talk about
forgiveness because, througheverything that I had put her
through, by not being selfishand prideful and whatever, by
(10:58):
not being and not stepping up,not being, not stepping up and
being the man that I need to befor her.
Through all of that, shecontinually found a way in her
heart to forgive, and she's doneit over and over and over again
.
There's a lot of I mean.
You can list the attributes youneed, as in a marriage, it take
(11:20):
a long time to do, butforgiveness and love so
important, so, so, so important.
But, see, these things are notjust about marriage though,
although it's really reallyimportant to have them within
the marriage, but it's soimportant to have it with
interactions with nearlyeverybody.
(11:42):
She forgave and forgave, andforgave, and I'll be eternally
grateful for her, for her beingable to do that.
So, to the men out there, it isso important for you to look at
yourself first, because that'swhat I have seen to help by
(12:16):
saying this I'm not saying thatit's always your fault or that
it's the majority of the timeyour fault.
I'm not in your marriage andI'm not in your home, but what
(12:44):
I'm saying is by my experience.
By my experience, I have seenthat when you look at yourself
first and not look at others asthe problem, as long as the
other person's also willing todo that, and those two things
can come together.
I know it sounds like a clicheor that I'm just trying to, but
it really truly did start whenwe started to travel.
It really helped us and it didbring out a lot of these things
because we were together moreand we're in places where she
felt comfortable to say thingsand say more to me.
(13:06):
So she, these things, gotbrought out.
But when she, when she broughtthese things out and we were
able to bring them to lightbecause, you know, sunlight's
the best disinfectant when itcomes to bringing things to
light Once she brought thesethings to light, we were able
(13:30):
well, I was able to work on meand then we were able to work on
us, because if I never pulledout of that, if I never pulled
out of that and I kept pointingfingers at her, I don't know
where we'd be today.
My parents taught me that Ishould do everything I can to
(13:53):
make sure we never fall aparttogether, fall apart as a family
.
I should do everything I canand for the longest time I was
pointing fingers at her andsaying she should do everything
she could to keep our marriagetogether, never looking at
myself Again going back to beingselfish.
What a selfish way to live.
(14:13):
What a selfish way to live.
We need, as men, to step up asmen and take responsibility for
what we are not doing.
And take responsibility forwhat we are not doing.
Take responsibility for what weare doing and love our spouses,
love our children, because ifwe can step up and show the love
(14:39):
that we need to love I'm sorrythe love that we need to give,
we need to love the I'm sorrythe love that we need to give.
And just I just know, becauseI've seen it in the stories that
I've already told you that whatchanges in our lives when that
happens and it's so cheap tomake that happen, you don't have
(15:08):
to go to and I'm not saying notto make that clear, but I'm not
saying you don't.
Sometimes you don't have to goto couples therapy.
We never did again.
We use travel because not onlydo I believe that travel is
cheaper than couples therapy, Ialso know, just for what I've
heard from others and what wentthrough with my parents, that
(15:30):
travel is also cheaper thandivorce.
You have been listening to.
Travel is Cheaper Than Divorcewith David Packer.
Please let us know what youthink about this episode or any
other comments you might have byvisiting our website at
wwwtravelpointdadcom.
(15:52):
Please join us for our nextepisode, where we continue to
explore how travel can helpbring your family together.
You are listening to.
Travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I will provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost.
So let's get into it.
We, as humans, are meant to betogether.
We are pack animals in a way.
Be together.
We're pack animals in a way.
(00:49):
We're not really meant to beapart.
We're not meant to really to bein a place where we're isolated
or alone.
It's important for us to reallysee that being together in a
family is exactly what bringsreally lasting happiness.
This is one of the lessons thatmy parents taught me by the
(01:16):
actions that they took bydivorcing each other, by putting
us in a place where we had nofather in the home, by putting
(01:36):
us in a place where we had nofather in the home.
It places in a situation where,well, because of the divorce of
my parents, my mom was not evenin the home either.
So really, we almost wereraised on our own, and there are
side effects of that somenegative, some positive.
One of the positive sideeffects of what I went through
was that my siblings reallyclung together.
Me and my siblings have apretty decent relationship
(01:59):
because of what happened.
I believe it's because of whathappened.
What my parents taught me bywhat happened is that we it's so
important for us as humans,especially when we make a
commitment to the other person,as I did to my spouse it is so
important for us to cleave toeach other, to do everything you
(02:26):
can to keep it together,because if you tear apart
something so beautiful and itaffects not just you and the
other person but affects thepeople who are underneath you,
if you will your children See itcan be such a selfish decision.
It can be such a selfishdecision.
(02:47):
It'd be such a selfish decisionto say I'm gonna go off and do
what I want to do everythingthat I have done since.
Well, let me back up whenmelanie and I first started our,
our marriage.
There was some struggle thereand I had a tendency to to as I
(03:13):
say to my wife and I'll say toyou guys too, to my eternal
shame, I spent most of the timepointing fingers at her.
You're the problem.
I said that because she hadbeen through so much in her life
and I thought that she wasn'tthinking properly.
But she really wasn't thinkingat all.
(03:35):
She was feeling.
She was a big feeler and me asa thinker I really couldn't
understand that Becauselogically, as it were, it didn't
make any sense to me.
So I pointed fingers you're theproblem, you're the problem,
you're the problem.
So that was the beginning ofour marriage, and as we
(03:57):
progressed through we learned tolove and live with each other
for a while and then everythingwas.
Then things got really, reallystressful.
We lost a couple of children,and when we lost those couple of
children I don't know if you'veknown anybody I know my wife
knows she has a relative Ishould say and she's told me the
(04:18):
story herself of this relativeat least that when they lost a
child it destroyed theirmarriage.
We lost two children and italmost destroyed ours.
But the destruction isn'tbecause of the child being lost.
It's because there's underlyingissues that were never taken
(04:38):
care of.
That's what I realized in mymarriage, because at the time my
wife was holding down so manythings that were bothering her
and I thought everything washunky-dory.
I was whistling past thegraveyard, if you've heard the
term, and so I spent so muchtime pointing fingers or her at
(04:58):
the earlier part of marriage,thinking everything was fine,
towards the middle and to wherewe're at.
I'm not hoping this is not theend, but where we're at now in
the present, probably about Idon't know about a couple of
years ago.
Well, it really started from thetime when she said we need to
travel more, right?
So there was all that.
And then you've heard the storybefore and if you haven't, this
(05:21):
is your first episode she cameto me and said that we need to
travel more and we didn't havethe money.
So I went and tried to find away for us to travel without
money, and that's where I builtthe TravelPoint system that I
teach, where I become known as aTravelPoint dad.
So I started working on somethings with the traveling, but
(05:45):
through the traveling, throughthe traveling, through the
traveling, we realized or Irealized, I should say that when
I was pointing one finger ather, as the analogy goes, I was
pointing three fingers back atme.
I never in all the times, to myeternal shame, as I said before,
I never in all the time reallylooked at myself as the problem
(06:07):
because I thought she was aproblem because of what she went
through.
What a terrible thing to do toa person who's been through the
victim excuse me, who's been avictim of so many things as she
has Not realizing that I was notholding or opening my heart to
her.
And all this started to come tofruition because of the
(06:27):
traveling we have done.
It brought us closer togetherbecause she was able to express
what she felt, and then Istarted to understand more as I
started to open my heart to her.
So my parents taught me that,no matter what we need to come
together, we need to be together, that, no matter what happens,
(06:50):
it's so important for us not totear apart what we have built
Just because there's a couplerough years.
It taught me that this is soimportant.
This is so important Not onlyfor the kids, but even for our
own selves.
It is so important for us tofind any way possible for us to
(07:14):
stay together.
It is so important for me tochange Because, as I change, she
was already trying to change.
She's always been trying to pullherself out of this mess that
she was put herself through Notput herself through, but other
people sorry, pardon me, put herthrough by the things that they
(07:36):
did to her.
She's always trying to change.
I just wasn't with that becauseI always thought she was a
problem.
It's a terrible way to do amarriage, by the way, as I've
realized through this process,it's a terrible way to do a
marriage.
I always look at, so, what I'vedone because of the experiences
(08:00):
that we have, because of thisstory about how she came to me
and honestly, I started to lookat myself.
What am I doing?
Because she came to me one day.
I will always remember this andit's really again a very sad, a
(08:20):
really terrible, I don't knowconviction of me, I guess, or a
really bad thing that I realizedin the retrospect.
But she had been going to acouple of counselors and other
things for some things that shehas been.
She still has going through herbecause of the mess that she
(08:42):
for, the people who raped andsexually abused her, and so
she's been going through manycounseling and every single one
of the counselors said, well, itsounds like he's the problem.
It's funny that once she toldme that I woke up and said maybe
(09:05):
I am the problem, maybe I amthe problem.
So what I've done since thatpoint forward and it really
hasn't changed is that whenthere is some sort of a
disagreement, I always look atmyself first.
I look at myself first and thenI look at her.
(09:29):
My wife bless, I love her somuch she has a tendency to
always look at herself firstbefore any of this.
She's always been that type ofunselfish, beautiful person.
She looks at herself firstalready before any of this.
(09:49):
And now we both basically lookat ourselves first before we
blame the other person.
Always continually trying toimprove, always continually
trying to improve.
It's so easy.
It's so so easy, not just withour spouses, but literally
anybody we meet on the street.
It's so easy to point fingersand say that this person is the
(10:13):
problem Without looking atourselves first.
It's such a terrible, terriblementality to have, terrible,
terrible mentality to have.
(10:33):
This brings me to anotherattribute that I believe is
always also important, thatbrings us together, and that is
the attribute of forgiveness.
Sometimes I don't really knowwhere these episodes are going
to go, but I feel reallycompelled to talk about
forgiveness because, througheverything that I had put her
through, by not being selfishand prideful and whatever, by
(10:58):
not being and not stepping up,not being, not stepping up and
being the man that I need to befor her.
Through all of that, shecontinually found a way in her
heart to forgive, and she's doneit over and over and over again
.
There's a lot of I mean.
You can list the attributes youneed, as in a marriage, it take
(11:20):
a long time to do, butforgiveness and love so
important, so, so, so important.
But, see, these things are notjust about marriage though,
although it's really reallyimportant to have them within
the marriage, but it's soimportant to have it with
interactions with nearlyeverybody.
(11:42):
She forgave and forgave, andforgave, and I'll be eternally
grateful for her, for her beingable to do that.
So, to the men out there, it isso important for you to look at
yourself first, because that'swhat I have seen to help by
(12:16):
saying this I'm not saying thatit's always your fault or that
it's the majority of the timeyour fault.
I'm not in your marriage andI'm not in your home, but what
(12:44):
I'm saying is by my experience.
By my experience, I have seenthat when you look at yourself
first and not look at others asthe problem, as long as the
other person's also willing todo that, and those two things
can come together.
I know it sounds like a clicheor that I'm just trying to, but
it really truly did start whenwe started to travel.
It really helped us and it didbring out a lot of these things
because we were together moreand we're in places where she
felt comfortable to say thingsand say more to me.
(13:06):
So she, these things, gotbrought out.
But when she, when she broughtthese things out and we were
able to bring them to lightbecause, you know, sunlight's
the best disinfectant when itcomes to bringing things to
light Once she brought thesethings to light, we were able
(13:30):
well, I was able to work on meand then we were able to work on
us, because if I never pulledout of that, if I never pulled
out of that and I kept pointingfingers at her, I don't know
where we'd be today.
My parents taught me that Ishould do everything I can to
(13:53):
make sure we never fall aparttogether, fall apart as a family
.
I should do everything I canand for the longest time I was
pointing fingers at her andsaying she should do everything
she could to keep our marriagetogether, never looking at
myself Again going back to beingselfish.
What a selfish way to live.
(14:13):
What a selfish way to live.
We need, as men, to step up asmen and take responsibility for
what we are not doing.
And take responsibility forwhat we are not doing.
Take responsibility for what weare doing and love our spouses,
love our children, because ifwe can step up and show the love
(14:39):
that we need to love I'm sorrythe love that we need to give,
we need to love the I'm sorrythe love that we need to give.
And just I just know, becauseI've seen it in the stories that
I've already told you that whatchanges in our lives when that
happens and it's so cheap tomake that happen, you don't have
(15:08):
to go to and I'm not saying notto make that clear, but I'm not
saying you don't.
Sometimes you don't have to goto couples therapy.
We never did again.
We use travel because not onlydo I believe that travel is
cheaper than couples therapy, Ialso know, just for what I've
heard from others and what wentthrough with my parents, that
(15:30):
travel is also cheaper thandivorce.
You have been listening to.
Travel is Cheaper Than Divorcewith David Packer.
Please let us know what youthink about this episode or any
other comments you might have byvisiting our website at
wwwtravelpointdadcom.
(15:52):
Please join us for our nextepisode, where we continue to
explore how travel can helpbring your family together.
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