The suitcases are placed. The work is behind you. The kids are playing, the phone is supposed to stay in a bag and, for once, no one is looking at the time. On paper, everything is there to come together.
And yet, something is wrong. Discussions come down to meals, shopping or the organization of the day. Everyone looks at their screen. Small remarks become reproaches. One would like to go out, the other to stay at the beach. And, after just a few days, this strange feeling sets in: we spend all our time together, but we don’t really see each other.
This discrepancy can be particularly destabilizing. Because the holidays are often imagined as the time when the couple should naturally reconnect with the complicity lost in the whirlwind of the year.
For Christian Richomme, psychoanalyst and author of The 3 secrets of couples that last (Solar), this is precisely where the paradox lies.
“Many couples think they lack time. In reality, they have mostly lost the habit of meeting each other. Vacations do not create this distance. They simply make it visible”.
When the rhythm of the holidays removes the mask of everyday life
During the year there is always something to do. Work, children, journeys, shopping, appointments, domestic chores. This succession of obligations can give the couple a form of structure. We are moving forward. We get organized. We function… But functioning is not necessarily meeting.
When the holidays arrive, this mechanism slows down suddenly. Schedules disappear, obligations decrease and the two partners find themselves more face to face. What was until then buried in everyday life can then become much more visible.
“Vacations don’t keep couples apart. They simply reveal the distance that was established during the rest of the year..
This is the whole principle of “couple in airplane mode”, a concept proposed by the psychoanalyst.
The image speaks for itself: the two partners continue to share the same life, sometimes the same bed and the same activities, but the emotional connection has gradually become dormant. Holidays therefore do not necessarily cause the break of the link. They can simply make perceptible a distance that already existed.
And this realization can be confusing, even painful.
Together all day, but each in their own bubble
The second mechanism arises from a very banal situation:
vacations do not necessarily give rise to the same desires in both partners.
After a busy year, everyone arrives with their own expectations. One dreams of visiting, going out and making more discoveries. The other finally aspires to calm, sleep and a few hours without constraint. None of these aspirations is problematic in itself.
What can get complicated is when these different needs are never really expressed.
One ends up feeling like they always have to give in. The other may feel misunderstood. A simple suggestion for a walk then becomes a subject of dispute. A refusal to go out is interpreted as disinterest. And the frustrations pile up.
The problem is therefore not necessarily the difference in desires. It’s the lack of conversation around these differences.
Because being in a relationship does not necessarily mean wanting to do exactly the same thing at the same time.
Vacations can even offer an opportunity to find a form of balance: sharing certain moments, but also accepting that everyone can have their own space.
This need to preserve a degree of independence becomes all the more important when physical proximity has become permanent.
Sleeping in the same bed doesn’t necessarily mean being close
This is perhaps the most confusing sign of “airplane mode torque.” We can spend an entire day together without having a single truly intimate conversation.
Same room. Same terrace. Same beach. Same restaurant. But everyone in their own world.
Physical proximity does not guarantee emotional closeness. By dint of sharing the daily organization, the exchanges can end up being limited to a succession of practical questions: “Where do we eat?”“Have you made a reservation?”“What time are we leaving?”“Did you take the towels?”.
The couple then continues to communicate, but mainly to make vacation work.
Five signs should alert you in particular:
- You spend a lot of time together, but communicate very little;
- Your conversations mainly revolve around organization;
- You check your phone more than your partner;
- Small disagreements quickly grow out of proportion;
- You almost feel relief that the vacation is over.
Taken in isolation, none of these signs is obviously enough to conclude that the couple is in trouble. A week of fatigue, particularly demanding children or simply different needs can explain certain tensions. But their accumulation can invite us to ask ourselves a deeper question: when was the last time we really took the time to get together?
What if vacations were more about reconnecting?
The good news is that you don’t have to turn vacation into an intensive course of marital therapy.
A few simple habits can help recreate meeting opportunities.
- First reflex: establish a real moment of exchange every day. No phone, no screen, no conversation solely devoted to organization. A few minutes can be enough to really ask the other person how they are, what they feel or what they want;
- Second option: agree not to do everything together. A couple doesn’t need to share every hour of their vacation to be close. On the contrary, a little personal time can allow everyone to regain energy and come back to each other with more desire;
- Third idea: do something new together. An unusual activity allows you to escape from automatisms and create new shared memories;
- Fourth reflex: talk about expectations before they become criticism. Saying “I would like the two of us to spend a day alone” does not have the same impact as reproaching the other for “never wanting to do anything”.
Finally, we must accept a sometimes uncomfortable reality:
vacations are not supposed to save a couple.
However, they can reveal how it works.
After the holidays, the real question remains that of everyday life
Returning to work can then be an opportunity to look at what really happened. Perhaps the vacation arguments were just a one-off episode. But they may also have highlighted older relational fatigue, needs never expressed or communication that has become essentially functional.
“Airplane mode torque” is therefore not necessarily a condemnation. It is above all an image to put into words an experience that some partners may feel without being able to explain it: be physically close, but have gradually stopped meeting emotionally.
And while vacations sometimes have the power to make that distance painfully visible, they also offer something precious: a moment when we can finally look at it. Without immediately looking for a culprit. Simply to ask yourself, as a couple, if you still want to restart the connection.