Why Taking A Trip To A Remote Cabin Saved My Big City Relationship

My relationship was tepid at best. We reached this place after many months of constant fighting, accusations and weak communication. We were tired and worn.

We tried to mend our union in many ways, and we were met with nothing but failure. A friend of ours offered to let us use their cabin up in the mountains for a week. We both had a little fight left in us, so we agreed to go.

We never could have imagined what we discovered both in each other and in ourselves. Here are five ways a trip to the mountains saved our relationship:

1. We put down our phones.

WiFi was nonexistent there. We did not expect to be without Internet for an entire week. At first we grumbled and griped, lamenting a trip with no connection. We soon discovered that the very things we thought were connecting us were actually keeping us apart.

We decided to chop off the hand that fed us our constant feed of updates, memes and pointless emails. We shut off the phones and placed them carefully at the bottom of our suitcases. It took a little while to get used to it. We had to remember that actor's name, we had to wonder if anyone liked the photo we posted on the drive up the mountain and we had to reach our bare hands outside the window to check the weather.

What began as silence quickly transitioned into a night of constant conversation. There were no distractions. There were only two people who realized they had so much to say to each other, but just never had the right moment to say them.

2. We stopped and smelled the roses.

Usually we would have a full itinerary of planned events consisting of waiting in lines, taking pictures and making reservations. Fueled by the simplicity of being without our pocket robots, this time we decided to wipe the agenda clean and do absolutely nothing.

We went for walks. We sat and listened to the birds sing. We counted stars and invented stories. We took the time to close our eyes, but not sleep. By doing so, we saw so much more. We were finally relaxed. We were finally at peace. We truly felt together.

3. We got cold.

At night, we set the fire as low as we could. We got together under two blankets, and we used each other for warmth. We wrapped ourselves so tightly in that blanket, truly depending on each other. We could feel each other's heartbeat, our lungs inhaling and exhaling and our two bodies naturally finding the curves and crevices that fit perfectly together.

That night we slept closer than we ever had, and we woke up squeezed together in the rays of the morning sun that cast through the shades and onto our bed. We felt as if we had slept for a lifetime, and it wasn't a second too long.

4. We experienced nature.

Nature is truth. Nature is more concrete than the concrete we drive our cars across. We walked slowly through nature, without purpose. We watched the world simply exists as it does, as it always has.

We took solace in our place in it. We finally felt larger than ourselves. We were ingrained in the air as the roots of a tree vein through the soil, as the dew from a dawn's rain covers every inch of a leaf. We weren't anxiously waiting for a returned text or sending an email. We felt at peace.

5. We read Thoreau.

We found a worn copy of Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" on a small nightstand in the cabin. The novel reflects upon natural surroundings and simple living. We took turns reading to each other and discovered within us a spirituality connected to one another and to the earth in a way that transcended “likes” and “filters." What occurred was a connection between us that surpassed any declaration of relationship status.

Our love was solely for each other. We looked at each other and we both knew, without a word, that we were going to make it. Our love had been drowned out by the noise of modern life. But in the silence, we could hear it loud and clear.