I suppose I worry about him wanting for more and more or finding someone else with a similar interest. Keep in mind that this trip was not a desire of his until his friends enticed him to go. I also fear the grand transformation everyone seems to go through. I fear we will move in opposite directions.
Your concerns hit very close to home. This took me a while to write, because I wanted to get it right and it is by nature very delicate and personal stuff. I'm hesitant to share all the circumstances surrounding the camino I undertook in 2016, because not everything is relevant. But for a clear understanding of the story I am forced to mention some things that may not be altogether very nice or comforting. Plus I won't come out smelling like a rose, but so be it. Here goes.
After my father died in 2013 I was affected, as you would expect. I was at that time 45 and the whole experience exposed (amongst other things) a sudden sense of mortality. I felt an irresistible urge to counter this feeling by undertaking a 'grand adventure' to embrace and celebrate life. Enter the camino. It was a perfect match (for more reasons than the gesture towards death), and I grabbed the idea like the proverbial straw. We have a little joke in Holland, where we call this period in a man's life the penopause. But hey, at least I didn't go for a convertible, dyed my hair or had an extramarital affair. But I digress.
My wife was going through her menopause simultaneously, in a big way. Turbulent times they were. But the camino idea had taken a strong hold of me. I started planning and prepping, and thought I was sharing enough of this process with her. But I'm quite the introvert, and thinking very loud doesn't constitute dialogue. Looking back I'm afraid I was egocentric about the whole thing, and very dogged about having it my way.
As a result I didn't really register my wife's reservations and mild objections about this grand adventure of mine. She rightly felt left out and ignored in this, but I choose not to see or hear it consciously. Amazing how you can somehow deceive and compartmentalize yourself like that when you want something real bad. The camino bug had dug in deep, and I was firmly in its grasp. It was an idea that turned into a desire and evolved into a promise. And bless her, my wife decided to go along with it, out of loyalty and love.
That meant I left home early 2016 for a solo walk that would last almost three months. I had planned a little break of about three days in France, where my wife and son and some good friends of ours would 'intercept' me after roughly six weeks of walking, near Limoges. They would spend a holiday week in a nice cottage there, and I could join them for a couple of days. All very accommodating and thoughtful of me, I reckoned.
But the rubber met the road a lot earlier. In the second week of my absence things started to fall apart. For my wife. She spiraled downwards into a fearsome depression. She later described it as revisiting her puberty: no footholds, an unwilling victim of hormones, adrift and descending into a bottomless dark pit. I learned about this in week three, and didn't really know what to do. I decided to keep walking and keep very close tabs through daily phonecalls.
That was by far the hardest decision I ever took. My reasoning in a nutshell: I felt that returning wouldn't change anything. I couldn't talk her out of a depression, she had to work through that herself and my presence would change nothing. I even convinced myself that by returning I would deny her taking charge and getting out of this herself. Remember not coming out smelling like roses? Not my finest hour. But there was some truth to my feelings too. Aborting the walk might ultimately lead to resentment on my part. I had prepared for almost three years, I thought she knew the deal. And I just couldn't give it up yet. I was working on my own issues and making real progress.
So I kept walking. And because of this decision (whether right or wrong) cracks appeared in our relationship. I saw them up close and personal during the very tense holiday week near Limoges. But somehow we managed to break through some issues on both sides that were vital to the whole picture. We talked almost non-stop for three days, and slowly reached common ground. We still had a lot of honest talking, soul-searching, analysing and regaining trust ahead of us, but I had every faith in a good outcome and fortunately it proved contagious.
It's a bit like rebuilding a house. Cracks in the facade, malfunctioning electricity, leaks in the attic: the best course of action is to tear it all down and rebuild. Our foundation proved strong enough. And the thing about rebuilding is that you know the weak spots and annoyances of the old, and you can avoid them in the new. So you end up with a better house, if you do the work and pay attention.
We decided I could walk on, and slow progress was made during the rest of the camino. Everything between us was still very frail and vulnerable but we both fought for it. In a sense my wife had a camino too: at home, and way harder than mine. The process of getting and staying close to one another continued when I got home, and to be honest it still does. I am now very wary of assumptions, routine and inattention. And I need to remember myself that the key to connecting is to keep talking, something that isn't natural or easy for me. But the rewards are worth it. I honestly think we are better off now than we were before I left.
I'm not too sure this story is of any help to you, but I hope it is. What I do know is that fear is a terrible adviser and worry will get you nowhere. Apart from that I just blunder along and try my best to say what I do and do what I say. And I don't get that right all the time, either.