My GF [27F] and I [26M] have been together for a little under two years now and we haven't done any international vacations together. We've both done lots 3-4 each since we started dating just none together. A lot of these we're because they we're planned before we met or just friends trips that had been in discussions since before we started dating.
We've started talking about planning a trip more seriously recently and I am a little stuck on how we should balance this. I have 4 weeks of vacation at my job, 6 to use up this year because I had some carry over from last year. She has 3 weeks and is quitting her job very soon to do a masters, which I am very supportive of! Going through our schedules it looks like any vacations will have to wait until next year because it is a very condensed and demanding masters program. I am happy to wait until she is done and then maybe try to squeeze one in between her finishing her program and starting to work.
In the past when we had talked about it, there was usually the topic of money or vacation time. I make almost 30k more and have offered to pay in full or at least part but she has shot it down saying she doesn't want me to pay. She lived at home for years after school and has saved up so she wont be going into any debt for her masters or living expenses and it will hardly dent her savings.
The other thing that has come up is the amount of vacation she has and that she historically hasn't had any she can allocate to trips together. This came up before the masters however she used up all of hers because of trips with her family, one that was 2 weeks in the Caribbean with her parents and siblings, the other was a cruise with her parents and grandparents. I don't want to deny her of these trips either.
The problems come up when I try to plan trips for me this year and i mention going to places that I know we both want to do together. For example one is NZ, before she had plans to go to the Caribbean with her parents, she was loosely floating the idea of traveling with me to visit one of my uni friends who recently moved there with his GF. however that was dropped when her parents surprised her. I have mentioned that I will still plan to visit this year to see my friend before he returns and she mentions that she wants to go to NZ and maybe we could go next year to or eventually again in the future which I would gladly however I still feel a sense of sadness on her part. I think part of this too is that most places I want to travel too are places on her bucket list as well, so I party feel like I'm taking them away from our future.
I generally get this feeling when I talk about going anywhere without her because she doesn't have the vacation time and I have significantly more this year especially. How do you balance situations like this with your partners? I feel like I'm taking something away from our relationship by going away solo or with friends, but then I also feel the same in return with her family trips, especially since my family divorced and hasn't done family trips since I graduated high school so all my trips are solo or with friends.