what do you share with your partner, husband or wife?

[DayDreamer75]

If you've been married or living together for 10 years or more, I'd like to post you some questions...

 

Do you talk a lot every day about new interesting things or some things just repeat over and over? We talk a lot. Sometimes we have wonderful & interesting conversations but it's probably my limit but I find it that sometimes we repeat ourselves because there aren't always so many interesting things to talk about.

 

How often do you go out and what hobbies and interests do you share with your significant other? When I first started out my relationship I was expecting to do everything with my partner. As we're getting older the interests change. I am finding that we still spend the entire weekends together doing various activities but I took up hobbies on my own that don't interest him. Although I would have loved to share them with him, I know it's unrealistic to want him involved in every aspect of my life and I'm fine with it. It's working out fine. So I'd be interested in knowing how others work out with regards to differing interests that your significant others do not share? I've read some books that talk about spending your time exclusively with your significant other and avoiding hobbies that you do on your own, but I can't do this. I would go crazy. I am interested in everything as strange as this sounds and I don't want to give up on doing all the stuff I love because he does not like it. We have decided that we spend the whole weekend together doing what we both like and a couple of nights during the week just stay in watching tv, talking and relaxing. While for 2 nights per week I took up classes to learn the new things I love doing.

 

I don't want to criticize anyone or anything. I just want to learn about new ways for interacting and improving the relationship. Thanks to everyone for your significant input.

[anne1707]

DayDreamer

 

Married 14 years here.

 

Sometimes it may seem as if all we talk about is the routine stuff of work, house, money etc - all of which has to happen. But we also will discuss and debate the news or something either of us is reading as an example. I don't think you should stress if you are not talking something "new" all the time though.

 

As for hobbies, we both enjoy the gym, running etc and do that together but we also have hobbies which mean time apart. I have read similar books to the ones you have which say the hobby should be mutual but that can be easier said than done. What we try to do is participate in our personal hobbies at the same time so that neither of us feels neglected and we also talk to each other about what we are doing and discuss anything of interest that arises from them.

 

We then make sure that we spend at least one full day at the weekend together and not doing anything like housework etc. This is time to concentrate on us and maybe go somewhere new for the day. We also make sure we have at least one night out together during the week so we have chance to talk and catch up.

 

It's all really about getting the right balance for what works for your relationship - time apart can result in better time together.

[DayDreamer75]

thank you. It's nice to have input from others

[inhindsight]

DD75

interesting question. I'm hoping the books you read dont' really mean people are meant not to have their own hobbies. I can't imagine being bound to the same hobbies as my H! We have fun together, but are very different people!

Some days we talk much more than others, and other times our conversations are quite mundane. We discuss our hopes, we talk about people we've met, our opinions on certain situations, many things.

He has his own hobbies - he goes to the gym every other day. On his non-gym days he runs. I like to exercise too, but I don't like the gym. So I will do a workout at home. When we do any fitness together it is hiking or biking or rollerblading as we both enjoy all of these activities, and we do feel after we do these activities very much in love because we really do enjoy these times.

We like to cultivate our garden together (it is our pride and joy)... we discuss our growing child, the challenges we face, how we think things will work out, our concerns.

I tell him the challenges I am having in my business (I am self-employed), my insecurities with myself and how to drive my business, he tells me challenges he has at work...

We can have discussions that have more depth... but never over-analyzed topics... he is not an analytical man. THese however, he has quite often surprised me with a thought-provoking items...

Every Friday our child is with a set of grandparents for dinner so we can have dinner together alone.

Once a month our child sleeps over at a grandparents so at least once a month we can have some pretty rocking sex with no fears of a kid walking in. (the rest of the time we keep it pretty tame, but always jump when we hear any noises.)

 

I DO need my alone time, but I get a lot of this between 10pm and midnight, after he has passed out at 9:30pm! (he is an early bird, I am a night owl). He gets his alone time when he wakes up at 5am, and I rise at 6 thirty so he has had some solid time for himself in there.

 

We check out local attractions, go for lots of walks either the two of us alone or all of us as a family.

 

All of this helps us. Might sound boring to some, but this is about as spicy as we get on an everyday basis. We are happy to get a guaranteed spicy moment once a month, and that works for now.

 

 

Now, just so you know... alot of this stuff was implemented post d-day. Pre d-day there was no guaranteed alone time together, no guaranteed crazy sex time... if it happened to come up, it did. But it was never planned. Since d-day and our efforts to truly rebuild, we have committed to putting in time for each other and as a family... and it is really starting to pay off.