What do you do for fun, as a couple?

[PoppingBubbles]

I've been reading another thread, and it had me wondering.
I don't think DH and I have much fun really, we get on well, and laugh and joke around whilst doing it. However, spontaneous fun hasnt happened for many years, and we don't have any hobbies together. We both like gaming, mostly different stuff though, and not always.
He's not a planner either, so I do feel anything we do get out to do, is all on me.
I also feel like as we don't have the same interests, we don't have much to talk about.

This is not a thread for me to moan about our marriage, we're fine, I just wondered of we could do better.

I think I'm asking for inspiration, so how does it work for you as a couple, do you have lovely long chats, or hobbies, or whatever?

Week nights usually local gigs,evening walks and in the summer mountain bike and longer hikes, cinema and theatre.
Weekends. Normally fly to somewhere in Europe once a month. ( I get Thursday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon off once a month) we have friends round or go to friends and then similar stuff to weekday, gigs, cinema, theatre etc.

Not much at the moment, dd2 has only recently started going to bed before us and is breastfed, so time to ourselves mostly involves watching box sets and the occasional board game when we're awake enough.

When we get back to more sleep and easier babysitting, we like going for walks, playing board games, and seeing musicals.

Oh, we are worse than I thought
This does all sound fun, we're like miserable hermits in comparison to this

What is YMMV?

We were stuck in a rut of not really doing anything together for a bit, just stuck in different rooms, but we've improved a lot lately just from getting a schedule of on x day we do something together and it's not chores or whatever, as waiting for thr spontaneous thing never worked!
We do a lot of outdoor stuff together, wlak dogs, run, bike.
Also massive gamers, for the most part we play different ones but we have a couple of shared ones we play together.
I beat him regularly at card and board games, I'm not sure thats fun for him though

Me and my hubby did a lot together but since the birth of our son 3 weeks ago, the only fun we have is bathtime for son and our hedgehog!
(Don't worry, they don't bath together. Son is in the bath and hedgehog is in the sink!)

We like our local National Trust places and open air museums too. It sets you up for the week. I like to take a flask of tea and chocolate biscuits. At home we read and I have to admit we are on screens a lot. We watch YouTube films of cats. Cole and Marmalade are our favourites!

we like going out to the countryside - walking, pottering around, visiting churches.

We don't do much of it as babysitting is always an evening thing, really, isn't it (unless you have family you can dump your child with, which we don't locally).

I need some ideas too. We used to eat out together a lot, and go away for weekends. But it’s not the same since having a baby!

We play in a band together 😊

Now that are kids are grown and we have more funds to do things with, we like to go out walking and find new places to go, new places for either pub lunch or places for brunch. We started doing body pump classes together. We like to do occasional posh food outing to try new things. We also started watching the show about moving to the country as it’s something we’re thinking of doing in a few years. We like to go to the cinema, plays and concerts. Lots of 80’s or 90’s bands.

Previously it was mostly doing things with the kids and it’s back to just us.

I’m still tying to pursuance him to let me come golfing so it’ll be something we can share once he retires but haven’t gotten that far. Currently he only goes golfing every so many months, taking a day off work and meeting friends from his school days.

I’m a big fan of Netflix and chill.

Yes we also do other stuff but during the week when we’re both working hard - mostly Netflix and chill.

It’s the best thing.

Haha, yeah, most married couples do that.

We don’t have much fun together :(. We are currently saving to move house so use money as our main excuse. The DCs go to in-laws once per month for the weekend so we have oportunity but end up just watching Netflix or he works and I read. We have a laugh and our relationship is fine. You are not alone lol

Through the week it's usually Netflix, cinema, a meal out somewhere casual. We cook together quite often too.

Weekends walking/hiking, home improvements (not everyone's idea of fun but we both enjoy it and moved house recently), day-trips or days out. More rarely 'proper dates' the theatre, nice dinner, drinks etc or weekends away.

We don't have a mutual hobby or anything (into totally different things in terms of exercise) but we do spend a lot of time together outside of work - even if it's just him keeping me company having a chat while I work on my hobby in the evenings or vice versa.

We mountain bike but rarely together as we have a five year old. But we do love it when we get the chance. Endorphins galore!

We have ridiculously different hobbies so we do have to find other things we both like! We like to set ourselves challenges - at the moment we're watching all the movies that have ever won Best Picture at the Oscars, and we're really enjoying that. Next we're thinking it might be making and drinking the 100 best cocktails from a list we found, which might be slightly less educational!

It also takes us at least an hour each weekend to synchronise our diaries with what the kids are doing, but we're shit at it

OP you’d be better off asking what people do in a similar set up to yours. Before kids, we spent a ton of time together, visiting places, walking in the countryside, dining out etc etc etc It was great!!

Need I say once our DC1 arrived, all this fun couple stuff came to a very abrupt and rude end. Almost overnight. Partly to money, but mainly due to the demands placed upon us both all of a sudden. Now three kids later we still haven’t picked ourselves up 😓. I had a major wobble a couple of years back about what my life has become and we started to make time to do things we enjoy. Yes, other stuff doesn’t get done, but it’s better than divorce due to us both being pi££Ed off and fed up with no time to ourselves.

As childcare for three kids is a major problem, we mostly do fun stuff on our own or as a family. Couple time would be very very nice and welcome, but the circumstances render it nigh on impossible. The only couple time we really get is going to bed earlier and talking and generally connecting before sleep. I truly treasure this. I hope we’ll be able to make up for lost time once the kids are bigger and more independent. Please don’t tell me otherwise older posters 🤦‍♀️

It’s tough. Do make time for each other and have dedicated ‘me’ time for either party. I can see where midlife crises come from. People just get on with it and get on with it, until they get so fed up with their life and all these responsibilities, all work and no play, they snap and walk away/ go wild. No coincidence it happens in late 30s for women and 40s for men. This is the time of the most drudgery, financial burdens and the hard graft of bringing up kids.

Good luck to you but take it with a pinch of salt all the posts about wonderful lives people live (who also happen to be young, carefree and childfree). Theirs is a different world. All we can do is make the best of the circumstances we are in and hope it will get better 💐

weekends as we both work in the week we go to live gigs, when the weather is good we go for rides on our motorbike, go to bike related club nights, ride out to other clubs, go to bike shows and bike rallies, our motorbike is our fun time, but then again both in our 60s and all the children have grown up and left home so easier to have selfish no kids fun

Climb mountains.

I agree with the fact that it's irrelevant what people not in a similar setup to you are up to! We have 3 children under 8 so our lives look vastly different to a decade ago when we went travelling together. Now we basically watch Netflix

Were so busy running the kids here there and everywhere we rarely gave time. We might go for a meal, walk or have a really nice shag.

When we can get babysitting (albeit sporadically) we go to gigs, theatre/musicals, interesting bars, out for dinner. We take weekends away and go to festivals and if we're having local dates we tend to go to either our local board games cafe or the new microbrewery up the road.