What do you chat about with your partner that's not drudge?

[Di11y]

We have a 4yo and a 7yo and we've been married for 13 years. I find I don't have a lot to chat about with my DH when we do have time to ourselves that's not talking about the kids, the endless jobs that need to be done, work etc. Often end up watching TV in companionable silence.

We do chat about news but what light-hearted topics do you find yourself chatting about? I'm feeling proper boring!

Oh same.

Yesterday most of the conversation was about if the boiler man ripped us off (consensus, he did) and how to replace a cupboard. There was a side conversation about selling some of the furniture and what I am doing about my study/junk room

What do you both do separately from each other, work gym etc ?
That’s what we talk about.

Everything really.
Friends, family, politics, holidays we've had, holidays we've booked, what plans we have upcoming, plans for the house / garden, our jobs, the pets, our relationship, food, music, books, films....

Dreams, aspirations, insecurities, random stuff....

Same. Our kids are a bit older and it makes me sad that for over a decade we mainly only talk about the kids, things we need to do about the house, our jobs, the news of friends and a bit of current affairs.

I hear people saying they are bursting with things they want to discuss with their partners but I can’t think of anything. Sometimes one of us might talk about a book we just read but it’s hardly a deep analytic exchange of ideas and visions.

As pp said above - everything! Politics, news, work, family, plans for the future, books we are reading etc etc

Very little ... after 30+ years of marriage we seem to have run out of things to talk about, quite sad really, we have different political views so find it best not to discuss current affairs or news ... most of our discussions these days seem to be on retirement planning very boring.

@GoodnightGrandma

What do you both do separately from each other, work gym etc ? That’s what we talk about.

That's the rub I think, we both WFH and rarely apart these days. Usual groups stopped over the summer. I guess I need a life to have anything interesting to say.

That's it. You need to have some separate interests. My DH is involved in a table tennis club and model railway group (am I outed? ) I'm in a craft club and a choir (all of which had to go online during lockdowns) but we've got our own interests and so have things to talk about.

Plus the everyday chit chat!

Friends, especially mutual ones, what they are up to
Family - how as annoying my mum is, whether to have a zoom with my sister, how his mums doing in a nursing home
Food - what we’re going to eat (big foodies), who’s shopping for what
Books - we both read a lot and recently shared our kindle content with each other, so we talk about books we’ve both read. Ditto podcasts, both interested in geopolitics, economics, environmental science so we chat about interesting stuff we’ve read / listened to
Work 🙄 we work in the same place so school / office politics inevitably gets discussed
Holiday / travel plans - we had a massive trip planned for summer 2020 which got cancelled by Covid. We want to plan a smaller version for summer 2022 so that’s taking some planning. Plus smaller trips during school holidays, trips to the U.K. to visit family.
Home and garden - any diy / decluttering / etc that needs planned and done.

We rarely run out of stuff to talk about. I’m interested in what DH has to say, his perspective isn’t always the same as mine but I often learn something from him. And he laughs at my jokes!

Yesterday we talked about
OS maps vs Google maps
Rock formations
Sheep markings
Overseas tourists opinion on England
Hornby train sets
DH questioned me a lot on wildflowers and plants

Those popped up as we went out in a five mile hike in the Peak District

Afghanistan current situation and back in 2006
World population levels

Other people
Things we have done in the past
Things we might do in the future
Things we have read
Funny things that happened
What he’s working on, what I’m working on

I have a couple of hobbies I do outside of work but dh doesn't (works long hours) so it does get difficult! Our default is definitely kids/work/stuff that needs doing to the house.

Holiday plans
Weekends away
Friends
Family
Neighbours (ours not tv)😃
Cars (mostly dh with me adding what colour I like)
What happening on the local FB page( mostly me with dh nodding)😂
Football

I often throw a very stupid hypothetical question at my husband. He’s very straight laced and analytical so I love the answers he comes to, applying logic and reason

Would you prefer to be attacked by one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses.

Would you prefer to have fingers for toes or toes for fingers.

Would you prefer to live in a world where there are no Queen songs, or a world where there were no songs other than Queen?

Would you prefer to be outrageously attractive but as thick as mince, or incredibly intelligent but child-scaringly ugly?

We chat about everything but also happy to sit in comfortable silence.

We work in the same industry and once had a long conversation about rebar in concrete. We got like 45 mins in and realised we were boring.

We talk about running and football
I talk at him about my horse
He talks at me about weird camping/hiking gear.
We talk about politics/current affairs etc etc
But equally we can just curl up and not talk and it not be tense or weird

DH talks at me about cryptocurrency quite a lot

We talk about politics and international affairs a lot. We talk about our jobs, our families, our friends and our neighbours (we are both v interested in people). We talk about travel - past, future.