If you've been together over 20 years - do you still spend time together?

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If you've been with your partner or spouse over 20 years, do you still spend time together? If you do, what does that look like for you?

I still love DH, but we don't spend our evenings or weekends together, or do anything together. We see each other in passing, e.g. have conversations in the kitchen from time to time. Occasionally we'll have a nice walk together, sometimes with our teenager. We always eat together with our teen, and with our eldest when back from uni.

It makes me sad that we've grown apart and don't spend time together, but then maybe this is just normal and to be expected as we've been together so long?

I'd love to know what it's like in other long-term marriages or partnerships. Is this just how it is for most people?

So many interesting and varied responses!

A variety of factors have resulted in us not spending time together

• Him changing from PT work to FT work, now in a busy, stressful job that tires him out
• He can't say no to anything, has activities 4 nights a week (coaching a sport, being in a band etc)
• He used to like watching TV when we got together, now he only wants to watch stuff related to one of his hobbies on YouTube
• He spends a lot of money on smoking and drinking which doesn't leave us much disposable income for shared activities

He's still my much-loved friend, but we don't talk deeply about anything, nor do we make each other laugh. I don't feel driven to go out for meals together as we don't have lots to talk about. I'd rather hang out companionably at home with him e.g. watch TV together but he doesn't want to do that so it won't work. I'd also love it if he were more interested in doing new things together at a weekend e.g. going to explore another town together, go to a gallery or museum. He does like doing those things but he's never free to do them because his hobbies take up the whole of Saturday and then he has things he wants to do at home by himself on Sunday to ready himself for the week of work.

Yes, weekends away, a meal out. X

15th anniversary coming up soon. We still try to spend time together every night. Usually we get at least 3 nights a week of quality time spent talking no distractions, but almost every day at least a few minutes checking in with one another.

The drinking and smoking would worry more than lack of time together, OP, as he’s damaging his health as well as wasting money. I assume he’s spending quite alot on them both as it’s eating up your disposable income?

He’s stressed from work, busy four nights a week, and drinking/smoking heavily….it’s not a good combination health wise.

25 years, still my best mate. We spend a lot of time together. More now the kids have left home and we're not running around after them. He has a lot of hobbies, I tend to just join in with what he's doing (e.g. sailing - I just sit there while he runs about tugging on ropes). But I'm the social one and arrange everything we do with friends. Works for us.

Together 27 year, DH still works ridiculous hours and always has but we try and have a Netflix box set that we watch a few nights a week together. We eat dinner together almost every night though sometimes DS and I like to eat earlier. Lockdown was great for us in that we had the most time together and used to walk together every day. We went out cycling in the summer a few times which we both loved and had a fab week away together also did some hiking and eating out, hosted a few things at home together. I became allergic to some things when I went through menopause that make enclosed spaces difficult for me so no more theatre or cinema sadly. We took up ballroom dancing, need to restart after our three year gap.

Yes, we do. He is still my favourite person to spend any time with. During the week I work long hours and am exhausted in the evenings, so although we eat together (he cooks) we probably spend a couple of hours together then I head for bed.

At weekends we do domestic stuff together, go for coffee, chat about things, make plans. There is still a lot of love and affection after 22 years. I can't see that ever changing. I'm looking forward to retiring and spending all my days with him.

Known him 27 years, together 24. We spend a lot of time together, we talk a lot and enjoy each other's company. My parents have been married 61 years, they're the same as us, together a lot and always interacting.

OP, he’s not prioritising your relationship as evidenced by his spending most of his time and a chunk of money on other things. It’s making you sad. You need to tell him. X

FWIW am in the same boat. The Conversation About It is on the agenda for this week: hobbies are decreased and he’s off work so has had a chance to decompress a bit. Hope it is a conversation that has a good outcome.

Absolutely. Married for 43 years, together nearly 50. We've always spent a lot of time together walking, shopping, exercising, socialising etc. We spend a lot of time travelling too, including some very long drives across Europe trapped in the car together, never bored.
Love him to bits and can't imagine a life without him.
We used to be pretty social people but to be honest these days we find most other people ultimately disappointing😄

@HamBone yes it's terrible for his health and I hate it. But I've learned over the years that you can't make someone stop these things, it has to come from them. He stopped smoking once, I'm encouraging him to try again, but I'm not hopeful. I've managed to get him to cut his daily drinking down to four days a week during term time (it's still daily In holidays).

Dh and I have been together 29 years married 27. We realised this year we had got out of the habit of spending time together. So we have started a Saturday breakfast. We go down to town and have breakfast. Sometimes coffee and croissant other times a full English. But we take that time 3 Saturdays out of 4 (the 4th I am one course)

It works really good and our relationship has improved as we know we get that time.

@ElbowsandArses I've discussed this many times with him in the past but nothing ever changes.

Absolutely yes, together for getting on for 20 years.

Saturday night is always date night, just a bottle of wine and watch TV together.

Always try to chat at lunch time when he's at work on his break.

Send each funny memes or links to interesting articles etc.

Still get a little flash of happiness when he texts to say he's on his way home from work 🙂 so I can handover the children to him 😂

I find a good tv series helps! The type you don't just watch but want to talk about after - Line of Duty was great for this. Or the news, so we can shout at it. Actually going out together is once in a blue moon though.

Why are you still together if you feel like that? Life's too short! Get a divorce and either spend time happily alone, or go with someone who will make you feel loved!

20 years married in 2023, 2 teenagers living at home but both can drive so we’re no longer needed as a taxi service. We spend the majority of our spare time together. Weekday evenings usually just watching tv, weekends go for a long walk, or sailing, kayaking. Might go to gym together. Tend to go to bed together and listen to a podcast or the radio. Also have our own interests and friends and might do separate visits to family.

23 years
Take turns to bring up breakfast in bed on weekends and holidays and chat and relax
Go for a walk and a drink after work on a Friday, support each other with work
May or May not go out somewhere on the weekend, go to gigs and comedy nights
Sit together part of most evenings different sofas
Talk a lot about our dc (positively)
We really enjoyed a few trips away without the dc recently
We would like to have a shared sport or hobby but that hasn't worked out

I agree.

Married for 33 years, together for 36.

OP is retired, I work pt but will be retiring this year and we take it in turns to take out our SEN AS so that already makes it different to other couples. But we have always maintained separate friendships and hobbies throughout our dating and married lives (so, 36 years) and can be independent while still spending Sundays and many evenings together. I have never wanted to be joined at the hip with any man, even when dating, and luckily he’s pretty similar. If anything happened to either of us, we wouldn’t suddenly be cast adrift, we’d have our own lives and friendships, we’d not have to create new ones. I couldn't bear to spend all my spare time with one person, I’d find that worrying and suffocating. I’d certainly not feel smug.

Anyone whose spouse is retired will know how much you are naturally thrown together of course so it’s even more important to have outside, separate interests. It keeps us both stimulating and interesting to each other and keeps the social wheels turning. And friendships are important - vital in fact.

The important thing is to find something that you are both happy with, OP.

This sums up me and DH except that it’s 26 years married for us. He’s still the person I love being with the most.

32 years together and both retired.

We spend most of our time together and love it.
We dog walk separately and we aren't glued to each other. Quite often, during the day , we'll be in different rooms doing whatever.
But intrinsically we're happy in each other's company.