DH and I are always in the same room

[hunkydorythefish]

DH and I are never ever in a room separately for more than 5 minutes in our house. It has always been this way. If we are both in the house, we will always be in the same room. If I want to cook but he doesn't, we go to the kitchen together etc.

Alone time is bathroom and work. I never minded this, it was just natural. There's no control element.

However, DH is a teacher and is at home several days a week now. I miss my space...I never realised how bad we were until I've just realised I wait until he's not home to have a long soak in the bath, I don't know why?

We work in the same room at home, we get lunch at the same time, we move into the living room at the same times and we go up to bed at the same time, we brush our teeth together and we fall asleep together. It's sickening.

How do I stop? it feels unnatural to not do it but I am becoming so very aware of the need for more space. I'm sure DH is too. He occasionally says he wants space and it lasts 5 minutes before he's back in the same room.

Anyone else!!!???

Neither of us realised we did it until recently.

so it wasn't a problem

and you both worked (full time?) jobs separately so you didn't have that much time together. Remove the time you sleep, there's nearly nothing left.

Now that you are based together, just makes small steps to change things if they bother you.

It sounds like me and my dp, but i love it.

We are both furloughed atm and we are with each other all the time (tbh we also work together so see a lot of eachother eithout furlough)

We have a tv set up in the bedroom and we sometimes mention that one person might watch something upstairs but it never happens, we both choose to.stay downstairs and watch something together.

I couldnt imagine living like some of the pps on this thread, saying they are rarely in the same room.as their dp throughout the day, but shows how people are different.

The one thing ive noticed since lockdown is dp is an early riser and im not. But i wake up when he gets up, stay in bed for maybe another 10 mins but then get up as well, to.go downstairs and snooze on the sofa. No idea why i cant just stay in bed to sleep, but i suppose i just like his company!

If I want to cook but he doesn't, we go to the kitchen together etc. - just why? Does he think you don't want to be alone, does he not want to be alone, what happens if you start cooking while he is still working or mid watching something on TV, does he just abandon that activity to accompany you?

In normal times we are both out the house for 12 hours a day, slightly differing times. Come home, eat, fall asleep. He does private tutoring at peoples houses, I eat out with friends a couple of times a week.

Our only hobby, so to speak, was the gym. Which we went to together. Every time. (But separate machines and no communication for the hour).

I know it sounds so simple to stop. But I can’t. He’s currently doing an online lesson and I’m sitting here wondering what to do. Occasionally I sit on the sofa in the study and do something whilst he does it.
Our lives revolve around each other.

He gets more frustrated than I do and sometimes says he wants time alone. But every time, without fail, he will do something for 5 minutes and come back to wherever I am.

Before lockdown we still did this, but had our lives outside of each other which have disappeared now. He’s still at school 2 times a week so has that socialisation, I have nothing :(

God that works drive me barmy! We watch tv in the Evenings together but apart from that we do our own thing in the house. It’s obviously bothering you so just stop it!

OP I am desperate to get some time alone. My DH works in the living room all day and is here all evening. It's relentless. Even an hour or two once a week would be an improvement

I think this lockdown is exceptionally hard. When they announced school closures I cried, I don’t even have kids

Just take yourself off for a bath after dinner tonight and keep doing it so it becomes a habit

Can you go for a walk at the weekend with a friend?

I usually have to go looking for OH.

@hunkydorythefish YANBU. This would drive me bonkers.

Me and DH have been together every day - (just me and him as DD has left home,) - since last March, (on furlough) apart from a 3 and a half month month spell between late July and early November. We have different hobbies and do stuff separately... We also have a few of the same hobbies and do some stuff together.

He goes to bed around 9.30pm and I go at around midnight. He gets up at 7-7.30am and I get up at around 9.30-10am. So I have time to myself at night... And HE has it in the morning.

I go for walks alone too, 3 or 4 times a week, (for one to two hours,) and a couple of times a week, I go with DH. We watch some TV programmes together, but sometimes I watch one of 'my' programmes on netflix or TV catch-up, on my laptop, whilst he watches one of 'his' programmes on the TV.

We definitely don't do everything together.

We also have SEPARATE BEDROOMS! Which (IMO) is the key to a happy marriage. We have had separate bedrooms for about 14-15 years, and I would NEVER go back.. It's utter bliss.

I never really liked sharing a bed and a bedroom with him, as I love my own space. I had my own bedroom in my parents house growing up, and also when I lived on my own for several years before me and DH got our own place together.

After 10-11 years or so of living together, DH started to snore at night... After another 3 or 4 years, it got so bad that I told him flat out that I was making the spare bedroom mine, and was no longer sleeping with him. (We still had/have sex, but I went/go back to my bedroom after...)

He was more than happy with this, as he got as fucked off with being jabbed in the ribs, shoved and poked, and woken up because of his snoring, as I did of spending every night struggling to sleep, and suffering from sleep deprivation.

I honestly can't fathom how anyone can share a bed with their partner long-term, for 30, 40, 50 years plus. My older relatives (grandparents/ aunts and uncles/ great aunts and uncles, older neighbours etc etc, etc,) shared a bed with their spouse til the day one of them died. But the women in each couple complained profusely for YEARS about the other one's snoring, grunting, coughing, and rolling about in the bed and poking them.

But no WAY would they have separate bedrooms. 'What kind of married couple has separate bedrooms?' a great aunt of mine said once? 'Oh the SHAME!'

I thought 'a sensible married couple, who want to make sure they get the sleep they NEED! That's what kind of married couple sleeps in separate bedrooms!'

This attitude (from some) that a married couple must share a bed forevermore, no matter how uncomfortable or unpleasant it is, is extremely bizarre and VERY outdated.

I am not that close with anyone local (I usually commute to the City where all my friends live).

Our lives are so intertwined. I took up crafting during lockdown which has just resulted into doing separate activities in the same room together.

I feel like not doing things together is weird?
I think it's happened because we both worked a lot, so evenings/weekends were 'our time'. Now every day is 'our time' and we don't know how to stop.