How much time do you have in your relationship to do your own thing?

[Rainydays55]

They say it’s really good in a relationship for each person to have their own time to do their own hobbies, see friends etc but how much time do you tend to do that whilst balancing a full time job and keeping the relationship strong? In a long term relationship do you try and have a date night once a month for example?

We've been together almost 20 years and bar work/family commitments and assuming it suits the other we're free to come and go.

We don't do a date night as such but do tend to have a Friday or Saturday night to watch movies/listen to music/talk utter shite - this week we played name that tune on YouTube - eat some food later on in the evening and have a few drinks. Not every week maybe but atleast once or twice a month!

I have plenty of time to do my own thing, as does my OH. There's no restrictions in my house.
I don't understand the date night thing. If you want to go out as a couple, then you do.

I do whatever I want.

hobby one evening per week. travel for work a few days per month (pre-covid). date night 3 or 4 times per year + movie nights at home more often.

A lot. We have no children, and we're more than happy to spend 95% of our time together to be honest - but in an average week, maybe 4-5 nights are us doing our own thing until late (10/11pm) when we might watch a film or just generally hang out. And the others are where we tend to spend the time together.

At weekends, we're equally comfortable doing stuff (or nothing) together as we are one of us going to stay with a friend, go out for the evening etc...

It's very relaxed, we don't plan or schedule out time to spend together, but then we don't really have restraints on our time that mean we need to - we both WFH a lot of the time so in some weeks if we've no social plans, we spend pretty much every hour of the day in each other's company apart from a few in the evening where we do our own thing.

Other weeks if I'm away with work and he's out at the weekend or vice versa, we might barely see each other for 5/6 days.

I go running twice a week and occasionally have the house to myself so have a rest / cuppa. DP works shifts so I sometimes have evenings just me. Also if I wanted to see my friends child-free then dp would have ds. That's about it really but that's all I need.

Quite a lot. We both have hobbies outside of each other that we pursue, I think that's healthy. We always have at least one full day a week together when we're not working, usually Sunday. On Saturdays we're often doing our own thing separately but occasionally we will stay in together. We both work during the week. It works well for us.

@OhGiveUp

I have plenty of time to do my own thing, as does my OH. There's no restrictions in my house. I don't understand the date night thing. If you want to go out as a couple, then you do.

Me too.

I always did my own thing, apart from things I did with my husband.

We can both do our own thing as much as we want but obviously with covid we've been doing a lot more together. We have our own friends that we meet separately but also a close gang of mutual couple friends that we'd often go out drinking and for meals with.

Date night once a month seems slack though. We don't have set date nights but we would definately go for dinner maybe twice a week and regularly go to things like wine tasting or cinema etc. We'd often go hiking together, take long drives, go away for the night in the campervan.

So yeah, we do our own stuff but also do a lot together, not consciously but just because we love spending time together. We're together for 12 years.

It’s interesting to hear how people strike the right balance!