Weekends are so boring and quite depressing

[Weekendboreoff]

Are they fun for you? AIBU?

I don’t have many local friends (we moved, we live in a nice area but I don’t like it).

On the weekend, I take the kids to their hobbies in the morning. I go for a swim.

Then… that’s it. The rest of the aimless, dull day to fill each day. It’s depressing.

What do you all do if you enjoy the weekends?

I end up looking on my phone, which makes me depressed. I’m not into tv. I like to read, so I do that a bit too.

My kids play out with other kids while I just… feel depressed at the state of my dreary life. DH plays video games.

Join a new running club then?

I love the weekends! Don’t have to get up so early to start with. Then I take my time having coffee and breakfast. The rest of the weekend is a mix of family, laundry and other housework, the gym, cooking and baking. All at my own pace. I love it.

I couldn’t stand that. We go for days out visiting a seaside town or somewhere to look around. We’ll usually eat out or get ice creams etc. Otherwise, we’ll do a walk, go to cinema, visit friends/family, go to a food festival or market. There are loads of things to do.

I have got madly into orienteering of late. The whole family can do it, together or separately, fast or just strolling, reading a map to take your mind off exercise, mental challenge. Takes you all over. Such an underrated sport. See British Orienteering website for more details.

There was a post on my local facebook a few years ago inviting people to meet up in a local coffee shop every Saturday afternoon if they wanted to make new friends/have a chat/get to know people in the area. It was arranged by a lady who moved to the area and was feeling lonely. She asked the coffee shop to reserve a table thinking if no one turned up she could have coffee and cake. About ten turned up day one and it grew week by week. Many friendships have been made out of it. It is a varied bunch of people each week and people drop in and out. There are people who now live abroad who call in when they are home on holidays

Ask your husband to spend time with you rather on video games.

I love weekends- mine always feel very busy and I'd love a three day weekend. I work FT in a stressful job so catch up on housework/life admin/grocery shopping.

Youngest DC goes to her dad's every other weekend. If I've got her, it's dancing one day and the other day we go out somewhere & do homework/reading. Sometimes we watch older DC at football.

If it's weekend off, I go out on Saturday night and sometimes Friday as well, with friends or the guy I'm casually dating.

I don't any hobbies except downtime watching telly/scrolling mindlessly on my phone.

I LOVE weekends. Still looking to start a family so being child free gives me time to myself at the weekend.

I wake up, tackle the cleaning, washing, all the boring stuff on a Saturday morning usually. Then by about midday DH and I decide if we are going to the pub where we will get some proper much needed pub grub after a week of working, or stay in and watch a film. Or he does his own thing of fixing up stuff and I do us a curry or indian dish, then shower and do a skincare routine (it has helped with de-stressing as I have had problems lately) with my serums and moisturisers, then I sit with a cuppa and our dog with a furry throwover.

Sometimes can change, e.g. we went to his sister's birthday a couple of weeks ago, so we had our downtime day on Sunday :)

What did you do at weekends as a couple before children?

Surely you used to spend time together having fun, otherwise why marry him.

Do that, and bring the children along

How is everyone getting all this leisure time at the weekend? I work full time, single parent and this weekend I've been meal planning, shopping, cleaning and hoovering the car, washing, ironing, cleaning the house, school admin, home admin. We had a few hours out at an event?
What am I going wrong?

I love walking. Try allTrails to find public footpaths and easy walks near you and take a picnic, there’s always lots to amuse kids like skimming stones, climbing etc

I think as a family you need a compromise - so for instance Saturday kids go to their club / you swim or run/ dh plays games. Kids play with friends in afternoon, dh stays at home. You go to a nice coffee shop & read for an hour with coffee & cake.

Sat eve you have family movie night - plan a fun meal that's a bit of a treat for you all, popcorn etc

Sunday you collectively plan a day - Sunday funday - Could be a trip to a beach / forest/ Castle/ Park/ village / city / zoo / lake / playground - there are so many things to explore & do & it's important to get dc exposed to more than being at home.

Make a picnic even if its just a cake baked on Saturday & brought with flask

Organise a babysitter once a month & gp to cinema/ theater/ pub / dinner etc with dh

Life's too short to sit at home & kids should not be ruling the roost for the whole weekend- everyone has to have things they enjoy

My dc are teens now but we always made the most of weekends & still do

@treacletofeez I mainly try and do all errandy stuff on one day then have my ME day on the other. But I appreciate that you are a single parent (I'm childfree). A big part of having leisure time for me was deciding to sod all the events. Was never gonna get my own time otherwise. I go to an event maybe twice a year.

I've had huge backlash from people but I tell them to eff off now, no one bothers. They know my idea of fun is sitting by myself with a coffee at home rather than be at their event. I'm quite boring though haha x

So join a running club. Why hasn’t that occurred to you op?

@Schmoana make a rule that no more these jobs can't happen at weekends.

Do as much as you can at lunchtimes during the week - admin stuff.

Get organised after work so housework isn't building up. I often give the house a good tidy up on Friday eve. 1 hour limit. Clean bathroom, dust downstairs, load dishwasher, put random items away etc I do it while dinner is cooking.

Then once dinner is tidied up. I light some candles & relax. It's so nice waking up sat morning to a clean & tidy house & getting on with the weekend

I've just signed up to the bluetits outdoor swimming group.
Seem like a lively social group.

Try to find one near you ?

For me too.

DS has ASD and needs quiet time on weekend to unwind from sensory pressure of school during the week. This means no visitors in the house. Also, because he is a highly anxious, Velcro child, means he wants me close by. (Although he doesn't want to 'do' anything. Generally just sit in a quiet house with his thoughts.) I'm a natural extrovert. I love big noisy gatherings. The sense of isolation I get from sitting with DS weekend after weekend is crippling at times....

Oh I did too! We always made the most out of them. Had National Trust membership for a while. I work term time only so I went out and about with them during the holidays too. Then when DS1 was about 14 he started looking less excited to go out and do some of those family things. How dare he not find my company amazing anymore! 😂Oooh the rejection!

They still enjoyed doing long walks somewhere new when teenagers,, proper walking if we went somewhere like the Lakes for a weekend and got off the beaten track. But the local places they'd seen many times before they started growing out of. Cinema trips were ok but sometimes a lack of choice as DS2 was a bit young for some of the films for a while. It seems to get more expensive as they get older as they can't get "kids eat free" deals so eating out is expensive. Then they want to just hang out with their mates.

Now they are 17 and 19 it gets a bit lonely now. The 19 year old lives away most of the year at uni (has summer job there), the 17 year old doesn't even want to watch telly with just us anymore, he's just gaming all the time or out with his mates. Me and DH are now over 50 and have little energy left by the weekend and end up just trying to catch up on rest, or do housework. So he just sits watching his programmes or working on his computer, and I just try to avoid getting up because all I usually have to look forward to is a weekend of housework or sitting on my phone. It's easy to get stuck in a rut without realising it.

OP, you've got to get your DH on board with doing family things at the weekend, rather than him just gaming all the time. That's boring for you. What's the point of having a family if they don't want to spend time with you.

Apart from that, if you want to socialise with others as a hobby, have you thought of all the usual stuff like book clubs, WI, community gardening groups, am dram or choir etc?

sorry, hadn't RTFT, just seen about the book club. I'll read the rest now!

What about a running club? If you miss it and enjoyed it then that makes a lot of sense?

I do think you sound a bit defeated, and wanting to blame everyone else rather than taking action. You can't only enjoy working? What did you do before DC?

Also since I got married, I don't go to events. I'm "the person who doesn't show up anywhere." Apparently a big issue was caused out of that but I wasn't there to hear it. Sure you can invite out of politeness, but how do people not realise (especially as adults) that people have their own lives? (I'll go to things if I feel I have to make an appearance, e.g. funerals, big birthdays)

Eh you could say I'm a lazy fucker but I work full time and my weekends are for DH and me. I just say nope I have to be in bed by 9pm and do my skincare 😂 Skincare has become a big part of self-care for me. I do it then drink either a latte/green tea. Yeah it's boring but I have always had very little energy for socialising. I'm always tired and I like to rest at the weekends

We usually have a day out on a Saturday, even if it's just out for dinner it breaks the weekend up.

We do a lot of pit bikes/quad biking too.

Weekends are literally spare time to do whatever you want. If you find anytime you are not working dull, that's incredibly sad.

Don't you like spending time with your partner/ kids? There are lots of things you can do that don't even cost money - walks around local reserves, parks, forests, beaches (all depends on where you are in the country). There should be local maps/walks on your council website or similar.

If walking isn't your thing there may be local animal or wildfowl places near by that are free to visit (for example there is a farm near me that rescues animals that's free to visit).

If there are NT or English heritage sites near you, membership means you can visit an unlimited number of times per year and they have seasonal events/trails for kids.

Or what about visiting a new town or village? And then enjoying a nice pub lunch or even tea and cake in quaint tea shop.

Heritage railways are another nice day out.

And then there are the conventional obvious things - cinema, bowling, shopping centres, crazy golf, soft play (depending on kids age), zoos/farms, theme parks, activity centres

If you are staying at home you could devote time to hobbies - maybe start something new like knitting, painting. Or you could do some baking or cook a new dish.

Really it all boils down to, can you be arsed? Or do you just want to be lazy? If it's the latter then that's the issue, lack of motivation to actually do something. There are lots of things you can do.

Sounds like your dp should help with the clubs. Also, maybe have one of the days free that isn’t dictated by your dc hobbies. Sounds like everyone has what they wants and you don’t.

The running club I was part of formed quite organically through a group of friends. I hadn’t really thought about joining a pre-existing thing. Probably because I’m not an amazing runner!