How to keep a relationship going when you have little in common?

[Lilak]

DP and I are in a rut. We’ve been together six years and have a toddler and my SC, so a lot of our conversations are about them or logistics. But it’s increasingly apparent that we have little in common. We love each other but is that enough?

How is this lack of anything in common manifesting itself? What was it that made you fall in love in the first place?

Find something your both interested in.

Whereabouts in your relationship is this standing out?
On the face of it dh and I have little in common. Work in totally different industries, have completely separate hobbies and mostly separate friendship groups, like different things on telly etc.
But we have a good, solid relationship, chat and laugh together and enjoy spending time together and with our kids.
We both live quite separate independent lives in a way but come together every day for some time together just the two of us. It works for us, other people would find it odd I’m sure!

Go back to what made you fall in love?

having small children is such a strain on even the most perfect relationship. Parenting is relentless and so hard and you lose yourself and sometimes your relationship. It will get better.

Do you get time together just you two? If not, is it something you could try and do? Go for dinner or a coffee and just relax and talk about anything other than family life.

wishing you the best OP. This part of life is hard.

We met during Covid, then had a busy few years of moving, changing jobs, have our baby.

Now things have settled down we don’t have much to talk about? We’ve both stopped drinking over the years too and used to like trying new bars.

I like healthy eating and cooking, walking, running, arts, museums, art house films, music, and work a desk job in technology. He likes horror and teenage type films, doing competitive team sports, takeaways, and works a physical job outside.

On the weekends or holidays, we do our separate things. I suggested a mini break to a European city to go to a specific gallery yesterday and he said he doesn’t want to go with me. I don’t feel very connected anymore.

Oh OP that sounds really sad, he doesn't want to go with you. I'd be devastated.

I think after 6 years, still relatively fresh, if he is feeling like this you need to have a honest conversation with him, you need to make some radical changes or draw a line under it.

Can you go on a night out together, meal and have a chat?

I think I am living your life in parallel.

Other than liking the same stuff on TV and the same dark sense of humour I don't think I have anything in common with DH, but 30 years later we are still sat laughing with and at each other of an evening.

Sounds lonely.
You need to find some new things in common, or agree to make an effort with each other’s interests (perhaps alternate?) or call it a day and separate. You can’t carry on as you are - that’s no way to live. ☹️

He didn’t say it in so many words, but suggested I go with a friend who’d appreciate it more. But the thing is, almost all of my friends who’d appreciate it are married to other people who’d appreciate it, and mostly have young families they want to spend their annual leave on.

It is lonely. We moved to be closer to SC too so I’m not around my old friends (and nor is he). We have both made new friends from our hobbies but there’s not much crossover and we increasingly socialise separately too.

We met during Covid, then had a busy few years of moving, changing jobs, have our baby.

I still don't understand how you didn't realise how little you had in common. Covid should have been the perfect opportunity for this given how much time you were spending with each other.

You're not the first and won't be the last couple who plunged headlong into Life Stuff to distract yourselves from your incompatibility, I guess. But you can't magic up "things in common" where none existed in the first place ("discovering new bars" doesn't count, it barely counts as a proper interest unless you're actually in that industry).

I'm also not sure what you mean by "we love each other" to be honest. I don't doubt that you care for each other and don't want to hurt each other - I feel like that about most of my friends. Romantic love isn't just a feeling though, it's about action, and one of the most important actions is to enjoy spending time with each other. Couples don't have to have everything in common, or even a lot in common, but the Venn diagram has to intersect somewhere.

I really don't mean to be rude but when I think back to when I was dating, and the amount of perfectly nice men I moved on from because we had too little in common, I just don't understand how that's not at the forefront of your mind when you're getting to know someone.

Oh dear I was the same with my ex husband and unfortunately once the kids grew up we realised we had absolutely nothing in common and didn't want to do the same things.

When it comes to the post young children years I think it's really important to have somebody who you want to be with or else you lead completely separate lives and like you say a lot of your friends have got husbands to be doing those things with so it's difficult to find people to do them with.

Ultimately we separated and I've now some found somebody who likes going to gigs and the cinema and the theatre and watching the same kind of TV programs as I do which makes life a lot less lonely I have to say.

It can be extremely lonely being married to somebody with whom you have nothing in common.

As for what you can do about it? Nothing really. You're not going to find common interests and activities in this relationship. So you can find them elsewhere - hobby groups, friends - and the relationship ends up being a business-like domestic arrangement for child-raising. (And I hope you're at least still attracted to each other.)

Or you separate and pay more attention to compatibility next time you go on dates.

Try a new bar. You don't have to drink. Go for a meal somewhere. You can have the healthier options on the menu. Try making a fake away together then eating in front of tv. You get healthy eating, he gets take away vibes. Take it in turns to organise a different activity that neither of you would normally do. Start with the letter A and work through the alphabet
So A - axe throwing B - basket weaving C - canoeing that sort of thing

I think @gannett makes a fair point — I would have agreed that Covid meant you had an extra-good grounding on what you had in common in the most basic sense, as there was so little you could do other than simply be together.

(I do also know of people in new relationships who jumped into living together far too soon because of Covid bubbling, but their fundamental incompatibility revealed itself very rapidly, and they split again..)

Is the sex life good?
Do you laugh together?

Not having similar hobbies etc is ok if when you do come together it's fun, you laugh, you want each other.

Small children do disrupt romance.

Maybe, finding something you both like will give you a chance to hang out.

For my grandparents it was dancing.
For my parents it is walking with the dogs.

Covid really made me rethink the conventional wisdom about "far too soon" to live with each other - it was beneficial to every Covid-era couple who bubbled with each other. Either they realised they were very incompatible very quickly, as you say, and got to move on sooner than they would have otherwise. Or they realised that despite only knowing each other for a month they were in fact very compatible and are blissfully still together.

Well, yes, exactly. I don’t personally know anyone who moved in with someone after a month or two because of Covid whose relationship survived it, but it was probably a deeply instructive experience either way…

ETA And one friend did say they had a lot of excellent sex for lack of anything else to do, before realising he was nice but dull…

I suppose it depends whether you feel like it's enough? I don't think you need to have joint hobbies / things in common? In fact I think it can be better if you don't as you have more to talk about...

Me and DH have nothing in common whatsoever on the face of it but we just get on brilliantly. There's nobody I would rather spend time with. He's genuinely my best friend and makes me laugh every day.

But if you're finding yourselves sat at dinner / on the sofa with nothing to talk about at all then yeah that's not great...

To outsiders we’re in the blissfully happy category. We don’t argue, we have a comfortable life, the kids are happy.

It’s just when they’re in bed, on the rare nights we’re both in and the toddler’s settled, and we sit down together, we don’t seem to have anything to say to each other but logistics.

I know he doesn’t want to separate.

Things in common don't matter as much as shared core values when it comes to compatibility, but a pretty important shared core value should be the importance of quality time with your partner and the pursuit of making them happy – and sometimes that can involve getting out of your comfort zone and doing things you wouldn't ordinarily do – especially in this season of life when kids are young and time is short.

He should be stepping up to reconnect with you in any way you can.

So what was it that drew you to him so much that you decided to have a baby with him?

Same here. We are married so have set our lives up together and are committed to that. I do wish things were different though it is lonely. We are sort of co parents / flat mates / best mates now but the passion is long gone and I dont think he ever had anything of interest in my topics of interest i just didnt notice when I was younger as he showed interest without real interest if that makes sense. Add kids in and our marriage has really taken a huge hit for various reasons.

I'm not a parent, but my parent friends have mostly told me how important it is to expressly forbid logistics chat from their date nights.

Politics and current affairs are not everyone's cup of tea but they are a good way of getting conversation going. Something's always happened, everything always changes, most people will have a strong opinion about something. Downside is how depressing it is of course, though maybe not as depressing as sitting in silence.

Or, now that you don't drink any more, you could pivot to restaurants instead of bars? They're more interesting for one thing.

Obviously you've listed your disparate interests to emphasise how far apart you are, but art house horror is a very plentiful cinema subgenre. There should be loads of films out there that have the slasher gore he wants but also the depth and sophistication you want.

This is all stuff you do when you're first dating though.

DP and I both got out of our comfort zones when we were first going out. Some of that stuff sticks - I appear to be a hiking person now, which would shock the 27-year-old me, and he has a much greater appreciation of certain music genres than he ever thought he would. But you can't fake an interest in what doesn't stick. I will politely listen to 5 minutes of snooker chat and that is my limit.