Question for parents of 11-14 year olds

[SettledAndHappy]

If you have children who are age 11-14, how much time alone do you get with your spouse/ partner in a typical week?

I'm thinking (a) general time to chat without children trying to join the conversation and (b) proper "couple time" when you can be intimate together. Also (c) how often do you go away overnight without your children?

Our children have additional needs and the answer for us is (a) 5-30 mins on most days, (b) about an hour once a month or so and (c) never.

My husband is convinced that almost every other couple has masses of intimate time every week and that everyone else goes away without their children all the time and he feels hard done by as a result. I don't think other people have as much child-free time as he reckons.

Intimate time - never! One DC goes to bed after us and the other gets up before us. Once in a blue moon they are both out at the same time. We get quite a lot of time to chat as they are often in their rooms. Don't really go away without them as have limited time and budget and prefer to spend it all together.

Dh and I have had 1 night away from DC in 17 years when both were on school trips at the same time. I hear you.

We had a night away probably about 5 years ago. We don’t really get time to go out on an evening cos the kids are with us (11&15). Although Friday night they both went on sleepovers with friends so had a child free night

Thanks for the replies. 🙂

When children were that age never went away at all. Even now in 20s maybe go away 1 night a year.

The only time Dh and I have together is the 10 minutes or so before we go to bed every night. But that isn’t really because of our preteen, it’s more because of our 6 year old. If I didn’t have a younger one, we wouldn’t have a child to supervise in the bath and put to bed, so we’d have most evenings together.

We don’t ever really have a night away, but that’s because we have no family support, and we can’t just leave the kids home alone. If we only had one, we’d have time when she was at a sleepover or away at a residential, but even when older one is away, we still have younger one. I have a friend who is a single parent with 4 dc 7-15, and she gets nights away every couple weeks and loads of nights out and dates and goes to gigs and clubbing because her parents sometimes have her dc 4 nights a week. It’s all down to how much help you have.

With only an 11-14 year old, I think you would have part of most evenings together and could manage a few dinners out a month when they are at a friends. But that totally depends on finances and work schedules.

For us, the answer to child free time when you don’t have any out of hours childcare is we go away separately. Dh and I both have child free holidays but while the other is home with the dc.