Evenings at home...

[HandMini]

We put our children to bed by about 7pm most nights.

After that, in the evening, DH will spend a significant amount of time messing about on the Internet. Some of its work, some of its Facebook/Twitter, some of its useful stuff like updating car insurance. But I find he gets very zoned out by it and can easily spend three hours in an evening completely absorbed by computer and not even turning round to answer me.

So, I often read a book / potter round the house / watch a Tv program while he's doing this.

I've told him that I feel this isn't great for our relationship / isnt making time for each other, but I do accept that sometimes he needs to do family stuff and sometimes it's nice to have some time alone to do you own thing.

So, very long backstory to simply asking how much time you and your partner spend actually together during the evenings and how much time you're doing separate things.

Also how you spend your evenings at home depends what you do the rest of the time.

We go out a lot - either to friends for supper or theatre etc (this often involves me going out & him joining us when he's finished work).

So when we are staying in, we want quality time.

For couples who are more homebodies, they have much more time together in the evening so it may feel less of a premium.

I love my DH and the feeling is mutual. We still speak to each other on the phone once during the day ending in 'I love you'. We never row. Go out with each other once a month and out as a family once a week. If we have a BBQ we will sit out side as a family for hours chatting the night away. We eat as a family every night and spend plenty of family time at the weekends. However, we spend very little time together during the evenings - and we both like it that way. He hates my rubbish TV - I hate his rubbish TV. We meet in the kitchen or garden occasionally each evening and have a quick kiss or cuddle but I can not remember the last time we sat in the same room together on an evening.

"cog coffee before bed? I'd be wide awake."

That was the general idea.....

Oh! That's a good tip cog

My DP works until 6pm so doesnt get home until about 7.30-7.45pm. Usually I am trying to put the children to bed and if he is home he will help. We eat together once the children are in bed. I would love to be able to eat at an earlier time but feel it is important to eat together as we'd hardly have any time together. He also spends a lot of time in the evening working on his laptop preparing work stuff but we try to watch a movie together sometimes. I do sometime feel his work controls our life and would like for us to have more us time during the week.

I think the internetting per se is maybe a red herring. We both spend most of the average evening on the internet - it's basically our TV - but talk to each other on and off (about interesting stuff we're reading usually). So we don't "zone out" as such. The zoning out thing can happen with TV as well (my dad used to do it, it was maddening).

That's true. I think I can be doing MN in the background and yet still keep a conversation going, concentrate on other tasks, do a bit of pottering housework, whereas DH seems to get "lost" in the internet and just totally absorbed.

I had a similar situation with my husband. We'd eat tea, then he'd be busy on laptop, in garden, going for a run. It felt like there was aways something he needed to do. Then he wanted to watch crap tv and read his book!!!! I'd end up going up to bed early on my own and feeling resentful to be honest. I'd be in bed wishing he would just turn the tv off, sod the bloody garden, and come to bed and spend some time together. He'd then come to bed really late and expect me to want to have sex! I wanted his time, cuddles, conversation and then sex. We has big chat about this. I felt strongly that our relationship needed time. I look after our kids every day and I need company in the evening and I needed his attention. Now I came up with idea that up till 9.30 do what you like; get jobs done, chill in front of tv. But at 9.30 it's our time. So everything switched off and we spend an hour or two of quality time together, before going to sleep. This may seem extreme and a little 'control freak' but our relationship has improved so so much. We are really connected now. Our sex life has improved hugely and I feel so much more loved by him now. I believe a relationship needs effort to thrive. There are times when things slip and we go back to how things were, and the effect in our relationship is instant. My mood lowers and I just don't feel happy. It may sound needy, but I do need that time in the evening to connect, to feel important and loved. Nothing is worse than your partner choosing golf on tv rather than time with you! Lol My advice after this huge long winded post; is talk about it, tell him what you need and want.

Great post Seb. Setting out clear "you time" and "us time" if it isnt happening naturally helps stop resentment on both sides.

By the way how's it going OP?