What do you talk about if your in a long term relationship

[Dogmum40]

Hi everyone,

Could I ask opinions on what you actually chat about if you’ve been together long term?

My husband and I have been together 15 years and I think we’ve lost the art of communication, we run two businesses together and have no children so when we’ve finished work and sat down for dinner or go on date nights we just talk about business, we have a great relationship on the whole and we are definitely equals in everything we do but I just think we struggle to chat nowadays, we sat down for dinner last night and I told him I didn’t want to discuss the businesses but what followed was an awkward silence.

We don’t laugh or joke anymore either because I don’t think we no longer no how, we either discuss business or watch tv! If we go out with friends separately we do chat about that and what our friends are up to but that’s only every so often and for on about half an hour or so.

So how do you get the conversation back, and what do you all chat about, any ideas would be great!

we used to talk about everything.

Perhaps doing separate things would bring new topics of conversation. Even reading different books or articles that you'd share because it was something interesting.
Working together does unfortunately keep the work topic on the table 24/7.
We've been married forever and ever and the most engaging conversations are about sharing what we saw/heard/did separately.
The dogs feature heavily but we actually enjoy that topic.
Obviously our kids.
Then mundane boring stuff like what needs fixing/ booking/ buying etc

I listen to a lot of podcasts on Audible and BBC Sounds which cover all sorts e.g accounts of boat disasters, celebrity/successful entrepreneur's autobiographies, true crime, current issues e.g climate change and big authours such as Stephen King.
This often fuels my conversations when I've not done much out and you can listen to them when getting ready for work/driving etc - you will feel eager to talk about it and it sparks general chat.

Also most people I know go through phases of passionately discussing stuff that has come up on LBC.

I think you’ve just got into the habit of only talking about work, there is so much to say about politics at the moment start with that

also it’s probably that running a business is consuming your whole life so you probably need to look at that. Can you outsource bits. You probably both need to pick up hobbies and spent some non work time together as well as a bit more time with friends

we talk about politics, money, what do at the weekend - what’s on we’d like to see - who we’d like to see, the books we’re reading, dramas we’ve seen, docs we’ve seen, food, where we want to go for holidays / weekends, lots of random abstract why is life like this conversations, fitness, our families, pop culture stories, things we need / want to do at home, mental well being, how we’re both feeling, occasional veers into spirituality, occasionally he talks at me about sport, we do talk about our jobs but not at length.

Polluted bathing water (thank you southern water).
The weather.
Possibility of sex later, or some other form of intimacy. We both have physical issues that severely limit the "Sex of old", a relatively new learning curve going on.
Our new saucepans.
My rotten attempt at cooking my dinner yesterday, I was knackered. We both cook our own food as my wife has severe allergies and will only eat food that she has prepped and cooked.
Whether i should give the windows (externally) a 3rd coat of gloss, as it's acrylic paint, I didn't want to buy oil based paint as I have about 4 litres of the acrylic stuff lying around.

Surprisingly no mention of politics, from me, or the Tour de France by my wife, the day is young though!

I get you IP we have a joint business and yes it does come up 'a lot' . Been married 26 years and whilst not particularly happy due to his past behaviours, we do still talk a lot , get on well and I guess that's what kept me there.

Acquaintances
Our son (24)
Houses
Money
Music (a lot )
Films and tv
Twitter and Facebook things of interest
Holidays
Food (a lot) and diets we both like nice food
What Friends are up to
And yes- business stuff

If your marriage and mine don't work out, I'd quite like to shack up with you. I could happily talk about all of these.

We also talk a lot about wildlife. This is something that happens to you when you hit your fifties. You wake up one morning thinking Aren't Birds Brilliant? like Paul Whitehouse on The Fast Show. Then you buy bird feeders and spend hours every day saying, "I'm sure it was a linnet. It was too big to be a juvenile robin." Etc etc.

Hours of fun.

We've only been together 5 years so maybe not at the 'bored of each other' stage yet, but we talk about..

• Our days
• Our hobbies
• What we're watching on TV
• What our friends are up to
• Family matters
• Plans for the future
• Our business that we run together (we both have our own jobs too)

There's plenty to talk about! You lived with your parents for at least 18 years and still managed to speak to them, right?

That made me laugh! This is exactly what's happened here too. Not just birds either - I got very excited over an ants nest i accidentally disturbed the other day.
Watching them put it back together and sort out their eggs and larvae was astonishing!

I think if I was in your situation I would also talk about the business all the time. It's very absorbing to be involved in an intense shared activity together. Is that actually really a problem?

I have been with DH 24 years. We talk about the kids, politics, the news, his day, my day, and our shared activities (D&D and computer games). Sometimes we try and remember what we did on holidays years ago. We occasionally do run dry but DH is very interesting and reads a lot of news etc so there's normally something.

My relationship is still quite new but talking is important to me.

Work, politics, friends, history, linguistics, science, films, books, house stuff, travel and a lot about the environment. Were both activists so that is a big part or our conversation.

Also I tell DH about Mumsnet threads 🤣

Same!! @Aria999 !
Some time ago there was a 'what do you think about' thread (people's top three)
I dutifully wrote something like my adult kids, work, worrying about my old mum. Etc
But actually i ponder on all sorts of things thanks to MN posters. Ranging from politics to the frequency of my showers.
Consequently some of my prattling at DH that I mentioned upthread is variations of all that.

😆😆 birds are far more exciting than Vat and corp tax trust me!!!

I genuinely don’t think he would believe me if I told him some of the threads on here, he knows I’m on here but I genuinely don’t believe some of it so no idea how he would react, he does a have a good sense of humour to be fair to him so this could be a far more interesting dinner conversation than balance sheets

Business is important and one of them employes people so we take that responsibility very seriously but knowing we have very limited down time and unfortunately spend every waking minute together talking about business does get very tiresome very quickly! We are both guilty of putting business first so it’s not one persons fault over the other I just think we need to prioritise our marriage and personal life more now, I originally posted because of how silent we both went over dinner when I said no business talk and it upset me, we have a great marriage and there’s no one else in this world I want to be married to ( and I hope he feels the same) we do tell each other we love each other and kiss all the time etc but conversation has definitely taken a beating because of both businesses

Neither of us wanted children, I made it clear very early on when we dated that I didn’t want to be a mother and then he basically said thank goodness I don’t want them either so we are very well suited and used to have such a great time together but it’s definitely stagnated now

Be good to start a hobby together - give you more commonality

We chose not to have children and have never run out of conversation in 42 years. From what I see of friends and relatives there is more arguing between couples about children than talking. That's among the ones that are actually still together!

I look forward to our long conversations together.

The world “wouldn’t it be lovely to go to…”
Dreams “and then, a giant octopus came and…”
Goals/Ambitions “one day, I’d like to live in…”
plans - short and long term “tomorrow we’ll have x for dinner. Next week, we’ll move to Bolivia”
Fashion/shopping/gadgets “I really want to get a…”
Feelings/ our relationship “I liked it when you…”
Sex “I’m gonna get you later…”
Other people “isn’t so and so doing well/looking dreadful…”
Pets “have you seen the tick on x’s belly…”
The past “do you remember when…”

We also talk actual nonsense now and again. We play your team/my team when out and about. We make silly reciprocal noises in conversation.

DH definitely has a chat threshold tho, I could blather on for hours, he likes golden silence too.

This is the one question I never ask.

Politics
Stuff from the news
Obscure computer stuff
Our kids
Our families
The neighbours
Our friends
Whatever one if us is reading
Reminisce
And of course, what to have for dinner.