How much time do you and DH spend together?

[FlighHi]

DH and I have realised that the average week we will only spend approx. 3 or 4 evenings together. Once the kids are in bed we will use these evenings to snuggle up on the sofa and we’ll chat or watch stuff on TV together. Occasionally we might play a card game. The other nights we will have a cup of tea and a chat then split to different rooms. He will play guitar/ read/ play video games and I’ll watch TV/ listen to a podcast/ Crochet. Now I work from home I seem to get more
lonely than usual on these nights.

Is our routine usual? Do you spend more/ less time together?

That sounds about normal to me - many people have hobbies that aren't practical to do around other people. However, people have different needs so I wouldn't say you're abnormal - it's possible you're more extroverted than he is. It doesn't replace the need for time with one's partner, but do you have friends as well?

When you are spending time together, is it fulfilling for you? Is he mentally, not just physically present? How much time do you actually spend in conversation, looking at each other face-to-face, with eye-contact? If you're spending a lot of your together time looking at a screen, as snuggly as that might be, you might not be registering that as intimacy.

We usually chat for about half an hour and then watch things, so maybe it’s not enough actual conversation for me. He is more introverted than I am so that comes into it I think. I have a few close friends but we wouldn’t message/ speak every day so now I’m not socialising with colleagues I think I need him more for my social interaction. It’s difficult trying to change the pattern of the last decade though, especially when prior to now we’ve both been happy.

My partner and I don’t live together yet fully however we spend at least 7 days out of a fortnight together ( days and nights when we wfh) and also weekends when we are fully child free. We’ve been together 4 years so out of honeymoon phase however we do sit together every night .. we watch something or talk through it, snuggle, have herbal tea or a drink … we are intimate either in the morning or night. What’s changed to make you unhappy? Or less happy? Do you want to spend more time with DH? My partner more introverted but he knows what I like so he will book dinner ( as I like going out) but will book it for 7pm ( which I used to find early but I’ll go along with it as it’s still fun and suits him) . Do you feel lonely on your relationship is what I’m really asking or lonely and want company outside of the home?

We’ve been together 13 years. We have 2 children, who are 10 and 7. He has a intense socially demanding job and is a natural introvert. He comes home and wants to decompress alone once the children are in bed. I on the other hand am more extroverted but work in a environment where it is just me and little social interaction. So I feel like when he gets home I need him for my social interaction and he needs the opposite. He also has hobbies that he likes to do alone. So do I. But it’s finding a balance.

I think I would feel suffocated if we spent all night every night together, so I’m not asking for that either. I just can’t figure out what to ask for.

Dh and I rarely intentionally do things without the other, I guess, but I wouldn't say we 'spend the evenings together'. By the time we've done dinner, kids' homework, bath times and bedtimes, it's 9-10pm. We tidy up the house, let the dog out, and get ready for bed. Sometimes on a Saturday, we might watch tv together for an hour, but if given the choice between 1 hour of tv and 1 hour more sleep, I'd almost always choose sleep and go to bed.

We are together all the time though as both largely work from home, so we are mostly in the same space, I may be in my office and he may be outside in his workshop or in the kitchen on laptop, but we are both around. And then after the usual afternoon running around after school, we are almost always both home for a family dinner and in the evenings getting kids ready for bed. But we rarely, say, watch a film alone or play a board game or cook a meal together just the two of us, because we don't have much alone time without dc.

We do have separate hobbies though and we do do those individually, just maybe more on weekday afternoons or weekends rather than in the evenings, per se.

Married 17 years. 2 teen DC. DH works away Mon- Thurs so I’m on my own those days. We don’t spend that much time together at weekends as tag teaming dc’s stuff and our hobbies. Somehow it seems to work. I do see other adults during the week so I don’t lose the art of conversation 🤣.

We usually spend 3/4 nights together during the week, as one or the other of us, usually me tbh, is out socialising another night. He plays games online with his friend on Sunday night, works for us.

In our younger days I worked away from home a lot so we didn't spend as much time together as we probably should.

We're retired now so spend a lot of time together, almost all the time. Fortunately we still get on well together.

We've been together seven years, have one three year old and a baby on the way. We spend all our spare time together though on Wednesdays we're also spending that time with our Dungeons and Dragons group. I also have Zumba for an hour on Thursday which I go to alone.

Do you think you are feeling like you need to connect more in some way? I get that sense that you feel you are missing something?

Married for 17 years with 2 teens, if DH is at home (he can be away with work a couple of nights a week) then we always spend our evenings together, usually just snuggling watching Netflix. Weekends we are generally together, we will do a date night once a week usually on a Friday or Saturday. Weekend mornings always start with a coffee in bed, followed by a dog walk, one of us will then make breakfast. We may then split off for a couple of hours, he may potter in garden and I’ll have a tidy round or drive one of the kids somewhere then afternoons we are together, we are boring home bods, in the summer we will usually be found with a bottle of bubbly in the garden, in the winter it will be a bottle of red in front of the fire - if the kids are out then it’s a bottle of wine in bed. It’s only been as our children have gotten older that we have been able to be together so much as in younger years we would be split with a child each who were doing different activities.

I absolutely love how much time we spend together now, we both cannot wait to retire and for everyday to be a weekend day 😬

May sound mad to some but we spend nearly all of our spare time together. He’s not just my husband but my best friend too. I will do other things with friends butI in general I look forward to just being with my husband or socialising as couples.