How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? This includes bars, dinner, golf, poker, sporting events (to arenas or just on TV).
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse?
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)?
My wife and I have constant disagreements about what is appropriate for numbers 4 and 5. I thought a poll of reasonably intelligent and modern-thinking people might provide a good idea of the trends.
Male
14 years this month
Two children, girl 8 and boy 6
5-10*
10-15
1**
I think you should also add the number of times per month that your spouse goes out without you. Mine hardly ever does even when I encourage her to do so (“Girls night out” or something just to blow off steam). Maybe once a month right now.
*Some of the “pleasure” stuff is a mixture of pleasure and networking. For example I go to a “Stammtisch” at a local microbrewery where I drink beer and socialize with other folks who are also mainly small business owners. Ditto Chamber of Commerce events.
**We are working on this number now that we are down near family; I would prefer it at 5-10. At least once a week.
Much less than once a month. We’re just not really “going out” type people. The last time I can remember going out for pleasure without my wife was to a ballgame last October.
Maybe once a month. About two thirds of the time it will be with friends, the other third of the time it will be just the two of us.
0, but then I’m lame. If I wanted to we’d be ok with once a week.
5a) Including or not including kids? If we include the kids, probably 3x a month. Without the kids maybe once a month but that is about to be upped to a weekly date night starting in September.
1)Male.
2) 5yrs 4months.
3) t minus 5 months and counting!
4) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? 2-3
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse? ~ 10
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)?
3-4
How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? Once or twice, if you don’t count grocery shopping.
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse? 10 or more
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)? 2 or more
Consider that the kid is under a year, we don’t have much in the way of baby sitters, so our averages are off.
He ‘gets out’ more than I do, mostly because he’ll do things like drive our grandomther around and go shopping after and because I still do things like lactate to put the kid down for the night.
0
5a. 3-with the kids 0-without the kids
5b. 0
The Zeros are not meant to mean absolutely never, but to make it less confusing I’ve averaged less than once every month to be zero.
How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? This includes bars, dinner, golf, poker, sporting events (to arenas or just on TV).
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse?
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)?
Male
5 years
None
3
5a) 6
5b) 2
Actually, if there actually is any tension in our marriage (and there’s really not) it’s that 4-5 thing.
If I didn’t have to consider her at all, I’d probably play chess 2 times a week, sit in a bar 2 times a week, get together with the guys once a week for playing and/or watching NASCAR, and so #4 would be 16-20 at the end of the month.
The thing is – she’s just not into going out with the girls. I’d still have a bunch of fun going to bars to watch races and games every week, but she’d be twiddling her thumbs at home. She doesn’t like to go to bars at all.
So, therefore, we both stay home. Which is fine, too.
Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a problem – just a little bit of me pulling to head out more, and her pulling to keep me in more.
I know guys that golf/drink one day, play pool/drink the next, play cards/drink the next, go to a game/drink the next.
4) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? This includes bars, dinner, golf, poker, sporting events (to arenas or just on TV).
Pretty close to zero – once every few years my friends might do a girly trip or something.
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse?
10-12
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)?
Not many, except for special occasions. We like to include friends when we can, but schedules are hard to coordinate and most of them have kids. Most of the time when we go out, it’s spur-of-the-moment.
I should add that neither of us has a gang of same-sex friends; most of our friends are either “singles” (not part of a “friend group”) or couples we became friends with after we got married. Also, we are one of those sickening joined-at-the-hip couples who like to do almost everything together; like Gravity, we just don’t have as much fun without the other one around.
Our take is, what’s the point of being married if you don’t like to spend time with that person?
0 (she drives the car, I don’t)
5a) 3-4
5b) 0 (qualifier - we both work with people who are all up to 25 years younger than us, and neither of us considers it a healthy pursuit to have close friends who would be the ages of our children, if we had any.)
It wouldn’t be fun without him. But he goes to play DnD with his friends once a week, and I hang out at home, where I want to be anyway.
5a) Oh, a lot. At least twice a week.
5b) About twice a month. Our friends don’t live very close.
Next to never. As Gravity said, things just aren’t as much fun without her around.
5a) Depends…during football season, we usually go to a bar for Monday Night Football. So we’ll call it 6-10 times per month during the season, 3-5 times in the offseason.
5b) Maybe 3-4 in season, 0-1 offseason.
Female, married just over a year and a half, no kids.
How often do I go out without him? Three to four times a month, if you count trips to the fabric store. Maybe once a month if you don’t count that.
We go out to dinner or see a movie once or twice a week, so…maybe six times a month. Of that, we have other people with us maybe once a month. That number was higher when we lived in Kentucky, but down here we don’t really have any mutual friends.
I have to say, JJ, that you seem to get out a hell of a lot for a guy with a nine-month-old baby. Judging by your numbers, you’re going out every other day. The parents I’ve known over the years counted themselves lucky to get out of the house once a week, alone or together. It also seems to me that between child care and going out with friends, you haven’t really left much time for you and your wife to have quality one-on-one time, which could be a lot of the reason for the disagreements.
I need to keep these three questions together, because it’s quite hard to answer them separately.
My wife and i are both grad students, both in the same department, and neither of us is in our home town. Consequently, most friends we have here in Baltimore are our friends, rather than my friends or her friends.
This does not mean that we’re joined at the hip. We still do go out without one another. While we enjoy watching movies together, there are some films that only one of us wants to see, and we sometimes go with other people but without each other. I play in a friendly softball league, and she’s not at all involved in that.
Because we hang out together so much at home (and because most of our work is also done at home), we don’t tend to go out together, just the two of us, very often. But occasionally, we will go on a “date,” where we go out for dinner, movie and drinks without anyone else.
If i were to put numbers to the things you’ve asked, i’d say:
3-5
5a. 4-10
5b. Most of the time. We only go out just as a couple about once a month.
JJ I’m recently widowed but if you don’t mind I’d like to fill out your poll.
Your sex. male
How long have you been married? 12 years
Number and ages of your kids, if any. two 14 & 15 from her previous marriage
How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITHOUT your spouse? This includes bars, dinner, golf, poker, sporting events (to arenas or just on TV). none without her
5a) How many times in an average month do you go out for pleasure WITH your spouse? That varies a lot depending on what the kids are doing, school year, vacations etc. but I’d say 5 or 6 times a month just she and I. A few more with the kids.
5b) Of these, how many times does it include friends (not just the 2 of you)? We always went out just the two of us. We’d usually run into our friends though wherever we went. It’s a small town. We did stay home and enjoy each other’s company alone quite a bit. I’d take her out for a quick bite or go for a drive and/or slip into the grocery store for whatever she might’ve been craving. Go home and prepare supper, grill a steak usually. Then light some candles and put on some music and start filling the jacuzzi. That was always a nice evening for us. No kids, friends or crowds…just us.
