I have seen people go on long treks. Hiking, bicycling, canoe, etc… where they might be out for a week or more. What I’ve seen is they tend to be just one person. Oh, occasionally you see some couples doing this or a group but I usually see single people.
Other hobbies like hunting, fishing, rock climbing, seem to be either single people or people in a club.
From my experience certain “hobbies” where one spouse has a passion for and the other, not so much, often lead to separation or divorce because of all the time away from family it takes. Or sometimes a person just gives it up once they become a part of a couple. Or maybe the hobby involves big expense (like tournament fishing) the family has trouble justifying.
So I’d like to ask, what hobbies do you all find can or maybe has, broken up a couple or what hobbies did a person give up once they became a couple?
My wife took up pole sitting when we met. (Innuendo)
I don’t do as much astrophotography now. I still do it, tho. It’s a slow process at times. She enjoys our stargazing, however. Naked eye, binocs, and the scope.
VWife’s quilting vs. my model railroading makes for some interesting arguments about who is using up all the available space in the house. Usually any open spot is covered in little piles of fabric.
Exact opposite for my Wife and I. Her ‘hobby’ is triathlon races. Long ones. I’m talking full Ironmans. I support her at her races as her sherpa, but her training keeps her away from home quite a bit.
I’m working on learning the banjo. As I’ve never played anything in my life, and neither has my wife, it’s very much a solitary hobby.
This doesn’t interfere with our marriage a bit. In fact, I’m a bit of a loner sometimes, and like my own space. So if anything, it helps.
I could see solitary hobbies being a problem for a couple if they don’t have any shared hobbies, and all they ever do is their own individual thing. But if they have a good mix of shared and solitary pursuits, then I can’t see what the problem would be.
My parents love going to casinos. They can spend an entire weekend at one and not even blink an eye. If they weren’t on the same page with this, though, I could totally see it ruining their marriage.
I’ve never understood spouses who are jealous of hobbies, provided the hobbies are not causing stress on the marriage in some other way (spending money they don’t have, e.g.). My late husband was a golfer. I’m not. If he wanted to go scare up a foursome and play, I sent him off with a kiss and wish for good luck and welcomed him home with a nice dinner and prepared to hear all about every play.
Every couple has to work out their threshold for “togetherness” v. “apartness.” It’s the disparity between these two things as a couple that causes the friction.
I would never expect to change this fundamental quality about someone. If he liked to go off for 4 months at a time every year to hike the Appalachian Trail before we got together, I would imagine he’d still want to after. That one wouldn’t bother me, but I saw it break up another couple I knew.
The hobby of drinking has broken up a number of couples I know. Also the hobby of recreational drug use.
Often, conflict over a hobby is simply indicative of deeper problems within the marriage.
Well said. My wife and I have some hobbies we do in common (cooking, trying new foods/drinks, several television shows, gardening), and we have others that we do entirely separately- she does jewelrymaking/metalsmithing, paper crafts, while I’m a pretty avid videogamer, and a fairly voracious reader.
So there are times we spend together, and there are times we spend apart. We only have friction if the balance gets off kilter, and we’ve spent too much time together or apart.
Well, this may not fit, but the expendable cash I used on sports card collecting quickly became budgeted house money when I got married… I still get the ocassional fill in or gift, but the mad collecting I used to do is long gone.
That’s a good point… beyond having joint and separate hobbies, the amount of money spent on the separate hobbies pretty much has to be equitable in some fashion.
I mean, if I’m a super-duper model train guy, and I spend thousands on dioramas and O-gauge super-detailed reproductions of UP’s Big Boy engine, then she ought to be able to spend a similar amount on her scrapbooking/cooking/romance novels/woodshop/whatever.
Or vice-versa; I have a periodic free pass on computer hardware and/or new game consoles due to my wife spending a boatload on her crafting and metalsmithing hobbies.
I had this problem with my first wife - while we had a few things we liked to do together, she had a problem with doing anything separately. If I had a thing I wanted to do, she always insisted on coming along as well, even if it wasn’t her thing. Then she used to moan about being bored. Similarly, if there was a thing she wanted to do that I wasn’t into, then she’d get upset that I wouldn’t want to do it - and then she’d end up not doing it herself. She couldn’t seem to wrap her head around the concept of different people liking, and doing, different things from each other.
With my current wife, there’s a much better balance: For example, if the weather is good she’ll be outside gardening (not really my thing at all - if I was living alone the entire garden would be laid to lawn…), while I’ll be in the garage tinkering with my cars. We’re both quite happy doing our own things. Occasionally we’ll help each other out with our respective hobbies, but generally it’s a solo thing.
But we both understand the importance of doing things together - we have quite a few hobbies that we like to do together (even if it’s just slumped on the sofa watching a film).
I think the problems often start when people use their hobbies as an excuse to avoid their other half - but then that’s a symptom of something else rather than the hobby causing the problem itself.
I would dearly love to meet a man who had hobbies, much less one he wanted to go off and do by himself sometimes. Most of the men I’ve met don’t do anything and are waiting for a woman to come along and entertain/motivate them.
That said, by the end of my last marriage, my ex’s “hobby” was watching sports on tv. Sometimes for 14 hours a day. Mine were training my horse and gardening, both of which he thought stupid. Not much overlap, except I thought watching endless hours of televised sporting events was pretty stupid, too. Not surprising that we split up.
My husband and I were lucky to find one another as we both were highly independent people and understood that sometimes one has to go off and do what it is one does for sanity and pleasure. His first wife didn’t understand that at all. He was prone to taking extended hunting trips with his pals, for several weeks at a time. He also tended to be AWOL during most of the golfing season. She wanted them to do everything together, but only if she could choose the activity. It wasn’t either of their faults individually. Neither was willing to compromise to suit the other’s needs and it drove them apart.
I can hunt and I can golf, but I am not fond of either. But I didn’t squawk when my husband did those things, on the condition that he didn’t fuss when I went on opera weekends with the girls, or museum crawling, or (early in our marriage) skydiving trips.
And we were smart enough to make some compromises. I do enjoy hunting game birds and would go with my husband when that was the quarry. He enjoyed an occasional symphony concert or play with me.
My husband and I do most things together, but my main hobby is reading. He doesn’t mind if I read, but I can’t concentrate if he’s bustling around, or watching TV in the same room, or just has a quick question, etc. etc. So I get up an hour early during the week, drive to work, and read in my car.
He likes to go to the gym, or go bike-riding in this filthy Florida heat…I gladly give him space to go and do that all he wants.
Second this. But for me it went downhill FAST as soon as my fiancée moved in with me. Practice was held in my basement every Sunday. Band broke up a few months later.
Similarly, if there was a thing she wanted to do that I wasn’t into, then she’d get upset that I wouldn’t want to do it - and then she’d end up not doing it herself. She couldn’t seem to wrap her head around the concept of different people liking, and doing, different things from each other.