What Do You Have in Common?
January 21, 2009 by Marye Audet
Filed under Relationships
Do you have something in common with your mate? Besides kids, house, and bills, I mean. Do you have something that you enjoy doing together?
I keep reading that it is important to have something in common with the person you are going to marry or are married to.
I am not sure that activity wise Marc and I have a whole lot in common. I think we are willing to do things that the other person enjoys, or we were at one time, but for the most part at this point we really don’t have any hobbies or activities that we both enjoy.
Marc likes to be active, he always has. He played softball, hockey, tennis, volley ball, skied…
The only activities I ever liked (besides sex) were ice skating, horseback riding, and hiking/camping. I used to love to ride cross country bikes but that was well before Marc.
But the things that we liked to do seemed to get lost in the everyday.
See, the thing was, when he went skating…someone had to sit with the kids. And when he played hockey, someone had to sit with the kids. And when he played volley ball someone had to keep an eye on the kids… when I mentioned getting bikes in the early 80s, he wasn’t interested. And, although I have jumped from a plane at a high altitude, skiing scares the beejeebies out of me.
Camping is something that I always enjoyed but Marc wasn’t interested in for the first 16 years of our marriage. Then I planned the coolest trip through Arkansas and he fell in love with camping….and I lost interest in it. Why?
Because I planned the trips and dried the food and packed the supplies. And I think too, I wanted/expected more romance and Marc was focused on untangling the kids fishing lines.
We had to give our horses away last summer. It was difficult but necessary due to finances and the fact that our property floods regularly now due to over building and poor planning in our area. This is the first time since 1971 that a horse is not a part of my life in some way.
In my spare time I like to work on the house. I suppose I see our house in much the same way as someone who loves old cars might see working on a 78 Trans Am or a 69 Dodge Charger. The stenciling, the detailing, the research for historic accuracy…these things are not work for me..they are a joy.
I like to paint, I like to craft, I like art museums, foreign films, antiquing, making pottery (it has been eons!)..I like working in the garden, swimming, and photography.
Most of Marc stuff is active and most of my stuff is solitary. Not a great combo.
Thing is, when Marc got caught up in trying to, you know, make a living to support a family the size of Rhode Island, I got caught up in being a great mom and a great homemaker.
And we both lost something. Ourselves.
I didn’t always act the way Marc thought a good corporate wife should…I adapted.
Marc didn’t always act the way I thought a solid Christian man should…he adapted.
We almost adapted ourselves into divorce court.
Now we sort of have to pull our real selves out of the back of the closet and dust us off. I think that we have to fall in love over again, not with the clones that we have created but the original us. Hopefully all of the chemistry will bubble again.
Not that we don’t love each other but the passion, freshness, and romance that was us is in storage. Our lives are very predictable, and vanilla. I have never been a vanilla person, I thrive on the unexpected and the extreme…as long as it is predictable.
And therein lies one of my biggest issues. Everything about me is opposite. I love excitement and unpredictable romance but I want it to be scheduled. And not cost too much.
Logically illogical.
So, I am starting a list of things I used to enjoy. I will try them as I have time and see what still fits and what doesn’t.
What about you?
Is it time to take a look at what you are evolving into and decide whether you like it or not? Is it time to find a common interest and pursue it?
Maybe the coolest thing to do for Valentines Day would be to do something off the wall that neither of you had ever done but both had thought of doing. Add some adrenalin. If you marriage is anything like mine, it needs it.
image: Sue r b for SXC
We still can try to figure a way to do camping. Maybe just a weekend thing. Erin & Jon are in the area.
I used to enjoy camping when we were single. we just didn’t do it then. Not too long before I met you I had gone with a small group to camp at Big Sur over Labor Day Weekend.
Before my screw-up I had hoped the four letter word thing might be something we might do together. I blew that.
Well there are antiques. And I am one.
My better half and I work hard at sharing thoughts, activities and dreams in common. We did not have kids until 6 years into our marriage, so we spend a lot of time figuring out what defined “us.”
After the kids, no matter what – every Saturday night was date night. We left the kids with a sitter and went out. Sometimes it was to the movies, other times dinner, a show, shopping, tennis or wine tasting and later on ballroom dancing. We got to catch up on grown up talk, visit with friends and share each others company uninterrupted.
We tried lots and lots of activities that either one of us was interested in, and kept trying until we found thoses that we both enjoyed together.
We both agreed that we would not allow parenthood to simply define all that we were. We love our children dearly, but work very hard at insuring against their life being the sole defining life for us.
That is great Andrea!
“… I thrive on the unexpected and the extreme…as long as it is predictable… I love excitement and unpredictable romance but I want it to be scheduled. And not cost too much.”
That’s why Hollywood movies are such a staggeringly successful product – they deliver all of that in Digital and Surround Sound at a theatre near you…or a Harlequin romance, if you prefer. People flock to them in droves because most peoples lives are unremarkable and ordinary. They have to be. Repeatability and predictability are the harbingers of safety and stability – and those are what you strive for when you have kids.
I remember what the wife and I did, when we were first together and later after we first got married and before kids. No way…living the way we did…in nightclubs dancing all night…the different characters we’d get involved with…never knowing where we’d end up – or with who. The risks we took ( in hindsight ) things that happened and things that could have happened.
Yeah, it was fun, exciting and unpredictable. But neither of us look back and say ‘ Oh, I miss that .’ Now, if we can take our kids out and we come back they’ve got smiles on their faces – we’re overjoyed ’cause its an achievement. Often as not, things don’t align themselves for that to happen much of the time.
Before we were married, some of my buddies and I would take Meggy to St. Andrews Park – which is around Panama. We’d camp there for a few days of fishing and skinny-dipping. You could walk right out into the surf and fish for big Spanish Mackerel. It was fun. The dolphins would swim so close by, you thought you could reach out and touch them. She ( wifey ) hated it. She hated it ’cause we lads were there for serious fishing and she had a mind for other things.
Now, when we go camping, I’m there not for the activity, but for her and the kids and that’s what I spend my time doing….looking after the kids.
Consequently, she loves camping now…
Andrea – yours is the model that we are striving for. Too often, we let things get in the way of it; but that’s what I’m aiming for.
Oh my, this is me! We’ve just got all vanilla. And it seems like so much effort to take our relationship somewhere new – and if I do it, if feels like I’m pushing and pressuring, and then it doesn’t work at all. Any ideas as you go along that are effortless and exciting, please let us know. Sarah
When I take an honest look we had nothing in common except we both loved Jesus and loved to worship God.
I did lose myself in my attempt to be the wife of his ideals. I have realized that i can never be an “ideal.” So I am back to being me.
At one point about 10 years ago i suggested we find something new that we could both enjoy together so that we’d have things we do together when he retires. My parents picked up golf a few years before they retired…it gave me the idea. his response was that we will go fishing. Um …NO! ie he has no intention of trying to develop new interests and my “job” is to enjoy what he enjoys. so THAT didn’t work.
I am sure Marye doesn’t want me to write my why I hate camping novela so i won’t go there. LOL
I will add this though. My sister in law and I giggleat ourselves. Our families go for a hike up a mountain.We are talking13 kids between the two of us. She and I set a good pace and do a workout getting to the view point. It’s about the exercise.The kids run ahead , run back, run ahead, run back,making us look like slackers….. and our husbands? They look at a fallen tree, define its species, discuss why it fell. They look at a flower, argue over its name, discuss if it’s poisonous. They see a deodore pressed cedar and exclaim how rare they are for our area…etc.
I guess I am all about doing something or accomplishing something. He’s about moseying along and pondering.
Fishing is far too sedentary for me. and don’t even get me started about bait.ew. yeah, i am an athletic girly girl. LOL
Ginger:
The kind of fishing we did was deep-sea fishing at its best – very strenuous. But I agree that the kind of fishing that most people do is far to sedentary and boring for me.
I can relate to you and your SIL’s hiking experiences. They sound similar to ours.
I remember that my oldest son had developed a keen interest in snakes and once we were hiking around a marsh area one summer and lo and behold right on the path in front of us was a very large garter snake sunning itself on the trail. He was amazed that such a thing could move so fast!
“I guess I am all about doing something or accomplishing something. He’s about moseying along and pondering. ”
Well, if he were about accomplishing something, you’d be about pondering. Its just the way it works. I think its supposed to be that way.