22 September 2021

ADVICE: Is a marriage at risk if spouses don't share many similar interests?

My spouse and I don't share many common interests, and I wonder if our marriage will suffer because of it?


My knee-jerk reaction is that you knew what his interests were--and he knew yours--long before you were married.

That said, it seems to me that if a couple has even just one shared interest, and they both want to spend time together engaging in that activity, that can be enough.

On the other hand, couples can share many interests, but they don’t always have to participate in those activities together. You can both like hiking, for instance, but you can each go separately on some occasions and hike together on others.

I also think that exclusively participating together in activities that only you enjoy or only your spouse enjoys can be detrimental to the health of a marriage. This option ignores and devalues our need to be fully-functioning and independent individuals.

Couples need to communicate their needs and find solutions they can both agree on. We need to find a balance between time together and time apart.

Individual members of a couple should have separate interests and activities. We need our own time and space. Spending time apart doing something we enjoy is important to our personal growth and self-esteem, which naturally improves the quality of the relationship with our partner.

For example, my spouse loves to watch sci-fi series (like The Mandalorian). I have no interest in them, but I will sometimes sit with him while I read or draw. On other occasions, I’ll go off and do my own thing, and he does the same. We also enjoy doing activities together--including line dancing, which we recently discovered. We've found a balance that’s right for us.

So to answer your question: Instead of viewing not having enough shared interests as being a disadvantage, find one or two things you and your spouse enjoy doing together, identify and honor each of your unique interests, and figure out how to balance time together and time apart.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to the Counselor's Desk

Welcome to the Counselor's Desk

I've been a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New York State since 2000, and over the years my clients have struggled to understand wh...