What activities do you and your spouse do together? My favorite activities and his favorite activities are incompatable. Looking for some good ideas to try!
your header says “staying married” are you thinking about divorce? if you are is there some underlying issue in the marriage or maybe with your spouse or even yourself that are causing a desire to separate? are you trying to save a marriage and are hoping to find a common thing to help the two of you re bond?
Good question and no, divorce or seperation isn’t happening. We are at the point where our kids activities that we do together now are tapering off and there is nothing to replace them with. He enjoys big groups of people, golf and gambling. I enjoy reading , quilting and cooking. Not a lot of obvious overlap! We enjoy traveling but time and money are such a bother! We Really want to enjoy the empty nest so we are looking for more to do together.
you know simply things are the best IMO.
how about getting into watching a series on netflix together…than when that one is over on to the next one, taking walks at night (not power walks, just strolling) take a cooking class together. simply stuff.
I think what that means is that both of you have to spend some time doing non-favorite activities!
Spouse’s favorites: Working, shopping, working, saving the world, swimming, running, working, other programmatic exercise, hiking, art museums, listening to music (mainly classical with no vocal element), restaurants, baking. And working.
My favorites: Fiction of all sorts (reading, movies, long-form TV), music (opera, indie rock, hip-hop), cooking, staring off into space, talking with friends and neighbors, languages.
Compromises: We both like to travel, and that’s an important thing to do together when we can. We walk together as much as possible, and she tries to stay less than a few hundred feet ahead of me. (She finds it almost painful to slow herself to my pace, but is willing to walk back and forth a bit to visit me from time to time.) We go to museums together. We go swimming, and I bring a book for the 40 minutes between the end of my rope and the point at which she’s willing to stop. We watch TV together while she works, and I don’t try to make her watch anything with subtitles anymore, since it’s hard to follow those films while working. I go to orchestral stuff with her (and I work really hard to appreciate the Baroque music she likes best), and she comes to the opera with me (and has gotten to the point where she only dislikes about half of it). She sometimes goes to clubs with me, and sometimes I just go alone. We try to find places to dance together. I go shopping a lot, I have learned to appreciate it (somewhat), and sometimes I even pretend to enjoy it.
As a general matter, we have trouble working together in the kitchen unless it’s absolutely clear who is in charge and who is following orders. But we both like to entertain, so we divide up responsibilities, help each other out, and get things done. When there’s a book I really like, she tries to read it (if its’s available in English).
Honestly I picked up things he enjoys mostly.
My H is not much of a tv watcher, but we do watch a few series together but not much.
He likes to mountain bike but I’m not a big biker so I’ll go to the path with him. I’ll hike or run while he bikes. It’s better than joining him biking as he is much stronger than I am.
I took up golf. I really enjoy it and we golf together and separately. We usually go out during the weeknights after work.
H has lots of hobbies, I tried to join him on the ones I learned to enjoy. I don’t think he has done what I’ve done as he doesn’t enjoy what I do and never would think of joining me.
It is what it is.
Take a group cooking class? You get to enjoy cooking, he gets to be around a group of people and socialize.
Go to the driving range with him - and bring your book to read while he hits balls?
H and I don’t have a lot of similar activities. We are also “ok” with doing our own thing and touching base when we are home. I like to run, he doesn’t but will walk. We might go to a park- he’ll walk the dog while I run - and then we meet together for my cool down. We have a cottage - he likes to work doing messy stuff there like digging, man stuff in his deluxe shed/workshop…I take care of the yard work and roam the beach - we are both happier doing our own thing but touch base with each other, have breakfast and dinner together and maybe find a break time to sit in the adirondack chairs for a few minutes together.
Get ice cream. Everyone likes ice cream, right? 
(a common mistake or perception is that your nest empties and you are suppose to naturally become the best pals you were when you were first together. Things have changed, you have changed. Try to find some happy medium/small steps to what you both want without too many expectations, too fast)
I find that what helps us to stay connected is simply spending time together without a lot of distraction and that certain activities are helpful. Vacations are of course always good, but so are long dinners or walks. IME you want to do something low stress and easy to keep as a ritual. It’s helpful to schedule these activities, so making every Friday morning a time when you’ll go out for breakfast, or Sunday the day you’ll take the dog for a hike together works. I wouldn’t try to push one party to pick up the other’s hobbies and interests but find common ground in the middle with activities that allow for relaxation and communication. You can continue to do the things that personally fulfill you as well.
Movie night
Breakfast at a local cafe
Dinner someplace you can linger over a glass of wine
Hiking/walking/biking
Take up a new sport new to both of you
Cooking together with clear instructions (use a service with recipe sheets like Blue Apron and Plated so he can be a fully equal partner)
Volunteer together
Take on a household project requiring physical labor together-yardwork, painting, cleaning something out and repurposing it.
See friends on a designated night (e.g., first Friday of every month)
If you are religious join a study/worship group together
You may also be able to become more involved with each other’s activities without having to become a full participant. Would his golf foursome come back to your house after a round for tapas you cooked? Would your husband like to go out with your book group and their spouses?
My husband and I have few common interests. I’m a reader and he’s a sports guy. We often sit together while he watches sports and I read. I particularly enjoy reading on his lap. Very cozy. We have come to really enjoy grocery shopping together (I mean, we go to Wegman’s, who doesn’t love that?) and cooking together. I have a couple of shows that I like to watch once a week, and we snuggle in bed to watch them and he pretends to be interested. Two years ago, we got a puppy!!! whom we love and who has opened our lives to new people and experiences. For example, the puppy (who is now a toddler, but let’s not quibble) attends a play group most days and we’ve made parent friends from the play group.
When my daughter was in third grade, there was a worksheet where she had to answer the question, “What does your family like to do together?” Her answer, “Nothing,” was accurate but got her in a whole lot of trouble at school. The teacher insisted that all families have things that everyone likes to do together and gave her a zero on the assignment. In fact, she was telling the truth. There was absolutely nothing that everyone in our family of four liked to do together. There were a few things that three people liked (swimming and video games among them), but even then, the fourth person didn’t share the interest.
Now it’s only my husband and me in the house, and there are still very few things we like to do together. He is a man with many hobbies, all of which bore the stuffing out of me. I’m a reader, which he is not. I also like to attend plays and concerts, and he doesn’t, so I go alone if I can’t find someone else to go with me. And that’s fine (it’s also cheaper).
About the only thing we both like to do is watch the Olympics – winter and summer. So for a couple of weeks every two years, we spend a lot of time together.
I don’t see any point in us forcing ourselves to share interests artificially.
One thing I would suggest is try things neither of you have done before and see if anything clicks, one of the nice things about an empty nest is having the time and such to try new things you have never done. Maybe something as simple as taking a walk after dinner, or going on a walk in local park, maybe it is trying museums or going to music concerts of things you have never seen,maybe it could be a cooking class or a class in stained glass or ballroom dancing, plenty of things you have never done you can try. My wife and I discovered the craziness that is comic con, go figure:)
Adopt…start over again…
Not sure where you live but how about some day trips locally (much cheaper than big vacation traveling). Maybe go to a nearby town to try a nice restaurant or visit the shops (you hit the bookstore while he checks out the golf shop). Once our nest was empty, we found it nice to be able to do things on the weekend spontaneously (without worrying about extracurricular and school activities conflicting). We do a lot of trips to Wegmans - we like to cook (oh and eat). It may sound strange with only two people in the house - but there is family dinner time to spend together - we do have dinner together most nights and enjoy catching up and talking about our day (except when I have dinner out with my book group!)
Date night!
Plan it as if you were not married. Discover each other all over again. You can even meet at the place if you want to take it that far. And do what? Google “live music + your zip code.” You can’t go wrong with acoustic music. Strip out almost all the arrangements except the voice, the melody and a guitar, the way music was meant to be heard. Maybe a glass of wine or two. Maybe a walk afterwards. Maybe talk about things. Mingle. Rediscover the magic.
Good luck :-).
I like many of sue22’s ideas. My H and I have many separate interests, but we share similar taste in music and enjoy hiking. We have also started a tai chi class together. He is into scuba, I am not. Many of his trips are on boats or in places where there would not be much for me to do, so I take my own trips during the time he is diving. We don’t like the same TV shows at all. He is retiring this month so we will see how it goes!
musicprnt beat me to it, I was going to suggest since it seems you are both willing that instead of trying to join activities that one of you already does and the other knows they don’t enjoy that you try to come up with some things new to both of you. My H is big on exercise, runs and rows, I like to walk. We bought bicycles a few years ago and like to cycle together. 2nd ballroom dancing class, if you have both never done it and approach it with an open mind it’s great for togetherness and chatting while you dance. Cooking classes, local concerts. Getting hooked on some TV series can get you spending time together on a regular basis and it’s nice that it doesn’t take a lot of planning or time, my H and I look forward to that time together.
OP, is your H open to some new activities? You say that “We Really want to enjoy the empty nest so we are looking for more to do together.” - is it really “we” or is it “you”??
Only checking because sometimes one of the couple feels that new activities are needed - while the other is really perfectly happy doing the things they currently love. It would seem if you are both willing, that you should be able to come up with some things talking together.
I look at some of the activities listed here. Some of them I would never consider doing and some my H would never consider doing - so, an activity is only as good as the interest level of both of you.
Our plan is to buy a sailboat and learn how to use it-together. We’ll either kill each other or it will be awesome, but we’ll be going into it with the same level of knowledge: zip! Zippo! Zero.
He says watching YouTube videos about it doesn’t count as knowledge :-? We’re both excited about it, though, and it’s fun to talk about and plan for.
We have season tickets to the National Geographic lecture series.
These are great ideas. Wish DH would consider some of them! Would be even better if he got home before 8:30 every night. I’ve mentioned several of them to him, and he’s not interested, but he gets frustrated when I pursue my interests. If he ever retires, he’s going to be a pretty lonely guy. We used to walk all the time, but when he gets home so late and works on weekends, he is too wiped out by the time he gets home to do even that.
We do like to travel…but we can’t do that all the time.