What do you and your spouse do? H and I went for walks, played Scrabble, watched a TV show, then ran out of ideas.

I think over the past year or two we forgot how to be together.

I think that's a great question! My H and I are not the greatest at undivided attention...we usually just sit side by side reading. If he were a Christian, I would probably want to do some sort of Bible study with him.

Find your common interests and focus on them.

Have you done this?

Recreational Enjoyment Inventory

Just filling it out together can give you some laughs...

The hard part is staying with it until you figure out what it is that you both enjoy. Long walks can be repeated and can be enjoyable if you both really enjoy them. But you can also take a walk in the park with your cameras if you enjoy photography and get some additional enjoyment later as well as a reminder of an enjoyable activity.

It takes time to get to, partly because after years of marriage where each person does their own thing, but eventually you come up with a list of things that make you both happy, another that makes one happy and the other can tolerate it and one that makes one or the other cringe at the thought of it...

The ones on the first least are no-brainers. Do these often. The second list can become gifts to each other. These are things like a fishing trip together or a day at the beach with a picnic basket. One might get a lot of enjoyment while the other gets only the time together from it, but it all adds up and it all goes in the love bank.

The list that one or the other hates has to be avoided. Just be sure it is the activity you hate rather than some related event being a trigger for you before putting the activity on the "do not try" list. For example, if I take my wife fishing and spend the whole time correcting her casting style, telling her that she is fishing in the wrong places and teaching her about the subtle differences between two crankbaits, if she has only a marginal enjoyment from fishing, this kind of stuff will kill it quickly. The result will be that whenever I ask her about fishing, she will think of being criticized rather than relaxing as the boat drifts along.

This happens most often when trying to do each other's favorite past times. One knows a lot about something, the other very little. The person who is passionate about the activity gets excited that their spouse is along with them and showing interest, so he/she tries to bring them "up to speed" as it were and tell them everything they themselves have learned in maybe 20+ years of studying the subject. Doesn't usually make for an enjoyable day.

So when that opportunity arrives, take each other along, but avoid trying to teach each other everything about the activity in one trip. It'll keep marginal enjoyment from turning into a dark memory to be avoided.

Mark