How important is it to have common interests in Married Life?

@Rihana - you beat me to it! I doubt I would have been able to express it this succinctly.

If if you have common interests, great! If not, be happy doing your own thing and sharing the highlights with the spouse. I'm one of those who tried getting the husband converted into a theatre buff and converting myself into learning the nitty gritties of cricket. Neither worked. He was annoyed I would just not remember anything about slip or gully or leg side despite his elaborate diagrams and lectures; I was cross he would look bored at the end of a musical or worse, snore in a play. So the whole cultivate interest was a failure.

Now we have tons of friends to do other stuff with.

we do enjoy vacations together. I know I can count on him for weekend morning coffees. For some reason my husband loves grocery shopping in big supermarkets and seriously misses it if I've been dealing with it myself! So I let him tag along once a month or so... ;o) i enjoy sitting in companionably while I read and he watches TV. And the child is a big glue (and a big source of conflict because of varying parenting views!)

I do feel a sense of teamwork when I've checked and organised the paperwork for him to sign/ pay. (Typing that makes me realise I seriously need to get back to work!) so, yes! That is a glue!

i don't see see a big need anymore to jump in to do the things he is interested in or cajole him into doing the things I'm into...

 

Common interest are more required after 20-30 yrs of marriage and more there are individual interests that time couples start drifting away. MILs have their targets as DILS and poor FIL is made grocery man. The so called glues of paying bills and kids are also not there to fill the void. At least a common spiritual path or fitness path or just going to learn something like music or painting together may help pass the time beautifully. In the younger days due to the sheer grind of life common interest or no may not affect but later it would be "Is this the same man I married?"

 

Like Rihana has mentioned in love marriages common interest will be there but in arranged marriages in some cases common interest wont be there. In our times we did not know each other and we used to marry the person whom our parents chose. We were not so bold enough to tell our wish. In my case I was already 29 yrs old my brothers got me married and I did not want to be a burden to them. Though I did not know anything about my husband but today I am very happy that I married him as he is gem of a person though in some cases our interests are different. But as years went I adjusted myself according to him as he always helped me in everything from the time we got married. When I was a working woman he used to help me in the kitchen, during my delivery he helped me , when I was down with hip bone fracture and in bed for two months he took care of me like a mother. we had different weekly holidays, he had Wednesday and me on Saturday and Sunday. On Wednesday he used to take care of my children, platting my daughters hair, giving them oil bath etc. .

After retirement and after my children got settled we have all the time for ourselves. We both are there for each other. I live for him now taking care of him, we have our lunch together and if he goes out I wait for him to have lunch because it is difficult to eat alone. Like to cook the best for him and feel happy the days I bring a smile on his face. We go out together and people call us Parvathy and Parameswaran. He is a social worker and whatever way I can help him I help.

It is not necessary to have love marriage but after marriage we can love each other and I am happy that I am leading a happy married life

 

We are both completely opposite. But then too we both cannot stay without each other.
sometimes I mix to his choices sometimes he.
It fun nagging each other for little silly things.
But it doesn't really matter. Maybe I am used to it 13 years of married life

 

reading all the posts here.. thought of sharing my own experience...

In my case a common interest became a reason for conflict..

both of us are huge music fans... and can sing reasonably well... I sing carnatic classical and he is more of a light music lover..

during initial years of our marriage whenever I started singing some heavy classical compositions, he would immediately start off singing something light.. that would annoy me no end... we have had serious fights on this.. looking back I laugh at those fights but they were indeed serious.. I thought there is no human on earth who is more rude than him.. I took it as a great offense..

years of of marriage and different binders in the marriage (which Rihana explained beautifully) have shifted things.. he knows better than to open his mouth when I practice and I ignore when there are occasional slippage on this rule... more importantly we have developed a taste for both formats over the years and are great duet singers .. and then comes along our son who has keen interest in percussion instruments

So the moral of the story is .. having common interest can cause trouble too.. its upto you how you sail through the initial period and find those binders..

 

Thinking: is good
Over-thinking: brings trouble

 

Hi Ladies,

Hope you all are doing fine Marriage is an important part of our life with many emotions, attachments and affection. Having common interests play a special bonding in our marriage life.

Initially, we may not have many common interests during the newly married days because we don't know to whom we are going to get married, but as days and years pass by, due to love and bonding, wife starts liking hubby's interests and hubby starts liking wife's interests if they truly love each other and have a very good understanding.

My personal example, I love music a lot but my hubby never used to listen to music in past (before marriage). I like tea but my hubby loves coffee. But as days passed by, I started to make coffee often rather than tea because my husband loves it. I started liking it too without my knowledge. May be I fell in love with coffee only because of one reason that my husband loves it. And my hubby started to listen to music when he came to know from me that music relaxes our mind. And sometimes my hubby asks me to make tea as he started liking it too. So like this, when we truly love, respect and understand each other, our personal individual interests slowly become our common interests This will lead to more and more bonding in a married life!

To share the common interests and to share a happy life, I feel that we should keep our egos aside and develop respect & understanding in that place.

Thank you all.

Luv,
SreeB