Shared Interests

If you want to spend your life with someone, you have to have some common interests. You just do. You can’t spend time with someone if you can’t think of anything you want to do together.

Sometimes you have to make an effort. He’s obsessed with baseball. He eats sleeps and breathes triple plays, home runs, and stolen bases. You’re going to have to learn a few things about the MLB and carry on a conversation with your true love about his passion.

She is a romance novel junkie. You don’t have to read romance novels, but you have to listen to how the Duke’s stable boy is really Lord Goldenrod searching for the perfect noble woman who will love him for himself and not for his fortune. You have to care. Or at least do a fantastic job of pretending to care.

When our youngest son was a baby, I got really into fitness. I started running, biking, and walking everywhere. I started taking group fitness classes, and I became really passionate about exercise. At first, my husband was not into it. But after several months of seeing how happy I was, and what a positive impact exercise was having on my life, he jumped on board, and now he is more fit than I am. Our family is the walking and biking family. Walking is a great thing to do with your partner because you can have some really great conversations when you are on a walk.

We have always said we would never own a dog. It’s too much work. What do you do with him when you are on vacation? Dogs add a layer of complexity to life. But last summer, it became apparent that my partner desperately wanted a dog. He never asked me to get a dog, but I could see that a dog would bring great joy to his life, so I started to retrain my brain. I admired dogs. I asked people about their dogs. I became a dog person to make my partner happy. And, lo and behold, our dog makes me happy too.

It is important to have some shared interests. That doesn’t mean you have to love everything he loves. If football is the absolute most boring thing you could ever conceive of, let football be that thing he talks about with the guys, but say “AWESOME!” when the Patriots win the Super Bowl. If your wife’s passion for fashion is a total snooze fest, find something else to bond over, but tell her that outfit makes her look fabulous.

Then go for a walk together. Or watch wrestling. Or whatever your shared interest is.