What do you and your hubby/partner do in the evenings?

belfastgirl23

gabyjane wrote: »

Ok we have this long ongoing niggle running in our house and said to dh i was going to post for opinions yesterday so here goes!

I work mon-sat (working hours being min of 47), times being up and awake are from 5.30am till around 11pmish if not later as usually try and stay up for dh when he comes in from work. Bed around midnight so effectively about 5 hours ish sleep a night..sundays i try and lay in but my body clock or the cats usually wake me at silly o clock and i cannot go back to sleep!
Times of the day not working are 90% of the time doing something exciting like washing, cooking, cleaning, bills etc!

Dh works 4.5 days per week roughly 37 hours unless overtime but only usually in the summer. He leaves the house at 10amish ready for 10-30 start and then works till 2-30pm..comes home till 6 then works from then till whenever depending on work..about 10-30 on average.

NOW! the niggle is he moans at me for falling asleep, he says whenever he has the night off i fall asleep on the sofa and he may aswell have gone out..i disagree as usually we go out for dinner or are doing something, so the times i do fall asleep to be fair are around 10pm onwards, by this point i have been up for around 17 hours!..if we stay up and play monopoloy etc i am fine and wide awake but the prob is we have very different tastes in some ways and he will play on the pc while i watch, say hollyoaks!..
yesterday when he said it i got annoyed as i work long hours and he then says you know im only joking etc..so why say it..it makes me feel really guilty tbh.

He has had the week off and has dozed off a couple of times as he does a late night on a wed so was tired..i never said a word but felt like it!..he is asleep now as i type and will have had about 4 hours more sleep than me already (he gets up to do dd's lunch at 8am the goes back to bed usually)

So i wondered what others did in the evenings together as playing monopoly all the time is not an option!! I have told him one of us will get slated on here for one reason or another so be ready for the responces!!
Thanks

To be honest we vary a lot according to what we both have on. If we spend the night together it's usually watching TV together (but we do save up stuff we both really want to see so it isn't just channel surfing). I normally try to get some exercise in the evening as well and I have night classes 2 nights a week so we wouldn't usually be sitting down together till 9ish. By 10.45 at latest I would be making noises about going to bed. DH will often sit up a bit longer, although his night time routine is a lot shorter than mine - I like to leave kitchen etc tidy as well as the whole tooth cleaning, taking off makeup, leaving out clothes etc. he just comes up and washes his teeth and that's him.

I think you're right to take notice of this as things said in jest often are also meant as well

Can you talk about this with each other - it seems to me that you both have different expectations. The good thing is that you both WANT to spend time together. The bad thing is that you don't know how.

squirrelchops

What do we do in the evenings.....well I do exactly as I please because he works nights...leaves house at 6pm..arrives home 630am and I then get up!!!

Actually I do sympathise with OP. Usually one or the other of us is shattered at the weekends at different parts of the day. I sometimes want to be in bed by 10pm but OH's body clock is wide awake. In fact just this weekend we had a disagreement about staying out late as it completely tires me out. Also I have Uni work to do at the weekend so I like to get to bed early so I can have an early start.

gabyjane

Hi thanks for the replies! i get up at 5-30am as have to be at work for 6am, i then do 2 hours, come home go straight on the school run and get home to pick the mindee up, come home do whatever we do for the day and then go on the school run again, either work or have the aft off but more than often work by doing housework etc!
Like now i finished at 12pm but am going to do some wallpapering lol as just can't sit still! by this point i am wide awake so having a quick nap seems a waste of the day..we are out tonight though so ill be fine!

Pee

Is it possible that you could catch up on a couple of hours sleep and do a little less housework/ ask him to do a little more?

We tend to watch a sofa cinema DVD as we don't have TV or sit there reading, I might be reading guidebooks and planning holidays or a novel and we often read the same books so tend to discuss what we are reading. I'd like to go for walks, I do an office job, but he does a manual job and is often very tired. It does annoy me when he goes to sleep, and I do find it happens more when he doesn't really rate the film!! We do socialise and have people round for supper or go to someone elses for supper quite often. We sometimes cook together.

I think the dancing idea sounds brilliant. Sure you could get a DVD off ebay to teach yourselves so you are also there for dd.

Is it possible to nominate one night a week - when you both feel the least tired - as date night and take it in turn to choose things to do?

Steel_2

You're probably not going to like this Gabyjane.

You, and only you, are piling more work on yourself every day. Why are you wallpapering during a time when you could - and should - be having a rest to recharge your batteries? You don't have to nap, you just have to lie quietly somewhere for 30-60 minutes and relax (maybe the bath? )

No-one is forcing you to do this - you're doing it to yourself. You sound like an over-achiever. And that's coming from an over-achiever that worked herself into two bouts of chronic fatigue that lasted 4-6 months each time. I've lost around a year of my working life over the last four years due to not being able to say when enough is enough. I was tired. I needed to rest. Instead I relentlessly drove myself on surviving on 4-5 hours sleep a night (sometimes less). Now I can manage around 30 hours of work a week before my body has had enough. One early start at 5am will knock me out for two days afterwards.

Don't make the same mistake as me thinking you're superwoman. You body will let you know in no uncertain terms you are not.

If you know you two are going to be going out, cut back on the housework and jobs that day to get some rest. Before circumstances take the choice out of your hands and force you to.

red_devil

watch tv, chill out, talk, cuddle, shower, do odd jobs.

Summer sit outside if we can!

red_devil

red_devil wrote: »

watch tv, chill out, talk, cuddle, shower, do odd jobs.

Summer sit outside if we can!

go for walks too.

sooz

DKLS wrote: »

My mate who is having 1100 guests is Muslim, and basically they have to invite everyone they have ever known inc the family doctor!, or it will lead to family feuds that last generations. He said he stopped fretting when the list got to 600!, The menu is fab all curries and kebabs, So I am very happy, he said its going to cost £10 a head :eek:

but on the plus side, the guests all bring gifts of money.

red_devil

red_devil wrote: »

go for walks too.

friday night we play sport Sep-April.

Odette

My partner said last week that we spend too much time 'in the bedroom' and not enough time doing odd jobs/life admin.

So Im not gonna say anything,:rotfl:except that.