Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
One of the great things about the life my partner and I lead is that we are both able to have separate interests.
There are one or two hobbies we share that bring us together (watching Formula 1 or going to ice hockey for example). But there are also things that we are interested in separately.
We’ve been together over 11 years now and having your own space and time to go and do your own thing, I’ve come to understand as very important. When you are younger and you’ve first met, the feeling is that you must be together, sharing exactly the same things every waking moment – but I can tell you from years of experience, this is a trap. You won’t always be interested in each others hobbies. You’ll want to do your own things.
I often come across couples who haven’t worked this out and it gets ugly very quickly.
I can summarise it as “time apart to do your own things – come back together to share some things” as the winning formula.
When this isn’t allowed in a relationship, what often ensues is either a “points” game (“I’ll go to that yoga thing she wants me to go to because then I can insist we watch the new Top Gun movie on Saturday!”) or the more horrific battle of wills scenario where one partner resents the other for not liking and enjoying the same things they do.
You’ll usually only hear one side of this of course, presented as the other person not being “supportive” or “investing in the relationship” or “not wanting to spend time together.” At it’s worse “they are not committed to me” is thrown about.
So I recommend strongly, having your own hobbies and interests that you peruse yourself or with friends.
However, this in itself is not fool proof and I’ll explain why and how below.
But first let me outline a real world anecdote from my recent life which will lead us into what I mean.
One of the things I do as a hobby sometimes is plant vegetables and plants in the garden. I wouldn’t call myself a “gardener”, I spend very little time doing it and have no in depth knowledge in plants etc.
Also the “garden” at our house actually amounts to little more than some patio and an area of artificial grass. So I don’t really list this too highly in my list of hobbies.
Even so, I do try and grow some vegetables once a year for fun. Usually it’s carrots or potatoes grown in special tubs and bags. I also tend to plant flowers in tubs and pots as well once a year. I like the garden to look brighter in summer. Also, in truth, I get seeds and a lot of help from my father and mother (who genuinely are garden experts) and it gives me an excuse to go see them and talk to them. And they like it. They love showing me all the flowers and vegetables they are growing, how they do it and the various weird little “production improvement methods” (as my dad calls it) that they’ve come up with.
My partner takes very little interest in this. She owns half the house and like other areas, has a bit of OCD with the garden looking perfect. She does help once or twice a year with pulling out weeds and once this year used the leaf sucker to clean up some left over leaves from winter. But other than these occasional trips, she has little to no interest in planting and certainly no interest in vegetables whatsoever. She finds it quite cute and entertaining I think when I bring potatoes in for dinner once they’ve grown. Well, I know she does because she’s told me so!
The thing is, she doesn’t generally like anything that requires physical labour and especially nothing that involves dirt and the possibility of being near insects. So digging soil out of a plant pot and re-potting half grown plants for example is of absolutely no interest to her at all. In fact it’s the opposite, she hates it.
So that’s fine. I’ll do the planting and the plants and she generally…doesn’t.
The other thing you need to know for all this to make sense is that we have a shared calendar, saved online, that shows a list of events and upcoming things that impact one or both of us. It’s actually a really good idea (to a point, it has it’s limitations of course) so again – something else I’d recommend to those in a serious ongoing relationship!
Anyway, back to plants and hobbies.
I decided to plant potatoes again this year. I had two varieties from my father, one which needed planting earlier and one that was needed later.
I told my partner it’d be time to plant some seeds soon. This is where the “challenges” began.
See, whilst planting is really my hobby, quite often, I’m not allowed to indulge in it totally alone. Like all things I do, it really seems it has to be “controlled” or “interacted with” in some way? I’ll get to this more later – but what it meant in this immediate anecdote was my partner immediately started telling me about what her vision was for plants in the garden.
Remember, she doesn’t have any interest in planting or gardening herself – but she had a view on the sort of plants that needed to go in the largest planter we have. And then where that planter needed to go. Apparently, no longer at the back of the house but at the front.
It’s ok. It’s my hobby but if she’s interested and wants to be involved from time to time, well that’s totally cool with me! It is nice to spend time with your partner and do things together. Maybe, even though she doesn’t like garden and garden things much, maybe she just wants to do something together? Also it’s her house too, so there’s no need for me to make ALL the decisions about what goes where etc. We both have to have input. So, ok. Fair enough.
So I suggested a good idea. Why don’t we do it together? On the second day of planting (when we were both free), I suggested we both go to the garden centre together. She could pick out the plant she wanted for the big planter and also help choose some of the other smaller plants. Then we’d come back and I’d plant it for her because thats not the bit she likes (so she doesn’t have to deal with spiders and worms!) and we could move it to the front of the house together (because it gets very heavy once all the soil is in! A two person lift is better!). This way she gets a great input into what she wants too.
She was happy with that idea. So we agreed and I marked it in the shared calendar for a Sunday in a few weeks time. It was a gardening date.
The weeks went by and a couple of weeks before, I noticed on the day, she had marked in the calendar she was going out for lunch with two of her friends from her old work place. The time she marked clashed with the visit to the garden center and the whole planting deal. Clearly, she had changed her mind.
Now, some partners, would get pissed at this. “We had arranged to spend time together and you are ditching me for something else…” etc… is, a legitimate response to this. I dare say it *might* be something she’d say to me?
But I’m pretty relaxed and chilled out and I know gardens aren’t really her thing so… ok. Theres no need to pick a fight on this.
I don’t say anything.
Four days before the Sunday, we are discussing the weekend and she tells me she is going to lunch. I point out it clashes with the planting.
She asked if we can do planting in the morning instead of the afternoon. If we get up early and go to the garden centre by 10am, she’ll still have enough time to get back, get ready and then go for lunch with her friends.
Note that my original plan/hobby is now being rescheduled and replanned to fit around hers?
Sunday morning is a special and precious time and having something to have to get up for isn’t really my preference but… again, I’m being relaxed and chilled out and so I agree. The calendar is updated.
I set the alarm earlier and I woke up for the earlier start.
I was awake by 7:45am. Things changed again.
She didn’t want to get up early any more for the garden centre – or rather, she didn’t feel she’d have enough time to get ready to go out for lunch AND do the garden centre task.
Instead she told me she didn’t want to go anymore. Could I go alone to the garden centre – but pick out a plant for the big planter in the garden myself, plant it and move it to the front of the house whilst she was out at lunch.
This might sound fine but I initially disagreed.
My concern was that I would pick a plant that she didn’t like and would not end up putting the big planter in the place she wanted (leaving aside the “it’s heavy how can I do it?” question).
I know from experience, she has very specific tastes in plants and design etc. I told her I didn’t want to “get it wrong” and was worried we’d end up having to do it again when she was disappointed.
There followed a series of half baked “instructions” delivered in an angry voice (“just get ANY plant that fits the planter” and “I want it in the top corner, on the right”) which could be easily misinterpreted – and I realised, I had been backed into a position there was no good way out from.
I was faced now with the following choices. I could :-
A) No hobbies today. Cancel the whole thing off. Sit inside all day instead or try and do something else.
B) Do everything but the big planter, leaving that until another, unspecified day
C) Do as suggested. Somehow figure out how to move the thing myself.
To cut a long story short I ended up doing what I normally do, which is just giving in. I went for option C.
So there I was, struggling with the heavy planter by myself and worrying about whether the flower I had put inside was right, much earlier in the day than I had planned.
This wasn’t really the hobby experience I planned for.
I don’t want to sit here and go more into complex back stories and he said/she said, but let’s just recap the flow of what happened here?
1. I planned a time to do my hobby in my way
2. Partner outlines how I should do my hobby instead
3. I suggest we do it together so we are both happy. Partner agrees to be involved to do it with me
4. Timing replanned to suit partners involvement
5. Partner arranges to do something else instead and doesn’t get involved
6. Partner insists I should still do hobby the way she wanted
I don’t think this is particularly fair, especially given the fact I would never, ever try and do the same in reverse. My partner enjoys dancing, musical theater and signing classes. I’ve never (and would never) attempt to change the times of those or otherwise replan them to be involved etc and then drop out.
Can you imagine?
“I want to come to musical theater class too but only if we go to one about Charlie and the chocolate factory and if we practice at 2pm…” – then decided at 1pm not to do it but to go to football instead. But insist she still does it the way I wanted?
So at this point, there are probably a group of people with two complaints about what I’m talking about.
Group 1 will say “seriously? This is really really minor, what are you bothered about?”
Group 2 will say “well, I can see your complaint but it’s your fault. You should have just told her”
To the first group, you are right, this on it’s own is minor. But this is just one occurrence. This type of example will occur 2-3 times a month on average. I try to take the initiative to do something – or want to partake in a hobby – but there is often “involvement” or “guidance” or some other way in which my partner will either have to be included or else give instructions on how/when it should be done.
The ONLY exception to this I can think of is video games. However, what I’ll normally get there is regular interruption, or guilt. “You left me on my own and didn’t pay attention to me” is often wheeled out as retribution for playing a video game for 2 hours for example.
It’s a regular, slow and very subtle, drip drip of control?
To group 2 I say, yes, I agree. But trying to sit down and explain this without sounding like I’m being unreasonable is exceptionally difficult. Especially against the backdrop of “support women” and not wanting to be accused of trying to be controlling? It’s very easy to make this a “you need to set boundaries” issue but in reality it’s not that easy. And if you are one of the who would say that, question whether you’d say the same thing to a woman who was under this kind of control from her male partner? That’d be abuse would it not? Not HER fault for not setting boundaries?
Aside from this, further, I kind of think I shouldn’t need to?
I despise it when people group mens behaviour into one big lump so I’m not going to do the same here to women. I will say however, it isn’t the first time I’ve seen/experienced it.
My ex-girlfriend would do much the same thing to me.
My mother would do the same to my father. I remember him wanting to take me sailing at weekends but there frequently having to be “negotiations” about it. On more than on occasion I vividly remember asking if next weekend we could do sailing again or do a race, only to be told “we’ll have to see what your mother says” or “your mother wouldn’t like it I don’t think.” I could never understand it.
In balance, I would not be surprised if there are men out there that do this too. It just seems anecdotally more common in women?
And I really don’t quite know why it happens.
I develop theories about it being about control? About the need to find a man and then control him/change him? Or maybe fear he will become disinterested in her and something else? Maybe its a fear he is actually cheating? Maybe its insecurity and just being selfish?
But in reality, I’ve got nothing really to back this up and I really don’t know.
All I know is it seems to be a thing and what the impacts are.
The are devastating.
After 11 years of this, I don’t really know myself any more sometimes? I don’t feel confident in taking decisions about doing things and I’m always second guessing?
Any thing I’m going to do hobby wise, I always wait for her to try to include/work round her because its likely she is going to want to become involved, tell me not to do it or tell me how to do it.
I don’t think this is her fault or that it’s planned to have this effect. Actually I don’t think that shes conscious of it, or that she means to cause harm. And I should add, in many many other respects shes an amazing girlfriend and I love her to bits.
I can’t find a way of explaining this to her though. So, vicariously, I’m explaining it to you!
Whether you are a man, woman or anything else – examine your own relationship and perhaps how you treat your partner in relation to their hobbies. Are they free to follow their passion? Or do you regularly place limits, controls and try to become involved? Are you still “there” even though you are not? Are they really getting the time and space apart? And do they do the same to you?
Maybe have a talk with them about how this feels? You could make things a lot better for them and yourself perhaps at the same time.