If you're in a long term (15, 20+ year) marriage, what do you talk about with your spouse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything. Kids/school/work, hockey, Track, football, vacation/travel, news and current events, family celebrations such as birthday/wedding/baby showers, buying another property, moving, games we play, movies, how much I miss my dad and friends back home, funny memes/reels we send each other throughout the day, what I want him to do to me later. Anything and everything!

And you’ve been together more than 20 years? Really?

Hopefully not all at once

[Anonymous]

Finances, shared hobbies, the next house, kids and their sports, current events, work, travel planning, parents.

[Anonymous]

Family. Politics. Books. Current events. History. Travel. Music. Work gossip. Neighborhood gossip. Yard and house work. What's for dinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, gosh . . . kids, work, politics, friends, the dog, movies and TV shows, neighbors, gardening, the dog, music, travel plans, how beautiful spring is, and did I mention the dog?

Ha! This, minus the gardening, plus sports. I remember we used to talk about the kids non-stop, now its the dog! If I scroll though our text messages, we are always sending each other pictures of the dog. Sometimes when we are in the same house. But really, when we are not talking about the dog. we talk about everything and anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Family. Politics. Books. Current events. History. Travel. Music. Work gossip. Neighborhood gossip. Yard and house work. What's for dinner.

Forgot to add: The cats. Movies. TV shows. Health. The cars. Memories. What's needed from the grocery store.

[Anonymous]

Anything that you would talk about with one of your best friends plus more. What an asinine question. Why would you marry anything but a best friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
It's probably clear that I'm asking this question because we struggle with this.
We've been married 21 years, kids are rising junior twins, and a rising 9th grader.

We really have nothing to talk about.

-Future plans. Husband is not a planner. He refuses to talk about the future--career goals, retirement, etc. This isn't a conversation we've ever had in our marriage. It stresses him out so we don't talk about it.
-Kids. Again, stresses him out to engage about this because at this point it's generally about their future plans or the steps they need to make to have future plans. So he won't engage.
-Work. I don't understand his work. It's highly technical. This is probably my fault--I could learn more, engage more. His job is also a source of stress in our marriage because he works
endless hours but refuses to every talk about leaving the job (circle back to future plans issue--he won't talk about his career plans because want or like change so we just slog along with him working too much and me
being frustrated).
My own job is in healthcare so it's interesting in that I deal with people but the topic is somewhat finite (I've been doing it for 20 years--it's like I'm working on a series of new projects or cases).
-Hobbies. We have none. Well I guess we have interests (mine--gardening, our dogs, (lol)). His: tech things that again I don't understand. If there is one sector of life that I don't understand it's tech.
I long for typewriter of my childhood. (major disconnect--probably should not have married on this technicality alone).
-Other people. We do have this. It's interesting but there's only so much of this you can do before it just feels like gossip.



Clearly we have issues. We're on the other side (or nearing the other side) of raising 3 kids in a fast-paced DC environment. Trying to figure out if there is anything that we have in common anymore.

Married 15 years, have four kids. We have plenty to talk about even though we have very little in common in terms of interests (we are very different people but have strong shared values), but I don’t think you are really asking because you need ideas.

Your lack of communication is a problem. From your OP it sounds like you don’t like your DH. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to talk with someone who doesn’t like me - I would avoid them or shut down.

When you are talking to him, are most of your interactions positive? If not, work on that - it doesn’t have to be fake, and it can be for small things. I thank my DH for making coffee every morning, and he thanks me for going grocery shopping. Those small kindnesses go a long way in feeling like your spouse supports you.