14 Comments
User's avatar
Janine Agoglia's avatar

My partner and I don't share many interests, but appreciate spending time together, cooking together, going on walks together, sitting and watching movies together. We each have our own interests that we support and admire in each other. He supports me practicing yoga and I support him stopping our walks to photograph mushrooms. He'll probably never practice yoga, and I rarely look for mushrooms, but we still love each other.

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

That's great spending everyday moments together. They are gifts. My have the same quirky sense humor and will watch TV and laugh together.

Expand full comment
Sandra Pawula's avatar

Jane, It's hard not to take things personally in our partnerships. I appreciate how you worked through your partner's reaction to your writing and accepting the different hobbies you have. How we accept our differences is so fundamental in a relationship. I'm single now so it's not an issue for me in the present.

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

So true! To all of it. He had deep admiration for my writing and it means the world to me

Expand full comment
Rod Bluhm's avatar

This is really insightful, Jane. My wife and I have some things in common. She’s planning to write again in some fashion. I think it’s good to have some of our own things too. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, like you said.

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

Thanks so much Rod! That's so cool that your wife writes too. Will she be on Substack

Expand full comment
Rod Bluhm's avatar

I’m not sure. She’s just getting started. She wants to figure things out as she goes.

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

That's awesome!

Expand full comment
Aaron Waddell's avatar

My wife doesn’t appreciate my writing at all, and calls it that “weird spiritual stuff”, and thinks I’m going to alienate everyone we know. But that is her path. I don’t criticize or wish for it to be different. But we both love the same kinds of shows and music, we both enjoy reading and listening to thrillers and mysteries. And we like walking similar foods when we dine out. And that’s enough!

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

Write for yourself and audience will follow. I started writing here for menopausal women. Gasp! Not his audience, lol. It has taken another direction as I've incorporated other areas. I am vulnerable in my writing and it's a different style than he would write.

Sometimes we have more in common with our partners than we think. Your post comment reminded me of that! My husband and I have the same sense of humor, quirky, slightly twisted and we laugh a lot together and at the same things, we share the same political beliefs too, both are introverts. I am the more talkative emotional one and that's OK. How many times have you and your wife order the same thing at the restaurant? 🤔 😄 . My husband and I always do and he says “Now I have to change my order.” It's funny how that works

Expand full comment
Nancy A's avatar

We do not share the same interests, but we encourage each other and recap our days and adventures together.

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

That's great! We always recap our days too, every night at dinner or when we make time to. Support is everything

Expand full comment
Mary Pierce's avatar

My husband and I share zero interests. He is a rows and columns and I am blobs and splashes. He computes. I write. ☺️But we have loved and accepted each other through 40 years, 6 kids, 11 grandkids, dogs, cats, aging parents, health issues. Gratitude and showing up every day for each other carry us onward. May you and your husband be blessed as we have been! ❤️

Expand full comment
Jane Deegan's avatar

It sounds like us and you can guess who is the blobs and splashes. 😀 . We work together as a team. We've been together for 36 years so something is working

Expand full comment