To married couples: Do you have a shared hobby?

“To keep your marriage exciting, take up a hobby together.”

That tip is probably in every marriage how-to book I’ve read. Spice up your marriage by taking a class together! Do something different together to prevent boredom!

We’ve tried that. It doesn’t always work. While my husband and I enjoy spending time with each other, over 8 years of marriage we’ve accepted that taking up hobbies together just doesn’t work for us. Well, not yet anyway.

“So… what do we do now?”

Hobby Experiment #1: “Let’s go to the gym together!”

Reason: My husband is HUGE on working out. He thrives in that environment, personal trainer and all. Me? I don’t want to talk to anyone when I’m working out; which is why I prefer working out at home with an exercise DVD. But maybe going to the gym together would motivate me, right? We’d run side by side on the treadmill, pick up some power shakes after a workout. How fit! How romantic!

Result: I’d always finish half an hour earlier. By the time he’s done showering, I would have finished half a sandwich and a shake at the snack bar. He also felt pressured to rush his workout because he knew I’d be waiting. Oh well.

Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hobby Experiment #2: “Let’s blog together!”

Reason: I love blogging and he’s very supportive of me. What if he blogged too? Yey! We both love going online anyway. We’d blog side by side on our laptops, take pics for each other’s blogs…

Result: He tried it but didn’t sustain it. While he loves brainstorming with me on blog posts, he’d rather leave the writing to me.

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hobby Experiment #3: “Let’s play badminton together!”

Reason: Badminton was THE sport a few years ago. He was taking formal lessons and needed someone to practice with. I took up badminton in college so it’d be a breeze, right?

Result: Again, he thrived in it. I almost lost an ear after a badminton racket whizzed by my head. Lesson learned: No sports together for now.

Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hobby Experiment #4: "Let's go food tripping together!"

Reason: We love to eat. I love to chronicle our eating adventures. Hurrah!

Result: This worked perfectly until he became super conscious of his diet, healthy eating and all. Then we became less adventurous with food trips. We're trying to revive this by making a list of restaurants in the metro that highlight healthy eating so we can go back to doing food trips – guilt-free this time. Any recos?

Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Hobby Experiment #5: "Let's play video games together!"

Reason: I love video games! He loves video games! If we play them together, wouldn't it be awesome??

Result: We got irritated with each other playing side by side. First it was Gauntlet (if I remember right) on Playstation 2. He was a warrior, I was a valkyrie. Our tag team worked pretty well. Then there was Star Wars Lego. We couldn't sync our moves – he was too fast or I was too slow. I'd lose all my player’s lives and he'd finish the game for us. Oh well!

Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

That’s just five from a long list of hobbies we’ve tried. We have yet to find that one hobby that engages us both the same way. The fun is in the trying anyway! We may not have found that one common hobby but we’ve tried out plenty that have made us discover more things about each other and our marriage. That’s plenty excitement for me.

Photo credit: Photo: “Debut” by , c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved