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066 | Building a Healthy Marriage: On Common Interests
320 Plays3 years ago
What do you do when your spouse doesn't share any of your favorite leisure activities, music, or hobbies?
Josh and Phy are very familiar with this problem! In this episode they discuss how Phil. 2:4 informs our view of hobbies in marriage, how to communicate about activities, and how to grow together in having fun. They also discuss the impact of video games on marriage and how to communicate about them.
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there.
Leisure Activities in Marriage
00:00:26
Speaker
This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back to Verity podcast friends. This is Felicia Masonheimer. I'm the host of Verity and we are in episode 11 of the Honest Marriage Series. Almost done, only one episode left. My husband Josh is here with me. Hey guys. And we are talking today about leisure activities and cultivating common interests. Have we ever had a problem with that? No, never.
00:00:56
Speaker
We don't struggle with common interests. If you've listened to the whole series, you might remember that in our premarital counseling, our counselor pointed out that the area where we had the greatest difference, the least commonality was in our leisure activities and things that we did together from music that we both like to hobbies, to sports, any and all of it.
00:01:23
Speaker
there was actually nothing that we really had in common. In fact, I'm trying to think back. And can you think of anything that we genuinely both enjoyed at that point? Skiing, but we didn't really do any of that when we were in our early stage of marriage. That's true. So skiing, we had a yeah, and we went to movies, I guess, but we didn't like the same movies. So
00:01:51
Speaker
I let you go to Lincoln with your friend. Lincoln? Yes. Yeah. Well, all that to say, we did not share a lot of the same interests.
Friendship Foundation
00:02:02
Speaker
I am more of a reader. I love history. I love, you know, going to historical sites. And Josh, what kinds of things do you like?
00:02:13
Speaker
Uh, I'm a little more of a nerd, so I like technology and pool and bowling and games.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah. Play video games and stuff like that. So it's not really the same alley. Yeah, definitely pretty different in terms of what we enjoy. And I think this may bring up to some people like, well, why were you guys dating if you weren't interested in the same things? Cause I think a lot of people genuinely believe that you have to have like common interest in order to even like hit it off in dating. Yeah.
00:02:54
Speaker
I mean, I want you to answer this too, but I know that for me, we were friends first. For the first time, I dated someone who I was a friend with first. Most of the time I dated people to get to know them, which sometimes works, but it didn't work for me. And for us, we were friends first. And so we just had like a connection over life in general, I think, and like the problems that we face in life.
00:03:23
Speaker
And you were very supportive and helpful to me in navigating those problems. So we became friends that way, not connecting around a common interest.
Selflessness in Relationships
00:03:31
Speaker
Why do you think we connected? Yeah, I think that like, for me, there was some intrigue in your willfulness.
00:03:43
Speaker
I'm trying to say because I previously like my previous relationship was very a very subdued one. And so, you know, you brought some energy to the table that
00:03:58
Speaker
I was like, oh, she's feisty. If not just as a friend, you're kind of fun. What interested me the most was your core values and your eagerness to grow in Christ and develop your relationship with God.
00:04:21
Speaker
that I think was like definitely alluring because I was kind of done with immature friends and girlfriends and
00:04:32
Speaker
Right. That makes sense that at that point in your life, you had recommitted your life to Christ or you'd come to Christ, I should say. So you were looking to grow. And that's when, you know, we were becoming friends.
Struggles with Pride and Hobbies
00:04:44
Speaker
So, um, we have a verse that we think really applies to this conversation. It's Philippians two, three through four. Will you read it, Josh? Yeah. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.
00:05:02
Speaker
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Which I think sums this up. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, you can't be selfish and look to do something as a team.
00:05:19
Speaker
Right, exactly. So I know that when we were growing and cultivating common interests, this was the issue that kept coming up, selfishness versus selflessness. Because if you're only interested in what you're interested in,
00:05:38
Speaker
you're not looking to the interests of others, specifically your spouse. And particularly in my case, I was the one that was super stubborn about taking an interest in Josh's hobbies because I felt like his hobbies weren't as worthy of my time. And I also didn't like how they made me feel. So for instance, bowling
00:06:02
Speaker
I don't really enjoy, but I really didn't enjoy it when I was younger because I was struggling so much with pride. And bowling is, if you're bad at it, repeated public failure. You're literally walking up in front of all of your friends. And in my case,
00:06:21
Speaker
being really sucky at the game and then having to go walk the walk of shame back and sit down. And so for me, bowling was just like the worst experience. It was just like shame, shame, shame. I think people who are bad at it just like begin to just do like silly dances and stuff on their way back to try and get over the embarrassment. I don't do that. So I was just like, this is the absolute worst. And
00:06:49
Speaker
And I had some preconceived notions and prideful ideas in general, and so I think that it all kind of... I was like, no, I'm not going, I will not go, and you can go find someone else to do it with.
Separate Hobbies in Early Marriage
00:07:01
Speaker
So what ended up happening is we, in our early marriage, in our really difficult years, from probably year two to year four, we literally had completely separate
00:07:14
Speaker
Hobbies I would say if we were gonna do something for fun We did it I did it with my girlfriend's or he did it with guy friends or by himself We didn't really do anything together Yeah, like I played hockey as a hobby and later on. Yeah. Yeah and Yeah, like we would just you know
00:07:35
Speaker
spend time with those individual friends that kind of cater to those interests. Yeah. Because at that point it was like, well, I know that you don't enjoy this. So I don't want to make you come with me to do this was kind of where we were at. Like I know Josh doesn't enjoy visiting a museum, so I'm not going to make him visit it. I'm just going to go by myself or invite someone else. And he wouldn't ask me to do things because he knew I really didn't enjoy doing them. So,
00:08:04
Speaker
But early on though, when we were dating and like the first year of marriage, I went to a lot of museums. You did. Yes, you did. You definitely did. That was the pursuit stage. But that brings up a good point that like, you don't want that pursuit, that willingness to engage with your spouse's interests.
00:08:24
Speaker
You don't want that to go away. Yeah. And I think we discussed previously some of the burnout there where like I planned dates that I knew you would like. And then, you know, like sometime during the first year of marriage got to the point where I'm like, well, I'll let her do something this time. And so kind of fizzled out.
00:08:50
Speaker
Right, which you acknowledged it wasn't right of you to be like, I'm done. I'm not going to do my part anymore. But it also wasn't right for me to never make an effort either in pursuing or in setting up a date or expressing interest in what you liked.
Balancing Personal and Shared Interests
00:09:10
Speaker
go bowling, it's not gonna kill you, you know, or whatever it would be that you are interested in. So what do you think about if
00:09:21
Speaker
There's an interest you have that like your spouse really just has no interest in. Like they don't like it. Like if I were to say, Josh, guess what? There's this new historical site or this new, you know, fancy cathedral. I don't know. I'm making this up. We should go see it. And you're really, really not into it. How do we now navigate that versus maybe back when we were younger?
00:09:46
Speaker
I think there's something to be said for like taking turns where you're like, yeah, like.
00:09:52
Speaker
you know, I don't really enjoy this, but I'll go to be with her and support her. And hopefully the hope is that there is like some, you know, reciprocation, but I mean, that's not always guaranteed. So that can't be the reason that you do it, but you don't have to do things alone. Like your spouse can support you in that and take interest and it can be a mutual thing.
00:10:21
Speaker
Right. Now, this would also apply then to wives and over the course of our marriage, Josh and I have had some difficulty on the subject of video games because Josh enjoys video games. I don't play them.
00:10:38
Speaker
And because of that, there have been times when I've been very negative about that hobby because it's not something that I grew up with or something that I grew up being exposed to or seen in a positive light. So because of that, I think, and I've heard from other wives that this can be a recurring problem where they're just really annoyed that their husband has this interest in this particular thing. But
00:11:06
Speaker
Clearly, video games in and of themselves are not wrong, of course, depending on the type of game you're playing, I suppose, but they're not entirely wrong. So how can a wife, say, like, be more maybe balanced or understanding in her husband's interest in something like a video game that she might not think is as, like, worthy of a leisure activity?
00:11:34
Speaker
I think that there's kind of like...
00:11:38
Speaker
in a fear in maybe women in general or people who don't like video games that their spouse, if they show any like, if they condone the activity or even show interest in it, then the spouse is going to make them do it every day or something, you know, where like, it's like, Oh, I can't act like I like this or else he's going to want me to like,
00:12:08
Speaker
play with him all the time. And so I think that preconception is not necessarily healthy. I think the spouse has to be in a healthy place to kind of have a thumb on the pulse where they're like, oh, I know she doesn't like it, but she's supporting me. So I'm not gonna go overboard and make her play it all the time, but it's sweet of her to show support.
00:12:35
Speaker
What if you're like, what if she's not playing it with you? What if she's just, you know, you're playing it as your fun time and she's around. I think you touched on the fear thing. I think a lot of women are afraid, maybe with good reason, that their husband is going to spend all of his time on video games or whatever, gaming of some kind. If he feels like he's allowed to. Yeah. Like if it's condoned.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, if it's condoned. And I mean, you could say the same thing. Let's say for some women it's online shopping or I don't know, you know, some sort of game or Instagram on her phone that her leisure activity is like playing on her phone in some way. I think either social media is a big one. Yeah, social media. So maybe we set social media and video games on the same level as which I don't think a lot of people do. I don't think people who are into social media will look down upon video games.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, probably. When they are very equivalent. They are very equivalent because they're both, I think, a little bit addictive and kind of a black hole. One, though, feels more productive because you can you can gain followers on social media or you can market on social media. So you can tell yourself, oh, I'm doing something productive on social media, when in reality, the end result can really be
Healthy Leisure and Spiritual Growth
00:13:56
Speaker
the same thing. Someone who's present in body, but they're not present in spirit.
00:14:02
Speaker
to quote the Bible. So what would you say for a wife who's like, my husband, his leisure activity is video games. I hate it. How can I communicate about this? I think as long as the husband is still showing growth,
00:14:19
Speaker
in his life. He's still having devotions and still teachable and willing to grow. There's nothing wrong with him deciding what his leisure activity is as long as that activity is done in moderation.
00:14:38
Speaker
And he's not ignoring the kids or the wife or anything like that. But I think it's healthy to schedule a time where it's like, okay, this is your time to have your leisure activity. And if you choose to do video games, then that's what you choose to do. You're a big boy. You can do that.
00:15:03
Speaker
I think that is a good point and that's kind of where I think we had to go because you know, I think if you grew up in a home where video games aren't a thing or they're really spoken poorly of, it can be a really difficult mental adjustment to be married to someone who does play them.
00:15:22
Speaker
and to not see them in a negative light or to see like, okay, like this isn't the end of the world and look for the positive ways that your spouse is showing up in other areas of your life.
00:15:34
Speaker
Like, I mean, any leisure activity can be obsessive. We just are more okay with certain ones than others because like, it looks cooler if you're obsessed with hiking and biking than it does if you are, you know, obsessed with video games. Neither obsession is healthy though. And so your leisure activities should be, you know, falling second to the quality of your relationship, which is your point, I think.
00:16:04
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:17:42
Speaker
I guess it goes back to Philippians too. Right. And putting, thinking of others more than yourself. So the person, whatever leisure activity you're engaging in, whether it's social media or something outside the house or video game, are you putting your spouse first? Yeah. Ultimately.
00:18:02
Speaker
And I'll tell you that I can speak from experience that if you're looked down upon in regard to doing what you, not just video games, but doing what you enjoy with your own time, if you're being judged for it, even though it's not inherently evil, then you're not going to have a positive attitude toward what your spouse actually enjoys doing.
00:18:31
Speaker
Right. So you're not content aren't motivators. Surprise. So you're not going to gun ho to go out to a cathedral. I love that. This could be just hypothetical cathedral is like interest. Not really, but okay. So we've kind of talked a little bit about that. I think that was hopefully helpful for people who are in that situation. And I would add one caveat a lot of times.
00:18:58
Speaker
when there's a video game issue, it's not a video game issue. There's a lot of underlying resentment about division of labor in the home, which we talked about, I think in the parenting episode, there's underlying issues of communication, connection, spiritual life, yeah, moderation. And so much of this comes back to your growth in your spiritual life because
00:19:23
Speaker
Like as a wife, if you're sitting there and you're like, my husband hasn't touched his Bible in X number of days and here he is making time for video games, that is really hard to respect. But that means that there needs to be a conversation about it. And if you can't have the conversation in a healthy way, then you probably need to be in counseling and have a mediator.
00:19:42
Speaker
That said, what have we done to cultivate actual common interests? Because I think we actually do have common interests now outside of our children, which has been our biggest common interest.
Developing Mutual Interests
00:19:58
Speaker
I think we do enjoy like at least talking about working out. We do work out semi. And then we do enjoy skiing and also like we enjoy having couples over for dinner or dessert or you know going over someone's house and
00:20:19
Speaker
playing board games or something. Yeah, we'll play games together. We found games that work for us to play. And that's kind of a personality thing. I think you're much more patient and you follow the rules. I literally hate the book of instructions that comes with games. Like if I see... That's the first thing that goes in the trash.
00:20:37
Speaker
Oh my gosh. If the book of instructions comes out of a game, a board game, and it's like a packet, I'm like, no, I'm done. I'm gone. Sorry. Bye. I don't want to play this game. This looks like I have to spend an hour learning the rules and I hate learning rules. So that's not fun, but I'm trying to train myself to be better. I do better if you can explain the rules to me without reading the rules. But a game like Risk, if it's, if you spend like half the game setting up the game. Oh no, absolutely not. I would be like,
00:21:07
Speaker
Everything in me revolts. I'm learning patience. So games we do. What we've really found I think is it's not even that we have like, oh wow, we both really love this thing. It's that we've found a way to do things that works with our personality. So for instance, we actually do enjoy shopping together. If Josh has an actual list, right? You have to know what you're looking for.
00:21:37
Speaker
to enjoy shopping. Yeah. I mean, growing up, my mom is a wonderful woman. And when we would go to Sam's Club, we would go up and down every single aisle in the warehouse.
00:21:53
Speaker
And I think maybe there's some trauma from that. It's like we don't really have a list per se, but you know, if we go through every aisle, we'll realize what we do need.
00:22:08
Speaker
Trauma speaking, yes. Actually, I think that every big family, Josh and I are both from big families. I have five siblings, he has six sisters. And when you're a big family and you go to Sam's Club and it's like, if it's far away, it's like an all day experience, right? All day. Yeah, you're shopping for at least two weeks, maybe a month worth of food. Oh yeah. So you're all day in this store and I think that really does shape your view
Enjoyment in Shared Activities
00:22:32
Speaker
of shopping. We ate samples for lunch. Yeah. Who is this family that lives here?
00:22:39
Speaker
You laugh, but it's true. But knowing that, Josh and I are currently away on a planning trip recording this, and we're also shopping for Christmas presents, and we went to Target to get stocking stuffers. We knew exactly what we were getting because we had a list. After we were done, I said, hey, we should go pick up the gifts for our company vendors. He was like, well,
00:23:03
Speaker
I'm kind of feeling shopped out. Like I've used all my decisions for the day to shop. And I was like, okay, well, what what could we do to like rejuvenate your decisions so that you have more decisions. And he was like, I need some coffee.
00:23:20
Speaker
So we got coffee and then we went to a bookstore, or maybe it was the reverse, I don't remember, but we went and we got what we needed. But sometimes, I think for us, it is, I love to shop, so that's a common interest, you could say, or an activity we do, but we do it in a way that has compassion on Josh's energy level. Yeah, but if also I had just was like, okay, we can go, I may have been,
00:23:48
Speaker
kind of a buzzkill. Right, so you communicated, in order for me to go and do this, I need caffeine to do it. And then we're able to make that happen. I think maybe four or five years ago, you would have said, I'm done shopping or I don't want to. I don't think I would have said no, but I would have made it known that I didn't want to during the shopping trip. There, so passive aggressive. That's what we would have done. Let's be honest.
00:24:18
Speaker
So passive aggressive Josh would have gone along with it because he didn't want the conflict and then would have made it the miserable experience is what you're saying. But I think because we've grown in the communication department, we're able to say, okay, well, I will do this with you, but this is what I need in order to do it. Can we do that? Not that I'm addicted to caffeine, but we've been traveling. And I've counted how many cups of coffee you've had today.
00:24:45
Speaker
Um, when we do the leisure activities now, I think it is, we've really grown spiritually and relationally to the point where we can fulfill what Philippians two says that it's more about common interests. And so, I mean, that shopping is one example, but you know, yeah, there are other things we do together that, you know, maybe are not entirely your jam or my jam.
00:25:11
Speaker
And there are still things we do separately, like you play D&D with your friends, totally separately. I am not really interested in playing that, but you know, more power to him.
00:25:21
Speaker
I think there are like, there's something to be said for spending time with friends that meet specific needs. Not that you're like using them to meet your needs, but like, you know, you have a friend that you are able to just like talk with more like a talking friend. Right. One that's, you know, more in tune with like emotions and
00:25:48
Speaker
And so you're able to like kind of fulfill that need or talk about something with them that you just needed to talk. And then there's a friend that it's like, let's just veg out in place of games or something. And so it's not all on your spouse, right? Like to meet all those different spectrum of needs.
00:26:09
Speaker
So like I have a friend who if I'm like, Hey, I'm going to go check some thrift stores. I might say, do you want to go? She'll go with me. She likes to thrift. She likes to thrift. She'll come with me. And Josh doesn't have to do that. Even though I'd love to do that with Josh, we may do that once in a while or not all the time.
00:26:26
Speaker
right, but not all the time or maybe like Josh and I for a while, one thing we did up here in Pentosky, Michigan winter lasts like nine months, no, six months, but it's still pretty cold. And we, for a while we would go on a, like every other week we go on a date to a local restaurant or pub and we get like a corner booth and we'd bring settlers of Catan and play in the corner.
00:26:51
Speaker
And that was like a common thing that we enjoyed, that we both enjoyed, that was really relaxed and fun. And that was something we did regularly, but we weren't forcing each other to do every single thing that we each liked. And even over time, I'd say too, we figured out like, I love country music and I can tell you the year that certain songs came out because I know it that well. It's like a flashback for you. It is.
00:27:17
Speaker
You were more into, like, electronica and these weird, like, beats sounds. And then there's the 90s emo playlist. But, yes, so we found music that we both liked, which, confession, is 90s emo music, like Green Day and Good Charlotte. Simple plan.
00:27:35
Speaker
So, you know, I think some, if you've been married, you know, six months a year and you didn't get married with a lot of common interests, there really is hope finding those things together.
Finding Common Interests Over Time
00:27:47
Speaker
I think having kids actually helped us with that a lot because we had less time. So we were more intentional and we found what we liked. And our kids are our like biggest common interests. We talk about parenting them. We talk about what we should change, what we could do better.
00:28:03
Speaker
you know, homeschooling them, we talk about that. Yeah. And then we right now also have the business as a common interest. So we have to set boundaries for that. But you know, it is something that we like to kind of brainstorm about as ideas pop up.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, so as time goes on and as seasons change, I think leisure activities and interests really can develop, even if you didn't have a ton of them at first. And I think we're just evidence that yes, it can be really hard, but
00:28:38
Speaker
The culture says unless you have all this chemistry and you have all of this commonality, it's not gonna work. And the reality is if you're living scripturally and putting the other person before yourself and putting their interests before yourself, it can work because you're taking an interest in something that maybe isn't every single thing you love, but because you love them, you're able to grow together and enjoy one another.
Episode Wrap-up and Connection
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's true.
00:29:06
Speaker
Okay. Well, we are wrapping up episode 11 here and we have only one more episode. Thank you for hanging with us for this season, you guys. And as usual, we've been mentioning this season that this whole series was part of the book launch of the flirtation experiment, which is my new book co-authored with Lisa Jacobson that talks about
00:29:27
Speaker
An actual experiment I did on Josh to bring more spark and mystery and fun to our marriage. It gives you short, quick chapters. Each chapter is about five to seven minutes. There's 30 chapters, 15 from me and 15 from Lisa, who's been married 28 years, sharing what we did to bring some of that fun back to our marriages during some really difficult seasons.
00:29:50
Speaker
So you can grab it anywhere books are sold. It's actually in stock on the shelves at Barnes and Noble right now. My friend Michelle just sent me a picture pointing to the book on the shelf in Barnes and Noble, which is super cool. So you can grab it in store or you can grab it online. It is number one in Christian marriage and holding its spot, which is so, so cool on Amazon. So thank you so much for buying the book. And we are starting our book club in mid January. So if you want to join us for that, you can grab the book before January 15th. All right, we'll see you next week.
00:30:20
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.