When “Having Fun” Doesn’t Sound Like Fun

From: Dr. Frank Gunzburg

It’s unfortunate that having fun with your spouse is fraught with so much difficulty for some people. Ultimately it’s one of the most rewarding things about a relationship, and it would seem people would want to have fun with their spouses immediately. But when I tell clients they need to go out and have fun together as soon as possible, they tend to come up with a series of reasons that makes it seem almost impossible to do so.

There are a few major categories of problems I have heard couples express over the years about having fun together. If you have any hesitation about going out and having fun with your spouse, it may very well be that you don’t feel comfortable dating for one of these reasons. To help you overcome these problems, I want to address these categories one-by-one. Confronting these issues can free you to have fun with your partner again.

So let’s have a look at the top 5 Reasons Couples Let the Fun Die in Their Relationship.

Reason #1: Our Marriage is too Troubled

In many cases people who come in to see me say that their relationship is simply too troubled to successfully go out and have fun together. If you feel this way, you may not even be able to imagine having fun with your spouse. You may even believe that there is no way for you to have fun until all of your “issues” have been worked out.

In a marriage there are situations where you need to set aside your low-level bad feelings to do what’s best for the marriage. That doesn’t mean doing anything you are terribly uncomfortable with, and it certainly doesn’t mean allowing your spouse to take advantage of you.

But it does mean that, at times, you need to manage your own negative feelings and do things that will help your marriage heal. This is true for almost all of the exercises I have give you throughout this book from the communication exercises right down to the present discussion on having fun. If you let your bad feelings dominate you in a given situation, it will make it more difficult to do the work necessary to heal your marriage.

Putting aside your bad feelings for a short time, and going out to have fun together can be “therapeutic” and it’s likely you will see the benefits of this on your marriage quickly.

Reason #2: We Don’t Have the Time

There are many couples out there these days that feel they are so busy, they simply don’t have the time to dedicate to having a good time with their partner. One of the biggest excuses I hear for not dating a spouse is, “We just don’t have the time.”

Ultimately there is a very obvious solution to this problem: Make the time.

Reason #3: We Don’t Have the Money

There are cases where couples say they don’t have the money to go out and have a good time together. While I understand this concern, the truth is that you don’t have to have a lot of money to have a good time with your spouse. If you’re low on money, it’s time to get creative and figure out ways you can spend fun time together that don’t require a lot of money.

Depending on where you live, there are a lot of fun and interesting things you can do that don’t cost much money. And if you are even a little creative you can come up with fun things to do on a very small budget.

The point here is that you don’t have to have much money to have fun. If you get creative there are all kinds of ways you can enjoy time with your spouse that don’t cost very much money.

Don’t let the money issue stand in your way. It doesn’t have to. You can have lots of fun on a tight budget.

Reason #4: We Don’t Like the Same Things

Some couples are simply not in the habit of doing things together. In situations like this, the wife does her things, the husband does his things, and the two of them simply don’t come together to have fun with one another. In a lot of these cases, the two people don’t even like doing the same things, so they simply do what they enjoy by themselves or with other friends.

Assuming that the activity is not threatening to your relationship, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with spending time alone or with other friends doing what you love to do. It’s personally fulfilling and I would not suggest you sacrifice this time you have to yourself or with friends who share your interest.

However, if you don’t spend some time having fun with your spouse your relationship will whither. There’s no way around that.

What you need to do is develop some mutual interests, and spend time doing those things together.

Reason #5: We Can’t Decide on What to Do

The final reason couples have a hard time having fun together is that they simply can’t decide what to do.

Like every other problem with having fun, this problem is solvable, and there is no reason to let these problems stand in the way of having fun with your partner.

If neither of you has any interests you will both need to develop some. It’s likely you will want to develop interests with your partner. You might also develop your own interests independent of your partner, although this is not necessary.

Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years.