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Ask HN: How do you vary couple life during lock-down?
Under lock-down some couples are spending together 24hrs/day, every day, even for months.
With restricted outside activities, how do you introduce variation and leave each other some space?
In my case: we work in separate rooms; we take walks together, watch movies and play chess sometimes. Not too much, looking for inspiration.
- The_rationalist 6y agoWhy not collaboratively write an essay about an interesting problem?
- buzzerbetrayed 6y agoOh man I can’t believe I didn’t think of that
- ruffrey 6y agoMy wife would shoot me on site for suggesting this. I’ll let you know how it goes.
- The_rationalist 6y agoHave you been shooted?
- ruffrey 6y agoDay 10: not shooted.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoThis can be cool, but it can also be mentally draining. Pro tip: You'd better accept your partner's ideas at least 50% of the time.
- YuriNiyazov 6y agohttps://thehappily.co/ https://thehappily.co/
- toper-centage 6y agoThis is really cute. Anyone knows something like this for Europe?
- nefitty 6y agoIt can be fun to cook together or for each other. If you’re both into it, maybe a multiplayer game like Diablo or a Lego game could be fun.
- thedevindevops 6y agoIn about October, I discovered the weird world of Print'n'Play board games: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/free-games https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/free-games There are also plenty of How To Play/Review videos on youtube to help you find ones you might enjoy
- xcubic 6y agoNice find. Which ones do you recommend?
- thedevindevops 6y agoThe one which has really caught my attention recently is Tempus Imperium, the setup is based on the date and time, which is really interesting.
- viraptor 6y agoWe listened to some audiobooks instead of movies and I think it was great. 1. Takes significantly more time. 2. It's fun to speculate after a chapter and look forward to next bit. 3. I found it both more relaxing (just lay down and hug on a sofa) and engaging (I get so much more experience out of it than a movie). For the separate time, try some new hobbies. I started playing guitar again, wife started knitting.
- sounds 6y agoJust some ideas for fun: • Cook during the work hours, and see if you can tag team the cooking. Hilarious "failures" are the norm here. • Plan and make a gift for someone meaningful to you both (if you're into arts and crafts, etsy-style, or any other kind of maker type activity) • Take an online course together. • Adopt a pet (unless you already have one, allergies, etc.)
- giantg2 6y ago"... and play chess sometimes." My wife makes fun of me when I propose that.
- pacamara619 6y agoDM me if you need a divorce lawyer in Chicago.
- a_e_k 6y agoI'd always figured that Settlers of Catan would be the most likely game to lead to that.
- SftwreEngnr 6y agoFuck off scum.
- Milank 6y agoWhat happens when you add kids to the equation?
- smikhanov 6y agoThis question simply disappears.
- recursive 6y agoAt least with young kids, you'll no longer have time or energy to consider questions like this.
- avgDev 6y agoI love my kid, but it has flipped my life upside down. My boss is understanding. I WFH, we have a nanny for 4 hours a day, but still I start work at 1:30PM. I have almost no will to learn new things. I was working on a side project and have little will to continue. Our personal life is suffering as we are both tired. We are considering a full time nanny which is going to hit our finances.
- ruffrey 6y agoThe early years are exceptionally difficult with 2 working parents (not to mention single). The first child especially is a shock to the system. Most parents will say it gets loads easier after those first few years. Poor sleep makes everything harder. It gets better.
- stevekemp 6y agoI have to say I've no idea what I'd do if I couldn't send our child to daycare. I work from home, but past experience has taught me that I cannot work if he's home. On the rare times he's been sick I stay home and take care of him, and don't even pretend to work. Too much "Daddy play with me", "Daddy look at this", etc. Even if he's basically sofa/bed-bound and sleeping all day I can't work. At least in Finland we're allowed to have 9ish days of paid leave a year to take care of a sick child.
- 6y ago
- tomdell 6y agoSwitch which sides of the bed you sleep on. Get more involved in each other’s individual pursuits and hobbies. Buy tiny canvases and paint together. Call friends and family you haven’t talked to for a while.
- SCUSKU 6y agoI've played Jackbox Games with my girlfriend and her housemates when I'm over, it's a good time. You could just as easily stream it over Zoom, we have a lot of fun playing that.
- ngokevin 6y agoLearning each other's languages. Became enough I started to make an app around it. Playing different video games (Don't Starve, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion). Actually love the increased time together. I thought about heading up with chess against each other too. We played some Jaipur and Dominion. Though in the end, we moved out and started to go nomadic.
- rhodozelia 6y agogardening, re-decorating, fixing broken things, putting up new pictures and paintings, working out, baking, cooking, new recipes, biking, skiing, running, swimming in lakes, outdoor 'socially distant' gatherings. i bought a snow mobile and learning to drive it is a great challenge
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoThis is a bit of a tangent, but: Before the pandemic, my wife and I worked from home while our kids went off to school. That made it really easy to have "special" time without concern for the kids hearing us or walking in on us. With schools doing remote learning, that's no longer possible. Which means we're at the mercy of whenever the kids are soundly asleep at night. Which means we're more tired during those encounters, and it messes up our sleep schedules. It's one reason I'm really, really looking forward to school returning to normal next fall (fingers crossed).
- scotty79 6y agoPick a random recipe and try to cook it together with full assumption that whatever comes out will be inedible and you are just having fun. Try to make some artistic photos of each other. Try to research some poses and lightning and recreate it with whatever you have available. Try playing some board games, like Carcassonne. If you both like puzzle try to race to solve a puzzle (like Consecutive Sudoku) or solve it together. Buy and assemble some furniture or some toy kit together. Learn to play some computer game together like Don't Starve Together. Basically have fun together by competing and cooperating and creating stuff without any expectations. Do stuff you never done before.
- randycupertino 6y agoIt's pretty silly sounding, but we did a puzzle together and really enjoyed it! Lots of time to sit together and chat while we worked on an interesting puzzle. Was a wooden one from Nautilus puzzles with "whimsy" pieces and a nice design. 10/10. Also some day trips exploring nearby sites that were still open during shelter in place.
- evanb 6y agoSounds like a 500/500 way to spend some time!
- tomcam 6y agoSold my office & bought a farm! Worked great.
- Lammy 6y ago> With restricted outside activities I think it's fun to pick a direction and drive in it for a few hours. For me it's been a great way to discover more of the less-travelled Bay Area counties where crowds can be hard to even come by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXh0bQIZw1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXh0bQIZw1g It might not comply with the exact wording of "staying in [our] residences to the extent possible", but it seems foolish to think I'd be hurting myself or anyone else going between my garage, an enclosed but well-ventilated glass bubble, and my garage again. I do avoid stopping anywhere however :)
- mjmasia 6y agoWe took up karate together with my childhood sensei over Zoom. It super fun, more interesting than just working out, and a great bonding experience. DM me if you want my sensei's contact details, she's joyful and makes the sessions great.
- bitcoinmoney 6y agoInterested. Can you send the link and rates?
- winrid 6y agoWe sleep separately.
- garbene 6y agoMy wife and are I live in a pretty small house (one story, 1,300 so ft) so we’re pretty much in sight if each other almost 24 hours a day. I don’t really have much to offer beyond what you’re doing but spontaneity is nice. Today we both felt like shit with what went down in the capitol yesterday do we said fuck it, called out of work tmrw, and we’re currently in a hotel room on the coast drinking beer and eating pizza on the bed (well, we were, now it’s “friend phone time”). Aside from that: working out together and drives out in the countryside.
- mxxx 6y agoThe leaving the house stuff may not be applicable if they’re somewhere with a hard lockdown. I think the UK is in that situation at the moment.
- gumby 6y agoWe read together, bike together, play tennis, ski. When her kids are here we play board games. We don't have a place that won't be attacked by dog/cat/kids so can't build a puzzle. We cannot work in the same room. Actually her 50% time for kids works out great. My kid was 100% time and while I really really enjoyed the time I also didn't work at all for those years. Or rather I tried once for about 18 months and it was really almost impossible.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoWe put puzzles on a card table (or a spare table). To keep the cat from destroying/eating it, we cover it with a spare tablecloth.
- domano 6y agoWe like to cook a lot and experiment with it. That said i think that failures can make the evening a bit miserable so i would recommend following basic methods from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt or Daniel Gritzer. These are very scientific in their approach and you will have many many small successes which will motivate both of you to keep on going, instead of not understanding what went wrong and being disappointed even if you say you won't be :) I recommend Kenjis book "The Food Lab" and just going through the recipes and learning the science behind them together
- mxxx 6y agoI found it quite useful to try and socialise a bit on zoom. We had a weekly movie night where we would both watch a film with some other friends - shitty action films or crap 90s films where everyone could just talk a bit of shit and have a laugh. But I would also have a weekly zoom with some old friends where we’d sink a few beers and catch up, which sort of more or less replicated the effect of actually getting out of the house and spending time with other people by myself, which (as backwards as it might sound) I find to be a pretty important part of being in a couple. Absence makes the heart etc etc.