"Alone time" and togetherness - - how is your balance working out for you?

[W2R]

Do you get the right amount of "alone time" in your life?

Would you like more time alone, or less? How much do you have right now?

Do you live alone? And if you live with a spouse or SO, have you made any special arrangements to allow for enough alone time for both? Do you have a large house? Do you have separate parts of the house that provide areas where you can be alone, like a workshop or sewing room, or even separate living areas? Or is your house just so large that you could get lost in it so alone time just isn't an issue? Are you newly retired and virtually tripping over one another? Or do you prefer to be together a lot, always, or even nearly joined at the hip?

Tell me all about your thoughts on your "alone time". Are you lonely at the present moment in your life, or do you feel more like Garbo:

YouTube - I want to be alone by glorious Garbo

 

[aaronc879]

I'm unusual. I like being alone. I live alone and rarely ever leave the house if not for work. If I were retired, i'd stay home by myself at least 300 days per year. Everyone's different. I'm really different. This is how I like it and will likely continue forever.

 

[bbbamI]

Tell me all about your thoughts on your "alone time". Are you lonely at the present moment in your life, or do you feel more like Garbo:

Tell me...and I'll tell you....

 

[easysurfer]

I remember this quote from somewhere. It went something like "There is a big difference in being alone and being lonely."

Some folks treasure their own solitude but do not feel lonely. For others, they'd be climbing the walls not always interacting with someone.

 

[haha]

I live alone, and I am entering my 12th year of this. But I go out all the time to be in groups, or to visit people. My issue would not be with being around another person "too much" of the time; I always liked that. I guess my issue would be that I feel that in modern life one is better off with more control. My rankings would be single= live-apart SO> live-in SO> marriage with pre-nup> marriage without prenup.

But this isn't so much because of a need to regulate contact as it is a need to be careful about who is driving my car.

I think for sex alone the best is a live-in SO. If the partners are in the same bed it is harder to say no, unless of course they are married.

Ha

 

[FIREd]

DW has been out of town for the past month so I have had some good quality alone time lately. But it's time for her to come back...

In retirement, we will have to make arrangements so that we can get at least 3-4 hours of daily alone time, which we both value.

 

[W2R]

Tell me...and I'll tell you....

Fair enough. I like having at least half my waking hours alone, I guess. Maybe 8 hours a day. So does Frank, luckily. We live separately and so that is working for us. I have just the right amount of "alone time". We are together when we both want to be together, and we are ecstatically happy with this arrangement. In the past we have thought, "Why fix it, if it ain't broke?" and haven't considered living together.

In a couple of years we plan to move north, though. We dream of finding two houses next door to one another, but such a set-up is not easy to find (when one does not want to move into a new development). Recently we began thinking of possibly buying a duplex, each paying 50% and each living in half. Then this week we started looking online at houses that are not duplexes, and (insert your favorite exclamation or curse word) we could get a lot of house for less money if we just bit the bullet and shared a house. But how could we get enough alone time? We lived together in a single-wide trailer during the Katrina evacuation but alone time wasn't our main worry at the time, obviously.

I feel like I have been wrestling with these issues more than thinking about the board, lately, so in my guilt over that I brought the issue to the board.

 

[W2R]

I live alone, and I am entering my 12th year of this. But I go out all the time to be in groups, or to visit people. My issue would not be with being around another person "too much" of the time; I always liked that.

With your dancing, Spanish, gorgeous babes, and other interests, it sounds to me like you are with other people quite a bit. Good thing that you like it.

I guess my issue would be that I feel that in modern life one is better off with more control. My rankings would be single= live-apart SO> live-in SO> marriage with pre-nup> marriage without prenup.

That is what I have always thought, too.

But this isn't so much because of a need to regulate contact as it is a need to be careful about who is driving my car.

That is understandable.

I think for sex alone the best is a live-in SO. If the partners are in the same bed it is harder to say no, unless of course they are married.

If all I wanted was just the perfect amount of sex, life would be so much simpler!

 

[bbbamI]

Do you get the right amount of "alone time" in your life?

Yes.

Would you like more time alone, or less? How much do you have right now?

What I have now is fine, but when DH leaves for a few days or weeks, I get lonely.

Do you live alone? And if you live with a spouse or SO, have you made any special arrangements to allow for enough alone time for both?

I live with DH. No special arrangements. He has his hobbies/interests and I have mine.

Do you have a large house? Do you have separate parts of the house that provide areas where you can be alone, like a workshop or sewing room, or even separate living areas?

Well, our house has 11 rooms...if you count the bathrooms and garage. The garage is definitely his and he has his dude room (I use it every once in a while).

Or is your house just so large that you could get lost in it so alone time just isn't an issue?

There's not a house big enough that he wouldn't find me if he wanted something to eat.

Are you newly retired and virtually tripping over one another? Or do you prefer to be together a lot, always, or even nearly joined at the hip?

We have both been retired for about a year and a half. We've stepped on each others toes a few times, but at this point no broken bones.

Tell me all about your thoughts on your "alone time". Are you lonely at the present moment in your life, or do you feel more like Garbo

I enjoy my alone time because I can focus on myself and recharge.

Like easysurfer said, 'there's a difference between being lonely and alone'. I've felt both.

 

[oneils]

Interesting question W2R. I would very much like to have a relationship similar to the one you have. I have many friends and like to spend time with them. I've even had several of my friends live with me on a short term basis. It wasn't difficult but I was always relieved when they moved out.

As for living with a SO, that has always been more difficult. The girlfriends I have lived with have been jealous of my time. It turned out that we always had different views of "togetherness." I think I would prefer to have my work evenings to myself (I am a young dreamer) and spend maybe Friday/Saturday with a significant other.

My problem has always been that I am too passive. I find it hard to make my needs known early in the relationship. So I spend way more time with my so than I know is sustainable and I inevitably snap. Not sure snap is the right word, but what I mean is I quickly run out of steam and as a result I have no energy left to put into the relationship. So I end it.

I'm interested what others on the board have to say. As, my impression is that many here are introverts, like myself. So I'm wondering how people have made their relationships work.

 

[Purron]

I'm an introvert by nature so alone time is very important. DH is an introvert too, but he tends to want more social interaction than I do.

We will have been married 36 years this December. During this time, we've had lots of together time and lots of alone time. We've learned to balance things out.

 

[rescueme]

This is who I am:

YouTube - I Am a Rock

And even though I'm married, still seek time alone...

 

[W2R]

Interesting question W2R. I would very much like to have a relationship similar to the one you have. I have many friends and like to spend time with them. I've even had several of my friends live with me on a short term basis. It wasn't difficult but I was always relieved when they moved out.

As for living with a SO, that has always been more difficult. The girlfriends I have lived with have been jealous of my time. It turned out that we always had different views of "togetherness." I think I would prefer to have my work evenings to myself (I am a young dreamer) and spend maybe Friday/Saturday with a significant other.

That is pretty much how Frank and I arranged things when we were both working. We lived apart then, as we do now, and only saw one another on weekends. We e-mailed frequently every weekday, though. Now that we are retired, we have more free time so we spend more time together, but we also have more alone time.

We met on an internet dating website back in 2000, and on the first date I told him that if the relationship worked out I did not want to marry or live with him, that I can support myself and expected the same from him, and that I was open for all the emotional commitment in the world but didn't want all the financial and other entanglements. It's amazing that he didn't run like the wind after that intro. LOL

 

[tmm99]

I am not sure if I can say I like to be alone a lot. I guess I could say I like to be alone with my TV a lot. This being the off-season TV wise, I am seeking more social life, but only in small doses (2-3 hours at a time - any more would be too much). My SO and I get together on weekends. We don't talk to each other much. As long as he doesn't change into a talkative fool, I think I could live with him without a problem when we are older.

W2R,

We met on an internet dating website back in 2000, and on the first date I told him that if the relationship worked out I did not want to marry or live with him, that I can support myself and expected the same from him, and that I was open for all the emotional commitment in the world but didn't want all the financial and other entanglements. It's amazing that he didn't run like the wind after that intro. LOL

Maybe he had the same exact desire, but was too afraid to say it and you broke the ice?

 

[W2R]

This is who I am:

YouTube - I Am a Rock

And even though I'm married, still seek time alone...

I can relate to that! I am trying to figure out how to ease these issues when people live together.

I wonder if it would work to divide the house into "his, hers, and ours" sections. On HGTV I hear about "man caves" in the basement, so if there was an equally private "woman cave" elsewhere, that could work.

 

[HFWR]

YouTube - George Thorogood I Drink Alone

 

[bbbamI]

I'm an introvert by nature so alone time is very important.

I'm a 'closet' introvert....

 

[figner]

I'm an introvert, and value my alone time. Have been living with my SO for 6 months now, and it's working out pretty well so far. In this as well as past relationships, I've always insisted on having my own room where I can close the door and be in my own space. Sometimes I choose to sleep alone in my room - not most of the time, but knowing the option is there is important. It's also worked reasonably well to have some sort of nonverbal signal when I don't want to be social: a hat, pin, or bandanna that means "don't interact with me just now." A do-not-disturb sign on my door means "don't knock unless it's an emergency."

I've been alone and I've been lonely, but the two are not related.

 

[rescueme]

I'm a 'closet' introvert....

I came out of the closet years ago ...

Yes, my DW knows I'm an introvert (even though she dosen't like it). At one time in our life, we both were (but things change)...

 

[figner]

I'm a 'closet' introvert....

Guess you just came out of that closet!

Oops, rescueme beat me to that one...

 

[Khan]

I'm an introvert.
I rather like men.
Am not capable of living with anyone but a cat.
I like W2Rs idea of living next door; makes it much easier if breakup occurs.

 

[Sue J]

My DH is recently retired so this is very relevant. I was used to a lot of alone time. I was a non-working spouse when the kids were growing up and DH worked full time. The kids were gone during school hours and I didn't start working part-time until the college years. I liked all my alone time because I knew that soon they would all be home again.

Things are sure different now! DH is home most of the time. He seems to like it just fine and I'm glad he's comfortable hanging around at home. I always loved being home, whether with someone else or alone so it's nice to see him relaxed at home.

We have worked out our routines so that I can have breakfast by myself. I just need the kitchen to myself for a small block of time. I'm not cranky or anything, I just have things to get done in the kitchen and I want to cook and eat and have coffee and the news on tv without a lot of noise or conversation. It was not an issue or an argument, he just recognized that that's what I need to start the day.

Sometimes we've been running errands together. Usually this works just fine and then sometimes it makes everything take twice as long. Some things I'm just better off doing alone.

I try to go everyday to walk at the indoor track. Plenty of people around but we all wear earphones and have our music devices so you don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to. It's funny, my very extrovert sister goes to the pool everyday for a swim exercise class because there's always someone to talk to. We've always been different.

My part time job (school crossing guard) starts up again in late August. An hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon when I'm by myself until kids come to the corner. I listen to podcasts or the radio and I don't have to talk to anyone except to do a quick greeting. NICE!

 

[RonBoyd]

Interesting question. We spend about half the time living in a "house" that requires both of us to turn sideways to trade ends of the space. Yet, we still find quite large junks of time to "be alone." (Generally, in space within sight of one another, however.) We are never "snapping" at one another so it must be working out fine.

The other half of the time, we each have our own spaces and may spent 3/4 of the day (or more) never seeing the other person.

I guess we are comfortable in both situations because I have never thought about it before.

(I am uncomfortable mentioning it in this discussion but we have been together 48 years... and counting. Just sayin.)

 

[Sarah in SC]

Great question. We lived aboard a 28 foot sailboat for 3 months several years ago. Lots of people thought we might just kill each other, but we actually found plenty of time/space to be alone.

This we accomplished by being in the same place, but doing something alone (mostly reading). I can be in a room full of people, but if I'm reading, I'm peacefully, blissfully, alone.

I would say that we get enough time to ourselves as we have different interests and household division of labor. I know I spend more time on the computer while he reads or putters around with fixing something.

I think you two could live on a house together if you had the right place--one that had a couple of floors and rooms that you could define as yours or his. Your relationship is an awesome one, IMHO, and I love that you both are on the same page with this--too too many of my friends are in newer marriages that are headed for disaster because they both want totally and completely different things.

I'd say we are just right, but we are both still working so I only have the sailing trip to compare to those who are retired.

 

[NW-Bound]

Do you have a large house? Do you have separate parts of the house that provide areas where you can be alone, like a workshop or sewing room, or even separate living areas? Or is your house just so large that you could get lost in it so alone time just isn't an issue?

Well, our house has 11 rooms...if you count the bathrooms and garage.

By the same way, we could say we have 13 rooms, but we do not have to find our own little corner. Like right now, I am surfing this forum, reclining with my laptop on my tummy. My wife is 15 ft away at her desk, watching a video on her desktop PC.

We never have any special arrangement, and just do our own things that we want. However, we are usually aware of each other's whereabout though. For example, whenever I work upstairs, she would visit every couple of hours to see how I was doing. Similarly, absent minded as I am, I would occasionally wake up from what I do, and wonder what she is up to and look around for her.

We do go to the library, or to do grocery shopping together. My wife would even go with me to Home Depot and Lowe's sometimes, although I would spare her the ordeal because I spend a lot of time looking for what I want or need.

My wife has her friends and I have mine. However, we are homebodies, therefore spend more time with each other than not.