Dear Prudence, My wife and I both work full-time in careers that we love. Her work keeps her away from home for about eight hours a day, while mine is more like 11–12 hours a day. By the time I get home, she has already been on the couch for 2–3 hours watching TV, and it doesn’t stop once I arrive. This often dashes any drive I might have had to take a walk with her or do something outside together. Too many of her weekend mornings start with the TV also and turn into whole days of laziness. She expresses a desire to “do fun things” together but then I struggle to get her off the couch. We are in our prime, and seeing us waste away like this is just awful. Some days I just want to put a brick through that TV, drop to my knees, and beg her not to waste her youth like this. How can I step up my game to get her more excited about being active together?
—Not Getting Through
I have to start by confessing I have the TV on mute as I write this. (I’m sorry!) This is clearly causing you a lot of distress, and you need to tell your wife before you reach the point where you hurl a brick at your television set. Not just “wouldn’t it be nice if we turned off the TV and took a walk right now,” but “I am experiencing emotional anguish at how much TV eats up our social time.” Give her a real sense of how much this bothers you—nothing furthers alienation more than bringing up something you find deeply troubling in an offhand way to try to keep from bothering someone else. If she thinks you’d just occasionally prefer to go out while you feel like your love for her is being strangled, you need to let her know what’s going on with you immediately.
It’s worth gently asking her whether she might be depressed. She may very well not be! Not everyone who falls into a rut or watches a lot of TV is depressed, but if this is relatively new behavior for her and she’s finding herself unable to get up and do things she says she’d like to do with you, it’s something to consider.
He doesn't say anything about things not getting done around the house. Clothes are washed, meals are made, things are clean.
He doesn't know what she has or hasn't done between her getting off work and his coming home.
Maybe call her and ask her to meet you somewhere.
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