Balancing Conflict and Shared Activities
Researchers have identified shared activities as quite important in maintaining various kinds of work and personal relationships (Canary et al., 2002; Canary, Stafford, Hause, & Wallace, 1993; Dindia & Baxter, 1987; Waldron, 2003).
Spending time with one’s partner in an inclusive manner helps to nurture a positive relational environment (Waller & McLanahan, 2005). In turn, one’s relational environment establishes a context for dealing with incompatibilities when they emerge.Overall, partners tend to be unhappy about the amount of time they spend together and the types of activities they pursue (Huston, Robins, Atkinson, & McHale, 1987). Differences in types of shared activities can make a difference. Friends tend to spend more time involved in interactive activities, where partners interact with each other; and married partners tend to spend less time pursuing parallel activities, where partners are together but do not interact, and individual activities, or activities done alone (Orthner, 1975).
Although partners tend to be unhappy with the time spent together, Yet Voor- postel, Gershuny and van der Lippe (2007) found that partners actually participate in more shared activities than they did 50 years ago. Such activities include going to the cinema, theatre, concerts, museums, sporting events, restaurants, parties, and so forth. And partners play games (e.g., cards; board games) and simply spend time together at home. A much smaller increase in satisfaction was due to sharing arts, crafts, and hobbies. Decreases in satisfaction occurred with increases in shared use of television, radio, and music (Voorpostel et al., 2007).
That partners find some of their shared activities dissatisfying merits comment. First, individuals simply want to do some activities alone (Orthner, 1975). Still, spending time alone could imply that one person is purposefully excluding their partner from events (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2001). Second, women opting to spend time in the workforce, as men do and have done, means less time for couple activities (Emmers-Sommer, 2004). Next, couples’ time together can be negatively impacted by the number of hours at paid labor (e.g., Kingston & Nock, 1987). Last, the presence of children in the home decreases the amount of time partners can spend with each other (Hill, 1988; White, 1983).