Cultivate a Common Interest

Everyone wants to be a positive part of their partner’s life and have

their partner be a positive part of their life. Much of our days are
shut off to that goal as we pursue careers and obligations. That’s why
it is so important that people look for, or develop, common interests in
their relationships. Common interests encourage positive communication
and fun and strengthen the sense of connection between partners.
BERT AND DIANE’S idea of fun is to hop into their canoe and paddle the
day away together. The Minnesota couple, married more than three
decades, decided to take it a little further, though, and planned a fourmonth
journey through the waters and wilderness on the U.S.–Canada
border.
“We both love the boundary waters,” says Bert. “It’s so incredibly
beautiful. The trees, the rocks, and the loons. The smell of the pines.
The solitude. And us being together. The beauty is enhanced for us
because it takes some effort to get there. We love to paddle in the wilderness.”
For their journey there were no time schedules and no deadlines.
“We’re in no hurry to get back to the pressures of everyday life, the
world can go on without us knowing about it,” Diane explains.
What do they do with all their time out on the water by day and
camping on the water’s edge by night? “We talk, or there are times when
we don’t do a lot of talking, which is fi ne,” says Bert.
As for a downside to their common passion? “Mosquitoes. Defi nitely
mosquitoes,” he says.
In a comparison of couples who remained together more than fi ve years
with couples who split up, researchers found that the couples who stayed
together were 64 percent more likely to be able to identify interests that
they shared. (Bachand and Caron 2001)