“My first child took 90% of my free time. The second one took the other 90%.”

A friend said this after asking about the work I do at Happy Couples Project, accompanied by a wry smile. His point was that often the problem isn’t knowing how to have a better relationship. It’s finding the time to have one.

And my friend was right, at least partially. Much about our society seems to be a conspiracy against date night, as my friend and relationship expert Nate Klemp memorably said.

I’ve noticed that not only do I struggle to carve out the time I want to spend with Anna, it often comes at the end of a day where my energy is shot. My aspirations for an amazing date night turn into just wanting to lie on the couch and do nothing. Or as a business coach once told me, “your business gets your best, and your partner gets the rest.”

So how much does spending time together really matter? Surprisingly, it may impact our relationship health less than we think.

The physics of relationship time

Albert Einstein famously said that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” While I don’t fully understand what that means, I know that an Einstein quote always makes you sound smarter.1

While we can debate if time is an illusion, we can all likely agree that time alone with our partner has a lot of competition: careers, children, caregiving, household responsibilities, friendships, etc. all compete with the relationship for attention and energy.2 This is especially true for parents: they spend significantly less time alone as a couple than nonparents, while much of their shared time includes their children.3

I like to think of this as the Relationship Hourglass. Early on, our relationship gets a huge amount of our attention. Then life crowds in the form of our careers, children, homes, and other responsibilities. Eventually, many of these demands usually recede.

Here’s what worries me about the narrow part of the hourglass. A relationship doesn’t have to explode to fall apart; it can just gradually decay from neglect. We may not recognize what we’ve lost until it’s gone.4

The good news for those of us feeling stuck in the hourglass is that simply accumulating more hours together doesn’t appear to guarantee a happier relationship.5 In fact, one study comparing 194 long-distance couples to 190 couples who lived together found that despite spending dramatically less time together, the long-distance couples reported no significant differences in satisfaction, intimacy, trust, or relationship progress.6

If simply spending more hours together isn’t the answer, then what distinguishes an ordinary hour from one that actually strengthens our relationship?

Don’t find more time, make better time

I think of time that leaves us feeling happier, supported, and more connected as “platinum hours.”

So, how can we create more platinum hours? Here are three of my favorite approaches:

1. Don’t buy things, buy time

Recent research from the Harvard Business School showed that spending money on time-saving purchases predicted greater relationship satisfaction—with a catch. The amount of money spent didn’t matter; what did matter was how many hours the purchase saved. And the benefits were greatest when the couples spent more time together with the time saved.7

2. Get serious about leisure time

One study of couples’ leisure found that the amount of leisure time together mattered less than whether both partners were satisfied with how they spent it. For men in heterosexual relationships, take note: women were especially likely to participate in shared activities that they didn’t enjoy, which led to dissatisfaction.8 I suggest you have a chat about how you are spending your leisure time, and be honest about what it would take to turn it into something you both love.

3. Make your world bigger

Novel, exciting activities with our significant other can promote a sense of “self-expansion” by incorporating new perspectives, experiences, and capacities into our sense of self.9 One couple I know takes advantage of this through a clever twist on the date night ritual: each month they do one “surprise date” where one partner tells the other how much time to block off and what to wear, and then keeps the rest a mystery until they arrive. They have done everything from goat yoga (I had to look this up) and a knife making class to a silent disco.

So, next time you are feeling short on time for each other, remember: don’t count the hours together. Make the hours count.

1

Did it work? The fact that you are reading footnotes makes you a smart cookie yourself!

2

The research is convoluted, but one study found that, from the 1970s to the 2000s, time with our significant others dropped by more than 50 minutes. See: Dew, J. (2009). Has the marital time cost of parenting changed over time? Social Forces, 88(2), 519–542.

Other research has indicated that we may feel more rushed in our time together, especially for women and even more so for mothers of young children.

Sullivan, O., & Gershuny, J. (2018). Speed-up society? Evidence from the UK 2000 and 2015 time use diary surveys. Sociology, 52(1), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517712914

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/02/28/whos-feeling-rushed/

3

Flood, S. M., & Genadek, K. R. (2016). Time for each other: Work and family constraints among couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(1), 142–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12255

4

The danger in how we spend time together isn’t necessarily conflict. Research looking at couples that divorce later in their marriage found that a substantial share were relatively low-distress marriages. From the outside, nothing looked broken, and many were relatively happy; they had simply stopped being part of one partner’s vision for their future. I find it especially poignant, these couples were less happy after getting divorced, as opposed to couples in high-distress relationships, who were happier post-divorce.

Amato, P. R., & Hohmann-Marriott, B. (2007). A comparison of high- and low-distress marriages that end in divorce. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 69, 621–638

5

This study found that the degree of confidence predicted time together

Johnson, M. D., & Anderson, J. R. (2013). The longitudinal association of marital confidence, time spent together, and marital satisfaction. Family Process, 52(2), 244–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2012.01417.x

6

Guldner, G. T., & Swensen, C. H. (1995). Time spent together and relationship quality: Long-distance relationships as a test case. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 12(2), 313–320.

7

Whillans, A., Pow, J., & Gladstone, J. (2025). Buying (quality) time predicts relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, 128(4), 821–863. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000488

8

Crawford, D. W., Houts, R. M., Huston, T. L., & George, L. J. (2002). Compatibility, leisure, and satisfaction in marital relationships. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(2), 433–449. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00433.x

9

Aron, A., Norman, C. C., Aron, E. N., McKenna, C., & Heyman, R. E. (2000). Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.273

Reissman, C., Aron, A., & Bergen, M. R. (1993). Shared activities and marital satisfaction: Causal direction and self-expansion versus boredom. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/026540759301000205

The Relationship Science Guy

Time Well Spent