How do you compromise with your partner on what to watch?

[Jean-F]

We record almost everything we watch, to f/f through commercials.
We watch maybe two shows together, “The Good Fight” and “Blue Bloods.”
What drives me nuts is when we’re watching something that she’s expressed a desire to watch, and I say something like, “Was that a gun under the armchair?”
She’ll say, “I must have missed that”, and I look over and she’s checking Facebook on her phone, UGHHH!

 

[Quartz]

Surely the only answer to, "What do you want to watch?" is "You, naked, <censored>"?

 

[varkanoid]

Think OP needs to get another TV. Wife usually gets the main TV to watch her many programs and I have the option of either the 42" 4k TV in the Conservatory (nice and dark with TV back lighting) or my computer has UW screen. She doesnt like my "Sci Fi £*£$" and I`m not really into the detective/dramas she watches. There is stuff we watch together but then I guess the OP sounds like they are still in the "honeymoon" phase of TV watching

 

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't live with her....

 

[jaybee]

I don't live with her....

lol that would work.
I use one of the other 7 TVs/screens.
The problem with watching things with my Mrs is she'll fall asleep or go off and do something in the middle of it. We are never in sync. In fact she's a complete baby and can never watch something from start to finish. The only stuff we tend to watch together is live sport, and even then she'll ask me to pause the F1 so she can have a toilet break. Nope. Live and direct baby. Ain't getting no spoilers over here being 1 minute behind live! Ain't got no time for that!

 

[Eurofighter]

I made my family watch Bad Santa 2 on Xmas day. Haha.

 

[Noakesy85]

My wife prefers to read rather than watch TV which works well for me. If shes watching some **** TV then I'll sit and play on the PC. If there's something i want to watch I can either watch it on my phone or on the big screen while shes reading.

 

[chroniclard]

We kind of like the same stuff and, thank ninjesus, she isn't into any of that reality crap or game shows so there are rarely any issues.

 

[MrRockliffe]

We have things we wanna watch together, and things we wanna watch separately - we use lists to track both.

So if we’re sat down and want to watch something together, we’ve got stuff to pick, and if we want to watch something on our own, we have something to watch.


Sometimes, if one of us is watching something on our own, the other person will sit in anyway, and inevitably get stuck in - it’s how our list of stuff to watch together seems to keep growing

 

[Jean-F]

lol that would work.
I use one of the other 7 TVs/screens.
The problem with watching things with my Mrs is she'll fall asleep or go off and do something in the middle of it. We are never in sync. In fact she's a complete baby and can never watch something from start to finish. The only stuff we tend to watch together is live sport, and even then she'll ask me to pause the F1 so she can have a toilet break. Nope. Live and direct baby. Ain't getting no spoilers over here being 1 minute behind live! Ain't got no time for that!

Works for you and I guess that’s good, (for you if not your wife), but it’s a shining example of the fact that people are different, and what one person likes another person may think is a waste of his/her time.
Neither of us is into sport, although my wife always checks on the results of the football team that her father and brother follow.
Aside from that, neither of us would look out of the window if the World Cup or Olympics were played in our back garden.
As for F1, Jesus H. Christ, it must surely be more interesting to stand at the side of the M25 and watch the traffic go round and round.
Fortunately that’s the opinion of us both, but if she ever develops a penchant for F1 I’d be standing at the bar of the nearest boozer before she’d hit the on button of the TV remote.
As for not pausing the TV if she wanted a toilet break, I’d never, EVER say no, live or otherwise, what am I, an SS camp guard?
I think that the sun shines out of her eyes, if she asks for the TV to be paused, the TV is paused.

 

[potatolord]

I read while she watches Midwife or whatever.

I am spectacularly good at guessing the killer in Death In Paradise, so always let her know. Apparently this is annoying.

 

[ivrytwr3]

Fortunately that’s the opinion of us both, but if she ever develops a penchant for F1 I’d be standing at the bar of the nearest boozer before she’d hit the on button of the TV remote.
As for not pausing the TV if she wanted a toilet break, I’d never, EVER say no, live or otherwise, what am I, an SS camp guard?
I think that the sun shines out of her eyes, if she asks for the TV to be paused, the TV is paused.

Yup, definitely still in honeymoon phase.

Don't worry, things will change. It will soon be, "Are you fukcing off to bed yet so i can watch the latest Rick and Morty?"

 

[Jean-F]

Yup, definitely still in honeymoon phase.

Don't worry, things will change. It will soon be, "Are you fukcing off to bed yet so i can watch the latest Rick and Morty?"

That’s a nice thought ivrytwr3, she’d be overjoyed at the thought that we’re still in honeymoon phase.
She moved in with me in 1981 when she was 22, and we got married in 1994, a couple of months after her 35th birthday, she’ll be 63 in June.
After my first wife wised up and kicked me into touch I did a lot of Tom catting around U.K., Pas de Calais, France and New York City, but I knocked all that on the head when I met her in a South London pub in 1980.
I tried the rest, and somehow ended up with the best.

 

[ivrytwr3]

I think I vommed a little in my mouth.

Nah, all good - fair play to you both

(thought u was replying to the OP, I KNOW you're an old git )

 

[Puzzled]

Easy compromise.

She asks me to choose from 4 things she wants to watch and I say don't care.

Having no opinion can be equally annoying as you are then left to try and pick something you think the other will like.

As is the habit of constantly asking "what should we watch" while never saying what they want to watch. It's like they belive they are making the decision but really just pass it off to you.

Maybe separate living rooms is the answer

 

[DrToffnar]

It is very difficult to balance out. I think a lot of people just find other things to do when their partner wants to watch something they're not interested in but I think that comes with time, there's that stubbornness from both sides to find a middle ground ALL the time at the start of a relationship. The big one for me is the football, there's just no compromise there, I love it and she hates it... I pick and choose games now and she takes herself off to the bath or watches stuff in bedroom.

I think eventually you just strike a balance. It's important to do that I think, no one's watching is more or less important then the other and you should always make an effort to at least appear interested, if only to begin with

 

[413x]

We tend to like same stuff so one relationship issue that's never been an issue.

Big hits last year with both of us were queen's gambit, arcane, shadow and bone, raya, general nature stuff.

There are only a few things that we don't both like.

 

[theone8181]

We've had 41 years of a very successful marriage so our method works.
As you can see from the photo she is in her room and I'm in mine, my two 32" monitors are to my right.
Very soon she will be finishing Call the Midwife and I'll go into her side until around 11:30pm where we will watch mainly documentaries done by Guy Martin, Bettany Hughes, Martin Clunes, Tony Robinson and a 100 more people we find interesting.
We very rarely watch films or TV series together so we watch them on our own TVs.
Probably another reason why the marriage has survived is because even though we watch our own stuff we are still in the same room.
I can even sit here recording songs, playing instruments at full volume and she won't hear a thing.

Not that dissimilar to me and my Mrs, but now I can't stop staring at your light switch. Did you have the wall trimmed back or something?