How Much Time Should You Spend With Your Spouse?

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On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

Is it better for husbands and wives to spend a lot of time together, in fact nearly all time together, or is it better to have a distance, hours apart each day or even sometimes days apart, because absence makes the heart grow fonder, But I kind of disagree with you on this one, in that I think there's a big difference between not wanting to be with your partner and just needing a little alone time.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. I am old-fashioned.

I like two sexes.

Yeah, and another thing, all of a sudden I don't like being married to what is known as a new woman.

I want a wife, not a competitor. Competitor! Competitor!

Talk about a bit, this crying in the morning thing, this depression, you know? Let's get that fixed.

That's what men think, isn't it? What? Unless you've got the answer, unless you can say, "Oh, I know this bloke in the Essex Road who could fix that," then there's no point bothering. How do you write women so well?

I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

I love him. I love him and I don't care what you think. I love him for the man he wants to be and I love him for the man that he almost is. What do people have rows about today?

Money, sex. Sex, money. He wants, she doesn't want.

She wants, he doesn't want?

Women have always been a big problem to me, Dr. Fassbender. Are you listening, Doctor? Yes, yes, yes, go on, go on.

And go on we will. This is Dennis Prager, The Male-Female Hour. In the not too distant future, incidentally, I will be reading to you some of the emails, hundreds that I have received. I can't read the hundreds, but of some of the hundreds. Where people have poured their heart out, men and women, about their marriages. And I think you need to hear some of the things that have been written to me. Welcome indeed to the Male-Female Hour. I'm Dennis Prager. We do talk about men and women. I call it the Male-Female Hour deliberately, but that's a separate issue. It is about men and women, and it is every week at this time. I have 3 what I call dedicated hours. One is the Happiness Hour on Fridays, one is the Ultimate Issues Hour on Tuesdays, the third hour, and on Wednesdays the second hour is devoted to male-female. Here's the topic today, and I know you will have a different— some of you will have a different opinion and some of you will agree, some of you may be in the middle, but I don't know where there's a middle one on this one. And that is about, is it better, that is about the question, is it better for husbands and wives to spend a lot of time together, in fact nearly all time together, or is it better to have a distance, hours apart each day or even sometimes days apart, because absence makes the heart grow fonder, You appreciate the person more. And the great post-'60s word, space. Now, I— my position on this, I'm not a spaceman. And so— but I appreciate that there are. By the way, I don't say that the spacemen and women are wrong. Those who argue for space, I need my space. You need your space, so please don't invade my space between the hours of Bubba and Bubba. I— obviously there are periods where an individual may need hours to him or herself. Anything could happen in life. I fully understand that. But as a general rule, here is my general rule. As a general rule, my general rule is that the general rule ought to be that the more time you spend together, the better it is. The couples that I have known, for example, that work together, that are in business together, they seem to have better marriages than those who are by necessity. A lot of people are apart by necessity. A lot of people are apart because they have— there's no choice. The usual being work. Most people work outside the house. But my, my belief has always been that the more time a couple spent together, the better it is. Now, if they have a time— more time together and it creates more friction, then that might exemplify something being wrong, fundamentally wrong with the relationship. But that, that, that I put aside for the moment.

Dennis Prager.

Do you agree is the question. Do you think, do you agree with me that the more time a couple spends together the better it is, or do you believe in space, in time apart as a regular matter for the couples and that is better for them? 1-800-PRAGER-776. I'll have a lot more on the, for the, of the arguments. Here is time though. There's a man in the room and I'll, you know, I'll just, it's taking like pick a guy off the street here. Uh, would you please turn on, uh, this gentleman's microphone? And, uh, your name is Alan, is that correct?

That's correct, sir.

Uh, Alan, uh, you are married how long?

I will be married to my wife 23 years in a couple of weeks.

Oh, congratulations in advance. That's lovely. Uh, do you, uh, do you agree or disagree that the more time spent together as a rule, the better?

No, I, I definitely— that's, that's how we feel. No, no question. Look, you're apart during the day. Most of the— most people are apart during the day at work, and that's, that's a big chunk of the day. So if you, if you don't spend time together when you have time together, then I think that's a problem. In other words, if you, if you're apart from someone all day and then you want your space at night or when you come home, that, you know, how much time does that leave for couples to be together?

Yep. All right. I, I mean, I asked you just a few minutes before, whatever you would have said, I would have had you on, but I'm glad that you have a confirming voice. Thank you, Alan. All right, that seems to me to be self-evident, folks. Why would one— well, I could answer that, I guess. Well, I was going to ask, why would one want to marry someone if not to spend a lot of time together? And I guess they could say, well, I want to marry somebody, I want to make a family with the person, I like to make a life with somebody, but frankly, I want my space. I guess that's possible. There are people who have bicoastal marriages. They see each other weekends. I don't know, they meet in Milwaukee or whatever, or maybe they just go coast to coast. And they say it works out great. I'd love to know if you know somebody or you are in such a marriage, I'd like to know, does it work out great? That you see each other only weekends? Is that your druthers? I mean, I could see it where you have no choice. I'm not talking about where there's no choice. Dennis Prager. I'm talking about where there is a choice. 1-800-PRAGER-776. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Now, Alan raised an issue here that I hadn't thought about. I was thinking about ideally you work together, ideally you are together even, you know, even parts of the workday.

Yeah.

If you can do it, which most people can't. I fully acknowledge that. I understand. But I would say I think that that is an ideal, and as I said, the couples that do work together My own anecdotal experience, I have no research on this, is that they have had more successful marriages in that they like each other. They become fairly inseparable, and I think inseparable is a good thing. I think that's a good thing for a couple to be inseparable. I think that there arose in this, in the, with the age of stupidity in the '60s, there arose this notion of space. There arose this notion of independence, of, of, uh, it's a bad idea to depend on a man, or it's a bad idea to depend on a woman. These are terrible ideas. It's very beautiful for a man and a woman to depend on each other. Can you overly depend? Of course you can overly depend. And you can overly have vitamin C. You could, you can overly drink water. I mean, and of course that does, that's a meaningless concept though. Yeah. And so, so it raises another interesting question at what Alan spoke about, which is the guy comes home. It's usually the guy who's out of the house to work. Usually it's not— of course there's, there's changes— and he wants his time alone. That's an interesting thing. The, the, uh, I, I'm, I'm going to be, I'm going to be stepping into, uh, I, I think some very, uh difficult matter here. When I ask, why is that necessary? And he'll say, well, you know, I just need to tune out. I just need to tune out. I've had a hard day today. And I appreciate that. But isn't what the man's saying then that my mode of greatest relaxation is to be alone? My mode of greatest relaxation is not to be with my partner? Am I being unfair to the guy here? And I don't want to be unfair to a guy, and I want him to have his time if he, you know, he wants to watch a game, and I understand that. But I also understand her in this matter. Well, you've been gone all day. Now, if the first thing she does is bombard him with problems in the house, then I fully understand. The guy's just had problems at work. I understand that. And here is where the woman has to think it through, how she greets him. But I still have to believe that in the best of circumstances, his mode of relaxing after work is with his woman. All right, let's see here. Well, perfect. We got a call from Denver. She needs a couple of hours a day for, for herself, for quiet time to, quote, regroup. I'll, I'll— I don't know what that means, so we'll find out when we come back on The Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

Prager it is. Hi everybody, this is the male-female hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Every week at this hour I have an hour on men and women, male and female, and the topic today is— the question is, the more time together for a couple, the better? And I argue yes. Everybody calling in doesn't agree, which is a little sobering. Alan agreed at least, and he's coming on 23 years of marriage, plus you were about 6 years together before that, so it's 29 years together.

Actually more.

More than 6?

More than 6.

You really tied the knot like that. Alright, let's take some of your calls here, 1-800-PREGAR-776. We, as promised, we're going to Nina in Denver, Colorado. Hi Nina, Dennis Prager.

Hi Dennis.

Hi.

First of all, I have to tell you, you are absolutely my hero.

Thank you.

And, um, I love you and agree with you most of the time. I'll be seeing you on Friday night. I'm looking forward to that.

Thank you.

But I kind of disagree with you on this one in that, um, I think there's a big difference between not wanting to be with your partner and just needing a little alone time. And in my personal case, I have 4 boys and my husband, so I feel a little outnumbered occasionally, and it's not—

Lot of testosterone in your house.

Oh yes. Well, I told them all one night if they didn't stop talking about automobiles at dinnertime that I was going to make the subject next night lipstick colors and see if they thought that was interesting.

That's a worthy threat. I love that. That is— you know, I never realized that the outnumbered woman— see, a friend of mine has 4 daughters, so he probably does have a lot of lipstick color talk. He should threaten them. We're going to talk about automobiles tomorrow night.

There you go.

All right, go ahead. So go ahead. So you want time.

I think when my husband— my husband, I adore him. I love being with him. But when he honors the part of me that says, "You know, I just need an hour or an afternoon," whatever it may be, to call my own, and for me there's no greater gift than just being at home with that time. I'm much more loving. I'm much happier.

So how much time do you need? Roughly speaking.

Roughly speaking, you know, I don't know, an hour a day or— I used to have— we used to laugh about it and call Monday was sacred day because that's the day off from work and he knew don't schedule workers to come to the house, just let me have that time and, you know, if I had to—

Alright, so wait a minute, so you would like an hour a day to be alone?

An hour a day, yeah.

Just, it doesn't even matter, just some amount of time each week that I Well, but, but, but, but, but, you see, I'm only doing this not, not only not to trap you, but to show you that in fact, and to show me, we may even agree. Because it sounds like this is hardly a contradiction of my, my general rule that the more time you're together, the better. I mean, you mean, you know, an hour a day even, and you're just now even making it a couple of hours a week.

Right.

Well, all right. I mean, you know, Yeah, okay.

Is that—

People that work together—

Yeah.

I had to work together with my husband all day and then come home and we were still together and then we did everything together.

No, no, I— all right, fair enough.

Right.

Yeah, okay, but this notion though of, you know, I need my space for a serious period of time every day or the thought of working with him and not having the whole day to myself is terrible. That you would agree with me is not the ideal.

No.

Okay. All right.

I think not. All right. Well, I look forward to—

I'm not sure you're a couple.

I look forward to seeing you and maybe your husband, too. All righty. Unless that's space time for her. I'll remember when I see her. All righty. Let's go to some other here. Let's go to Rachel in Cleveland. Rachel, Dennis Prager, thank you for calling.

Hi, Dennis. Um, so I agree and I disagree. Um, myself personally, I do, I do enjoy all the time I can have with my husband, but it does work for my aunt and uncle. They're not together all week except for the weekends, and they have a very happy marriage.

Hold on, they live in separate places?

They, you know, he works in the country. That's where he, you know, he has like um, his office there and his shop, whatever, and he lives there during the week because it's like an hour and a half away.

Right.

And he comes home on Fridays and he leaves again on Monday to go back to the country.

So he's, uh, I'm, uh, how old is, uh, are your aunt and uncle?

So she's about 50 and he's in his 60s.

Okay, and how long are they married?

Right, so that's the thing. They've been married about 6 years.

And they were single their whole lives?

No, they were married, they had children and raised their children, and then he became a widow and she got divorced, and they were alone for quite a few years. And so they kind of got in their own routine.

Okay, well then, all right, then that, if you get into your own routine in middle age and then marry, I could see where it could be uprooting from the, the, the normal way of life that you've established for yourself to spend all that time with somebody else.

Right, so I mean, my whole point in calling was just—

Now, now, but here's the interesting— yeah, no, no, that's fair enough, and it's an important point. I, uh, you are 28?

I'm 28.

How long are you married?

Um, 6 years.

Okay. Alright, so you married young obviously, and you agree with me for you?

For me, I agree with you. I mean, my husband does go to work at 7:30 in the morning and doesn't come home till 6.

When he comes home at 6—

I don't have a lot of alone time.

Yeah, boy do you ever. If ideally he could, you could work with him, you know, be by his side as it were, working, would you like that?

I think I would like it.

Yeah.

I think him and I, we really, we love to, we try to go out, you know, once a week together. We try, I think I would enjoy working with him.

Now what happens when he comes home at 7?

At 6, he comes home.

6, sorry, yeah.

And we have dinner. And, you know, he plays with our kids and then our kids go to bed at 7:30, so.

And then are you together the rest of the evening?

Right, so he goes and he learns 'cause we're observant Jews.

Right.

He learns for like an hour and then he comes home.

Now, alright, so when he studies for an hour, it's out of the house?

It's out of the house.

So with other guys, basically. He has what you call a chavruta type thing.

Exactly.

Okay, well, alright, it's a pleasure to hear from you, Rachel. Hope to meet you and your husband one day, too. See, this is fascinating. Let me give a different bottom line here for all of you listening. This is very important for me personally to say this to you. I fully acknowledge that there are different ways to make a marriage work. Please understand that. And by golly, the whole purpose of the Male-Female Hour is that men and women do understand each other better and then get along better. If it works for you to do, to make a marriage with some degrees of separation each day, each week, each month, whatever you need, then fine. I— this is no judgment. It's not a moral issue, nothing. Please understand that. That's why I said in general what I said, but that means a lot of exceptions, and I, and I, I buy that.

Back in a moment. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Alrighty everybody, you're listening to The Dennis Prager Show. And the— it's the male-female hour. The question on the table is my suggestion that in general, and I am a big fan, as you know, of generalizations, with the understanding that by definition it means there are exceptions. And that's fine. I said my view is that the more time a couple spend together, the better. Does that mean 24/7? It doesn't mean 24/7. And by the way, it could be 24/7 for some people. I just want to make that clear too. And I— and it's— it— I— more power to them. I— but There are a lot of people who argue almost as a principle about need space, need my time, and that may well be true, but it depends. Like everything else, I've always said this, quantity is a quality. If the time you need is, the guy needs all night when he gets home, you know, honey, you know, I had a hard day at work, you know, I need 3 hours. I'm on my own, you know, on the internet or watching sports or something, you know, please don't invade my space. I have a hard day at the office. I don't think that's good. I mean, if it works for them and she's happy, 3 more hours without her husband, okay. What, look, I really, and I mean this, this is not, and this is not patronizing in any way. If it works for you, God bless you. But I am a big believer, or I wouldn't do a talk show. I wouldn't write books and I wouldn't give lectures if I didn't believe that there are general suggestions that help everybody, or help most people at least. Of course I believe that. The notion that there are no suggestions to be made on leading a better life is absurd. So that's my suggestion here, that especially, I guess, for those of you who are newly married or about to get married to think that through in advance. And I mean, if in advance you both agree, look, it's really good to have X number of hours a week or X number of hours a day alone, and that's what you want, fine. I, I, I, I, you know, look, when I go to a cigar bar, you know, and, or other guys do, they like to have time with the guys and have a cigar. Totally understand. So please understand that I understand that too. Nevertheless, the optimum from the two men sitting here, 'cause I asked Alan the same thing and whatever he would have said, I would have put him on, is that generally speaking, the more time the better with the understanding that there are gonna be times obviously that you're not together. All right, let's, I'm gonna take all sorts of combinations, but let's take, let's go to one, that agrees with me for a change. Sun Lakes, Arizona. Don and Shirley, you're both on the line, is that right?

That's right, Dennis, we're right here.

Shirley, are you there?

Yes, I am, and we listen to your program every day and enjoy it very much.

And you listen together, that's key.

That's right.

Not in separate rooms.

No.

How long are you folks married?

57 years.

Uh, well, you have earned the right to comment on this subject. Go ahead.

Well, we've been together as much as we can. Actually, when I retired, and I was worried about her being a golf widow, so I taught her to play golf. And so when we both retired, she knew how to play golf, and she's been playing it ever since.

Not only have I been playing it, I beat him. I've had 2 holes in one, and I didn't start.

That's the last thing I expected.

I love the game.

No, Alan, you have to have that for the weekend. The weekend. Well, not only do I play with him, I beat him. That was a great moment. You know, that's, by the way, what you just told my listeners, I have the chills. What you decided to do is so healthy. You love golf and said, "Wait a minute, but I don't want a golf widow at home." And you said, "All right, maybe I'll like it," and decided to play it. You two, you're like models of what I'm talking about.

Well, along the way we raised 5 children, and I used to work when the kids were all in school. I used to work full-time. And of course Don worked full-time, so that was our time apart. And now we thoroughly and totally—

I love you guys, I love you. We'll be back in a moment.

We live in a time where the moment you question the narrative, you're told to stop thinking and start complying. That's why what Angel is doing matters. With eye-opening documentaries like "Thank You, Dr. Fauci" and "RFK: Legacy," Angel is willing to explore the issues others avoid. In a culture shaped by gatekeepers Angel offers something rare, a platform for truth-seeking storytelling that isn't constrained by fear or conformity. Go to angel.com/prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.

Hi everybody, the Male-Female Hour. Each week, this hour, second hour on Wednesdays, devoted to men and women. The subject today, sometimes they're fraught with a little tension because of We do talk very openly, openly at this hour about male-female issues, including sexual matters that are very sensitive to often to both spouses or just the two partners, whatever. And the, the issue here is, is different, but it could be filled with tension. But in any event, we're having a great time discussing it. And that is, I opened up by saying that I think that all things being equal, the more time a couple spend together, the better. With the understanding that inevitably there's going to be hours or even days apart, that, that will just happen. But I'm not what we call a spaceman, you know, I need my space, that sort of thing. There are people who are, I respect them. I just think that in general, the other is best. So we had Don and Shirley call, married 57 years. That was a terrific call. I had a lot of fun. From Arizona, and he did what I thought was a terrific thing. He said, look, I retired and I love playing golf and I didn't want to have a golf widow, so I taught Shirley how to play golf. At which point she chimed in that, well, in fact, not only does she play golf, she now beats him.

Yeah, I have to say, Dan, I just have to interrupt here.

Yeah, please.

I don't, I don't, I couldn't I couldn't do what Don did because I couldn't handle my wife beating me at golf. I just couldn't take it.

I know. One of the things I love about Alan Estrin is his honesty. No matter how he may look.

Plus, I even have a problem about women playing golf, actually. But I probably shouldn't get into that.

Well, you remember, Alan's the guy who still is not sure women should have gotten the vote. So please understand where he's coming from.

If you've ever played golf behind a foursome of women— guys, nobody talks about this subject.

No, no, Alan, God bless you for your honesty. Thank you. Thank you.

Somebody needs to bless me.

Yeah, that's right. We may be removed from radio in a moment. For what some would call a Neanderthal approach. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Let's go to some more of your calls. All right, let's see. I'm trying to alternate views and alternate the sexes, so I don't know what we're up to since the last was man and woman. Let's go to a man here, Fraser, Michigan, and Kevin. Hello, Kevin. Dennis Prager.

Hello, how are you today, sir?

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I've been married for going on 21 years, and for the last going on 6 years, we've actually lived in 2 different states, and I go home on the weekends.

No kidding. Was that of necessity or of choice?

Well, it was a necessity at the beginning. Now it's pretty much choice because Financially, it was a necessity at the beginning. Now that things are better for us, um, children a little bit older, it's— we could probably deal with one of our incomes. But it's— financially, we're still, well, much better off actually keeping—

But if you won the lottery, would you keep the current arrangement?

Probably not, no.

Oh, so what is— all right, so what is primarily financial?

Yeah, I would— that would have to be true, yes.

Right, but you— but what you're saying is you got used to it and it has not adversely affected your marriage?

Not at all. In fact, it's maybe strengthened it in some ways because when we are together, we are together. So it's something you'd said earlier about quality. So the quality of our time, because it is minimal to most people, I think the quality is spent much better than it would be—

Right, okay, and you're together exactly from when to when?

I leave my work at about 6 o'clock on Friday evening and it takes me about 4 hours to drive to Buffalo, New York from Detroit. And I leave at about 9 o'clock Monday morning to go to work from Buffalo.

Right. All right. Well, listen, I thank you for— it's a good— it's a— see, there's an example of where necessity has been met and it's worked out. But if you won the lottery, then my suggestion would apply. 1-800-PRAGER-776. And we go to Huntington Beach, California, and Kathy. Hi, Kathy. Dennis Prager.

Oh, hi. Hi.

Hi, I'm a little nervous. Okay, I've never been on the forum before, but we, both me and my husband, married late in life and our circumstances have been that we've always had to work at home together. And he always jokes and says that it makes it seem like it's double the marriage life, so like 22 years versus our 11 years.

Oh, very interesting.

But in a good way.

No, no, I took it in a good way. Not, oh my God, it's doubled my serving a term. No, no, that's— so you agree with me then, and it's worked out better for you working together?

It's worked out wonderful. We don't have the same company, we just both work at home. Yes, it's wonderful. Right. You know, we could take time to exercise. We both have that freedom to spend time when the kids aren't here. And therefore at night we spend more time with our kids and figure that way.

That's right, by the way. That's a good— I hadn't thought about saying that. If the couple has time together during the day, they can really devote time to the kids and it isn't taking away from the marriage.

Right.

I hadn't thought about that and I feel bad about it. That's a very good point. That's a real argument for working together if you have children. Because that is a tear when the guy comes home, let's say it's the guy who comes home, I don't care if it's the woman who comes, use it any way you want, comes home and then there's kids. When do, and by the way, this is a very real problem for many couples. When do you have time together? I mean, I'm arguing the more the merrier and there are many couples who have almost no time just alone. And then when they do, it's like a decompression chamber and they don't know what to do with each other. It's a lot easier when you have more time with each other. All right, we have a woman calling in, a young woman who's worried that spending all her spare time together will make her husband relieved to be away from her and not miss her. We'll take that.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Jordan Peterson, who was a fighter for the good fight. The motto of Canada is peace, order, and good government. The motto of the United States is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What do you think of that?

Yep. Well, that's exactly it. Well, that peace, order, and good government, that's built right into our constitution.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's definitely— it's a funny thing because in some ways Canadians are more conservative than Americans, or they're less libertarian, I would say. Canada is sort of like the US if you chopped off the extremes.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We wanna take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to lifeaudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.

We live in a time where the moment you question the narrative, you're told to stop thinking and start complying. That's why what Angel is doing matters. With eye-opening documentaries like "Thank You, Dr. Fauci" and "RFK: Legacy," Angel is willing to explore the issues others avoid. In a culture shaped by gatekeepers, Angel offers something rare: a platform for truth-seeking storytelling that isn't constrained by fear or conformity. Go to angel.com/prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.