What Do You Do at the Weekend?
And why it matters more than you think for your relationship
It started with a simple conversation. My wife Gwen and I were chatting about weekends – what we actually do with those precious 48 hours. And once we’d moved past the obligatory British discussion about our digestive systems (you know who you are), we landed on something more revealing.
Both of us admitted that work bleeds into our weekends. Not because we’re workaholics – quite the opposite. We love what we do. For me, relationship therapy isn’t a job I clock off from; it’s woven into how I see the world. I call it Omni Living – where your work, passions and life aren’t separate compartments but part of one integrated existence.
But it got me curious. What do most couples actually do at the weekend? Is it good for them? And does it even matter?
The Sobering Reality
The research paints a picture that’s both fascinating and, frankly, a little depressing.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics Time Use Survey, couples spend on average about two to two and a half hours a day together, including weekends. And how is that time spent? Roughly a third of it is watching television. Another 30 minutes eating. Twenty-four minutes doing housework side by side.
And then there’s the shopping. Weekend after weekend, couples shuffle around supermarkets and retail parks as if it were a sacred ritual. I find this genuinely sad when there’s so much more they could be doing – not just for enjoyment, but for the health of their relationship.
Meanwhile, over a fifth of the UK workforce is at work on any given weekend, and more than half of working adults report working at the weekend at least some of the time. For couples where both partners work, the weekend can feel less like a sanctuary and more like a continuation of the weekday scramble – just with a different to-do list.
What the Research Actually Tells Us
Here’s where it gets interesting. The science of weekend behaviour and relationship satisfaction is surprisingly rich, and the findings are consistent:
It’s not how much time you spend together – it’s what you do with it. A landmark study by Reissman, Aron and Bergen (1993) randomly assigned 53 married couples to spend 90 minutes a week for ten weeks doing activities that were either “exciting” or merely “pleasant.” The couples doing exciting, novel things together showed significantly higher relationship satisfaction than those doing pleasant but unremarkable activities. Simply spending more time together, without that element of novelty, made no measurable difference.
This was reinforced by Arthur Aron’s celebrated research at Stony Brook University, which found that couples who spent just 90 minutes doing something novel together showed significantly higher attraction and emotional closeness than those who simply sat and talked. It’s the novelty that matters – the shared experience of discovering something new, whether that’s a walk along an unfamiliar path, a new recipe attempted together, or sailing into an anchorage you’ve never visited.
Parallel activities can actually harm your connection. Orthner’s influential framework distinguishes between joint leisure (interactive, shared activities), parallel leisure (being in the same room but doing separate things), and individual leisure (pursuing activities alone). Research using this model consistently found that parallel leisure – think two people on their phones while sitting on the same sofa – had a negative relationship with marital satisfaction for both partners. It provides, at best, limited benefit and may actually weaken the bond.
Shared leisure with your partner (without others) has the strongest positive effect. Dobson and Ogolsky’s 2022 study of 232 couples found that leisure time spent with your partner alone was positively associated with short-term relationship quality. Leisure with others but without your partner was negatively associated with it. The message is clear: the couple bubble matters.
Satisfaction with leisure matters more than quantity. Johnson, Zabriskie and Hill’s research found that it wasn’t the amount of couple leisure time that predicted marital satisfaction – it was how satisfied both partners were with their shared leisure activities. The most satisfied couples in one Florida study reported spending roughly 50% more waking hours together, but it was the quality and enjoyment of that time that drove the connection.
Touch and rituals create a weekend infrastructure of love. Research from the Kinsey Institute shows that couples who engage in non-sexual affectionate touch at least once a day report higher overall relationship satisfaction – regardless of how often they have sex. Gottman Institute research adds that couples who build regular “stress-reducing conversations” into their routine – even just 15 minutes of emotionally focused connection – show lower cortisol levels and higher relational stability over time. Weekend rituals, however small, signal to both partners: “We’re an us.”
Where Weekends Fit in the Relationship Paradigm
In the Relationship Paradigm framework that I’ve developed, weekends touch every one of the six core elements:
Communication – Weekends offer the unhurried space for the conversations that weekdays crowd out. Not logistics, but the “How are you really?” conversations that build intimacy.
Connection – Shared novel experiences create new neural pathways of association between your partner and feelings of excitement and discovery. This is what Aron calls “self-expansion” – growing your sense of self through your partner.
Commitment – Choosing to spend your free time together (when you could be doing anything) is itself an act of commitment. It says: I choose you, even when I don’t have to.
Fun – This is the element most couples let atrophy first. Yet the research is unambiguous: playfulness and shared enjoyment are among the most reliable predictors of relationship satisfaction.
Growth – Trying new things together stretches you both. It builds shared competence and creates stories that become part of your couple identity.
Trust – Regular, reliable weekend rituals build a sense of security. Your partner knows that Saturday morning coffee together, or Sunday’s walk, or that particular way you spend Friday evening – these aren’t negotiable. They’re yours.
The Weekend Working Question
Gwen and I share something that many passionate professionals recognise: the weekend isn’t entirely “off.” For those of us who love our work, the boundaries between professional and personal are porous – and that’s not necessarily a problem.
The research on weekend working and wellbeing is nuanced. What damages relationships isn’t working at the weekend per se – it’s when work erodes the couple time that would otherwise exist. The key distinction is between work that crowds out connection and work that coexists with it.
If your work is part of your identity, part of what makes you you, then the task isn’t to eliminate it from weekends but to be intentional about protecting couple time alongside it. Omni Living doesn’t mean work always wins. It means everything gets its space.
So What Should You Do This Weekend?
If the research could be distilled into a prescription, it might look something like this:
Do something new together. It doesn’t have to be expensive or dramatic. Walk a different route. Cook something you’ve never tried. Visit somewhere unfamiliar. The novelty is what counts.
Put the phones away. Even for an hour. A couple who spends less time together but is fully present will likely be happier than a couple who spends all weekend together while scrolling.
Touch each other. Not sexually (though that too, if you’re so inclined). Hold hands. A long hug. A hand on the small of the back. These micro-moments of physical connection accumulate into something profound.
Have a real conversation. Try this simple Gottman-inspired question over Sunday morning coffee: “What was the high and low of your week?” It bypasses logistics and goes straight to emotion.
Create a ritual that’s just yours. It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that it’s reliable, repeated, and belongs to the two of you.
Stop defaulting to the supermarket. There. I’ve said it. If your weekend routine is built around Tesco, it might be time to reconsider.
The Bottom Line
Weekends are only 104 days a year. They represent your best opportunity to invest in your relationship when the pressures of work and obligation are at their lowest. The research is clear: couples who use even a fraction of that time intentionally – doing new things together, being present, creating rituals of connection – are significantly more likely to report higher relationship satisfaction and stay together longer.
The question isn’t really “What do you do at the weekend?” It’s “What is your weekend doing for your relationship?”
Neil Wilkie is a relationship therapist, author, and creator of the Relationship Paradigm. His trilogy of books on relationship therapy is published by Routledge. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Middlesex University.
Key References
Aron, A., Norman, C.C., Aron, E.N., McKenna, C. & Heyman, R. (2000). Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 273-284.
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), 243-254.
Dobson, K. & Ogolsky, B. (2022). The role of social context in the association between leisure activities and romantic relationship quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Johnson, H.A., Zabriskie, R.B. & Hill, B. (2006). The contribution of couple leisure involvement, leisure time, and leisure satisfaction to marital satisfaction. Marriage & Family Review, 40(1), 69-91.
Totenhagen et al. (2024). Do couples who play together stay together? A longitudinal dyadic examination of shared leisure, financial distress, and relationship outcomes. Family Process.
ONS (2023). Time Use in the UK: March 2023. Office for National Statistics.
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