When a Book Lover Marries a Non-Reader

What happens when a book lover marries someone who hasn't touched a book in their adult life?  Tom and I are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary, and so I got to thinking about what our life is like as a book lover (me) married to a non-reader (Tom).

Photo by The Markows Photography

We were in college when we met.  Back then, I didn't have a lot of time to read for fun, because as history majors, we both read plenty for our college courses.  After we graduated, I had a lot more free time, and so I started to read like crazy.  It wasn't until we moved in together that I realized how different we are in that respect.

Before we lived together, we would only be spending a few hours at a time together, going to movies, for walks, out to dinner.  I think it's safe to say he knew I liked reading, but maybe not to what extent.  Initially Tom was a little shocked by the number of books I owned.  He seemed worried that all of his stuff would get relegated to some back closet corner and my books would get preferential treatment (okay, he was kinda right about this!).  And while he brought plenty of video games with him, he didn't bring any books.  But through the years, I've realized that our disparate reading habits are no big deal and it actually works really well for us!

Spouses don't need to have all the same interests.  Each person can have their own hobbies.  It gives you each time to do something you enjoy, and it can give you more to talk about when you share what you've been up to.  My husband tends to play a lot of video games; while he's playing and talking to the friends he games with, I have time to read.  We're still in the same room, and he can show me some funny thing in the game or I can tell him about the book I'm reading.  And it's not like we have nothing in common - if you take a quick look around the blog, you can see that we love to go walking and hiking together.  We also like to go to the movies and have our favorite TV shows to binge together.

One thing that helps is our schedules.  Tom has to get up really early for work, and he is usually in bed before I am during the week.  We spend time together when I get home from work, have dinner together, watch some TV, but when he goes to bed, I have a lot of free time, and that's when I get most of my reading done.  Since I'm also usually by myself in the morning, getting ready for work, I will sometimes use those few minutes to get some chapters in, too.

One of the many things that I love about Tom is how supportive he is.  He doesn't mind all those times I have my nose in a book.  He'll ask me what I'm reading (and sound sincere about it!).  He'll gladly visit Barnes & Noble with me (probably because he can get a Starbucks coffee!).  He buys me gift cards so I can get even more books, and one year even gifted me with a new bookshelf to house my books.  And when I wanted to start this blog, he cheered me on. 

Yes, sometimes I wish Tom was a reader like me.  Over the years I've tried to gently nudge him to read more by buying him books, usually Dr. Who-related, but I've accepted that magazines and entertainment articles are as far as he is willing to go into reading territory.  And that's ok!  We don't need to share everything, and even though reading books is not important to him, he appreciates that it's important to me.

Some perks of being married to a non-reader?

• I don't have to fight with him for shelf space.
• I don't have to worry that he hates a book that I love. 
• I don't have to worry about *spoiler alerts* when telling him about a book.
• He won't judge me for books I have or haven't read.
• Because he doesn't spend all his time reading, he's got skills that I don't - like cooking and fixing things around the house!

So, do you and your significant other share a love of reading?  Do you read the same books?  Or are you more of an "opposites attract" couple, like Tom and me?