Do a lot of men in middle age disappear off into hobbies or work? Currently my DH isn't like this, he does play a sport at the weekend on a Saturday morning but is home by lunchtime and to be fair he's always done a sport at least one day a week and I think it's important for his mental health and to get out and socialise with some friends.
However I increasingly encounter with my friends and family women who are my age and older complaints that their husband is always off cycling, playing golf, at the gym, fishing and so on and if not that they they have become a workaholic or they start spending a lot of time at the pub and if they are home they are on their phones or watching sport on tv. My sister in law complains that her husband is obsessed with golf and is increasingly playing on both days at the weekend. My other sister in law has a similar complaint her husband is always fishing and when he isn't fishing he's Sat in the bedroom watching sports while the rest of the family are downstairs. My own parents developed this dynamic as they got a bit older where my Dad would watch his TV is a different room my my Mum watched her shows in the living room, each saying that what the other wanted to watch was rubbish. My DH's retired parents seem to be asleep and awake at different times with DFIL getting up and watching TV through the night while his wife sleeps and if he's awake in the evening he goes to the pub leaving her sitting alone. My close friend's husband (early 50's) is obsessed with the gym to the point that when they took their young children on a holiday last year he grumped the whole time that the holiday was messing up his gym schedule and that he was being set back. He won't ever join my friend to watch a film or a boxset as he prefers to use his down time on his other hobby which is finance / trading stuff and podcasts and videos about that kind of thing so he sits on his laptop in the living room with headphones on while his my friend and their kids watch a film together. I feel like I could go on and on with examples.
I think its natural and even healthy to each do your own thing and have a bit of space but it often seems like the women are trying to make a family or couple inclusive time and the husband then acts like its a massive inconvenience to him to give up a bit of his time to join in on that. How common is this? How does it happen? How can it be prevented?