Husband's hobby

[dancey]

My husband is in a band and practices at home and goes out to practice with the rest of the band. I am fully supportive, but sometimes I get miffed that things are swayed in his favour for time to practice (although I know that's still not enough time for him). How much time is reasonable for fathers of multiple children to take time out for themselves? How much time does your partner have? Does anyone have a good balance or does it always cause friction?

I don't think anyone can answer that, it needs to be discussed. For me the important thing is that you get equal time 'off duty' and there is adequate family time left. For us, we get one night off a week each and get one weekend morning each (generally for a lie in).

Hmm we discuss it and discuss it and unfortunately it seems to be on a loop! Your arrangement sounds good but when there's a gig he needs to practice intensely leading up to it. It's a sporadic hobby so it's difficult to sort out. Thanks for replying. If anyone else can chat about it I'd appreciate it.

^^ as above, it cuts both ways for both of us.

Depends on if it is once or twice a week, or it is nightly, and if you are expected to stay in, or you have your hobbies too..

Well, if your dp has an intensive week practising, could you have the equivalent time off over the next couple of weeks and he lays off the practice for a bit?

When dp and I made our arrangement (his hobby is he's a martial arts instructor, and prior to our relationship would train 5-6 nights a week) I approached it by asking how much time should be family time with dd and how much independant time (with one of us with dd, obviously). We then split the independant time between us 50:50. IS your dp pursuing his hobby and expecting all other time to be family time? If so, that's not fair.

Can't give you estimates of time in hours, but to second what others have said, the important thing is that you both get the same amount of child-free, chore-free "me time". Some people who adhere to this philosophy would average it out over a week. Some take a more relaxed view, on the basis that it all evens itself out in the long run. That's fine, as long as it really does even itself out.

From your post, it sounds like that's not the case. Are you perhaps getting walked all over in your effort to be "supportive"? If he has an intensive week in the run-up to a gig, could you gently point that it's your turn the next week? Some might say that it is just not practical for parents of multiple children to have such a hobby as this.

how much time do you get to do somethingyou enjoy without the children? imo, you should both get the same amount

I partly agree with the others that it's fair to have the same about of time as each other. But there's more to it than that. There's the question of family time. If you split your week in half and both had half your non-work, non-sleeping time to yourselves then you'd have a "fair" split, but it might not feel like much of a family. There's also the question of who gets to dictate when you can take your time - if you wanted every Friday night to go to a class, but he wanted to be able to take every night a week to practice before a gig 10 times a year, that isn't really going to work - especially if one of his gigs clashed with an exam or something.

Personally, at the moment with 2 toddlers I wouldn't be happy with either of us consistently having a weekend day "off" but would be happy with splitting up to 4 weekday evenings.

I think you need less family time as kids get older but it needs to be more consistent since you have to deal with the kids' schedules and demands as well as your own. So I would probably think as the kids became teenagers we would be getting down to one shared meal a week as a family and a weekend afternoon or morning (all this very hypothetical!). So there would be more weekend time we could split. I find routine and predictability to be fairly important at the moment, so would find the push before a gig difficult to deal with unless it was planned well in advance - and part of that planning included considering the impact on the rest of the family and mitigating it some how.

What do you find most difficult about your current set up OP?

If you have hobbies that would involve going out then it needs to be split.

If you have house hobbies then as long as you get a night where you are undisturbed (he knows any waking kids need to be dealt with by him and for no reason are you to be disturbed) you can also indulge your hobby every night night once the kids have gone to be.

If he is doing it during the day you also need days if you are struggling with it.

Is there an element of jealousy here? He has a band to be with and you don't get enough social time or doesn't it exist for you anyway? (Just wondering)

Sorry, I am not sure if that made any sense. I can't multi task apparently :o

Good ideas, thanks. It's not a jealously thing - it's an, I get stretched and over hectic with all there is to do and then I can hear the music practice. I will start to take time off on the weekends after a gig, I don't do that because I like to have family time. Life is hard to balance!

How much time is reasonable for fathers of multiple children to take time out for themselves? How much time does your partner have? Does anyone have a good balance or does it always cause friction?

How old are the kids? The older they are, the more time there is avaiable, but even when they were pre school we tried to get at least an evening a week and a half day a week for hobbies/sports etc - keeps you sane.

Oh you led me on OP!

I read the subject 'Husband's hobby' and was eagerly expecting something juicy like you'd discovered he was into dogging or getting dressed up in your undies when you were out.

Please encourage him to get into something more gossip worthy!