AIBU re DP's hobby?

[namechange0009]

Sorry this is going to be long and boring!

DP has a sport related hobby. He started it last year and has done really well so far, losing a lot of weight and getting very fit. He has done great and I'm pleased for him. He's starting to enter competitions this season and kept hinting at getting a coach to help him with his training sessions. This is costing £50pm which I agreed to as he's getting lots of support and a personalised training plan. We are on a tight budget but have been able to stretch to this, which I have no issue with.

Until now, he's been contacting his coach every day who has been getting back to him at about 7 or 8pm (he's very busy as he runs a business related to the sport) with his training for that night. It usually takes over an hour, and can be done indoors. This leaves me to cook tea, do the dishes etc near enough every night because he's usually not finished until at least 9. Then I'm not getting to bed until very late because of this. He's also expected to do the sport outside on a Sunday for 4/5 hours. I am a SAHM to a toddler who doesn't sleep through the night and I am exhausted. I do 90% of the housework. DP works full time. My only opportunity for some extra sleep is at the weekend when DP will take DD downstairs in the morning and I can sleep for a couple of hours more.

He's been saying for a while that his coach will be sending him a set plan to follow so he will know what he's doing each night. I was pleased about this as him finding out what session he's doing each night and starting so late really irritates me and makes my evenings difficult.

He's just sent me details of the plan and it goes like this:

Monday - rest day
Tuesday - no evening training as it can be incorporated in to his work day
Wednesday - evening training (at least 1 hour probably)
Thursday - same as Tuesday
Friday - evening training
Saturday - 2/3 hours outside and also a session inside
Sunday - 4/5 hours outside and inside session

Would anyone else have a problem with this? Usually when he goes out on a Sunday he will be adamant that he will be back by lunch time but the majority of the time he doesn't turn up back at home until at least 3pm and doesn't even contact me to let me know. I have been extremely supportive and reasonable the whole time he's done this and not complained. I didn't realise how much of a piss take the Sunday thing was until we visited the in-laws this weekend and he went out on Sunday, promised to be back for lunch time and turned up at 4pm. MIL was very angry with him and told me that if it was my SIL or any of her friends he would be 'carrying his head' (weird expression I've never heard!) and would not get away with it.

I don't have much of an issue with the training in the week as technically he will have free evenings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday but the Tues/Thurs are very weather dependant and often he will drive when he's promised he's not taking the car.

I replied to him saying 'so you'll be doing it both days on a weekend? What a piss take' and I don't know if it was an over reaction. I am generally quite laid back and we hardly argue. I just think at least he's doing something to keep him fit rather than going out on the piss like a few people I know.

I'd love to know other people's thoughts on this as I'm really not sure if I'm over reacting or not?

I don't think that being into any kind of sport is compatible with family life. Too many compromises, eyes glassing over as they constantly bang on about it, the reigning in when they start to stretch out their training and not to mention prioritising money for expensive kit. All those days being taken up wouldn't sit right with me. What about illness and whatnot that clashes with something important? Experience tells me they go and do it anyway and sod you.

I've said that before to him when we disagreed about it previously. I couldn't just piss off every Sunday and most evenings to do something I enjoyed. It just wouldn't work realistically. He always comes back with 'yes you could though if you wanted to' but I don't WANT to. I want to spend time as a family.

Wellthatsit yes this sounds like a serious cyclist but one who's single and full-time employed, not one with a family and young kids too. I'm a cyclist too, one who has been training to compete at a high level for nearly 10 years and adapting her training to suit her lifestyle as it changed (single and employed, unemployed and supported by partner, SAHM to a baby, SAHM to a toddler and now preschooler, soon to be back working part time with a school-aged kid). And even if you're very good at it, unless you're being paid for it and it's your job, doing a sport seriously means working it around your life, not vice versa. Wonder if he'd be asking his boss to make similar sacrifices for him so he can pursue his hobby? Doubt it.

OP this is a pisstake, especially the not getting home til 3-4pm thing. YANBU to come down hard on him, especially given that your job seems to be picking up the slack around him these days and doing it without much sleep either. You having to do everything like cook tea and bedtimes without him is also a pisstake.

His second go at a training schedule looks better than the first, but it's still a lot to ask of everyone, including himself. Tell him to check out this thread if he wants to know how other dads do it, www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40041&t=13023164

Tbh I think his coach is probably overdoing the training, he's working full time with a family and training upwards of 12hrs/week and much of that is indoors which means more intensity and harder to recover from. If you wait another half-year he'll probably burn out completely and sell his bikes... and if he were my coached athlete, there's no way I'd be giving him all that training to do in his situation, especially as he's still relatively new to the sport.

Show him this post and ask him to get an account and reply, and I'll be happy to tell him all the stuff he should be doing differently -- for free!

On another note, make sure he's got life insurance paid up and proper insurance to cover when he crashes or gets hit by a car because that's pretty much inevitable sooner or later.

February we have insurance etc sorted. Thanks for the link, that's very interesting. When you describe it as 12hr per week it does seem like a lot. Then there's the additional tinkering with bike/kit which adds time too I'll send that on to him!

I actually wouldnt have an issue with this but I would say he has to be finished for 12 on the sunday regardless. Then its up to him if he gets up early or cuts his training short. The two evenings and the saturday turbo sessions wouldnt bother me at all.

As long as he definitely pulled his weight when he was there.

Totally unacceptable.

I definitely wouldn't be ok with my DH having this schedule. I think when you have young DC you just can't have hobbies that are so time consuming. It's unfair, but that's the way it is. Family has to be the first priority and it sounds like he's leaving it all to you. It's a bit selfish actually.

I would rather be on my own than have the piss taken out of me as you are having OP.

If you share time with your DD if you split he would be seeing a lot more of her than he does at the moment.
Don't be taken for a skivvy and a mug OP.

Why would you want to be with a man who thinks so little of his family?

My DH is a golfer (he gave us football and cricket too when we had children) so no weekday training. But he is only allowed one weekend day per week with no restrictions on timing, and one weeks golfing holiday per year. And I insist that I get the same too, though don't often use a whole day at the weekend but might pop out without children for a few hours, and I'm off to NY for the week soon without them all too.

Gave up not gave us. D'oh

My DS is 13, and I am trying to remember how much cycling my DH did when DS was a toddler and I was a SAHM. I too found the SAHM thing pretty tiring and draining, as DH was away a lot with work, and DS was very energetic, and I always had a few little extra things on the go (like OP with her craft-based business). It is A LOT EASIER now DS is independent.

The all-consuming aspect of any sport can be a real source of tension, and a lot of men have been brought up to put their own needs first (sad but true) plus seems to generally be better at compartmentalising i.e. switching off to kids' needs, especially if their partner's role is to look after the kids during the week.

BUT, OP, it is up to you what you decide is a reasonably amount of time to dedicate to the hobby and to the family. You need to decide what your red lines are, express them clearly and come to an agreement. And only you can do this. Don't listen to what other people think. You know what makes your DH happy, what makes you happy, and what makes you and your DH unhappy. Figure out if there is a scenario where you both get a bit of what you want. Some people are very demanding of their partners, some people prefer to be very independent. Find what works for you. Good luck.

dh cycles but for health, not for competitions. He cycles inside 3-4 time a week for 1 hour ish late in the evening. Weekends he still cycles but accommodates us too - ie he will maybe get up early and get his run in first or we'll put the bikes on the car and drive somewhere and he and ds will cycle (mtb this time) while dd and I walk the dog or geocache, or he'll cycle to somewhere and we will arrange to pick him up. This works well for us as it has got us all doing some form of exercise at the weekends. But again he doesn't compete ! (and yes to more than one bike - dh has 1 tourer, 1 road bike and 2 mtbs, ds has 1 specialised mtb & 1 normal mtb (and a bmx!) I used to think a bike was a bike...

Yes, if you were to split (hypothetically, but worth mentioning to him), how would he do his cycling training every other weekend/weeknight that he had your DC?
A member of my family is a cyclist and it causes friction not only with his wife, but with his wider family re family occasions at weekends to which he turns up far later than promised.

I would ask him to sort things out taking into account the needs of all the other members of the family.
So that is his plan, he is basically asking you to validate his wishes. Ask him where on this calendar he is going to put

• your own down time (similar number of hours than his of course. If your down time is being together as a family, this is still YOUR down time, not family time)
• family time as a whole
• time with his dcs
• time for you two as a couple. When is he planning to be able to talk to you, plan the next hols, have sex etc... And 'after training' isn't a good answer. He will be tired, you will have to wait for him (might prefer to go to sleep to reciver from sleepless nights. I imagine he is never the one to get up either?)
• time to do the HW etc...

Ask him to put the number of hurs next to each item.

I found that it's only when doing that sort of exercise that DH finally realise the set up wasn't fair. It's so easy to say 'But you have plenty of time for yourself when I train/do my hobby' when actually what you are doing is looking after a dc and is hard work.

Oh and has he ever been on his own with his dd for any length of time? I suspect he hasn't and therefore is asuming it's all 'easy', just asusming it's not much different than when there is the two of you.

Oh and stop trying to organise everything so it's OK for him to do his sport. It's HIS hobby, it's up to HIM to organise things so that everybody else needs are met. It's not your responsibility there.

aftereight - I don't think it's helpful to say things like 'if you were to split' even if you qualify this with hypothetically. It is just upping the ante, and the OP has come here looking for advise on resolving this new problem in her relationship.

(I wish people wouldn't be so knee-jerk in their responses.)

Four that's a good idea. I will write that down and get him to answer each one. He's only ever been on his own with her once when I was away for a hen do. I agree he probably doesn't understand how hard it is. He doesn't get up with dd in the night because I wake up straight away anyway and would have to kick him awake and it just seems pointless

BTW "carrying his head" is quite a usual term where I live as is " he would have an arse for an elbow"

Actually, looking at his revised proposals and the one you put in your OP, the only change is he's actually saying when he will be out on Saturday ?

It's not a compromise IMO.

Does he pull his weight with parenting, cleaning etc in general?

Wellthatsit

Maybe this would be a slight problem in your relationship, but for me it would be a deal breaker. I would be beyond livid if my OH carried on like this.

It's not "upping the ante" it's pointing out that many of us would simply not tolerate this lack of respect and disinterest from our partners.
Why should that not be said?

Not quite the same but my DH recently decided to start a new fitness routine (something I used to do pre DC). I haven't been able to restart due to time constraints - and when he said to me that he wanted to take it up I told him it was okay - so long as I had the same opportunity. So we alternate days and get equal time.

He gets the same response about lads nights out/fun money too.

I'm a runner, not amazing but committed. I have had to recognise that while the children are young I will not be as good as I would like to be because I can't spend the time training that I need to. It's my ambition to run a marathon but, again, that isn't going to happen while the children are young as the training commitment is too much and takes too much time away from family life.

I run 10ks and hope to do a half soon as that is all I can manage time wise at the moment. I run four times a week, one weekday evening when the children are in bed, two weekday mornings for an hour max, and very early (6am ish) one weekend morning for up to 2 hours. It means that DH has to get the DCs up and dressed and do breakfast alone three times a week but he prefers that as it leaves evenings free and we have the rest of the weekend to do jobs around the house, spend time together etc. Also, I make it up in other ways, eg I do all the meal planning, shopping and 90% of the cooking. The important thing is that we both compromised (he gets his hobby time too) and I recognised that I will be limited in my progress while I have small children. Your DH is behaving like a single man with no other responsibilities.

Olivia I do most (if not all) of the housework and majority of the cooking. He puts dd to bed as he gets home from work just before bedtime. It's another issue I need to discuss with him because it's really not fair. I've got a list of jobs he's promised to do around the house which is as long as my arm, but he's put them off for so long.

I'm not painting him to be the nicest man here but he really is very good apart from this

wuthering- exactly.

I am an avid exerciser, and love the gym. I had to give it up completely when the kids were young ( OH works very long hours and no family support), pick it up gradually when they started school, it's only now that I exercise almost as much as I would like to- although children of any age need parents.

It's just part of being a parent.

But what's more- this guy is missing out on these few precious years of his DD growing up at alarming speed. That can never be recaptured, and it's heartbreaking.

fulltothebrim, it's fair enough to say it would be a dealbreaker for you, but it's not clear whether it's a deal breaker for the OP, so I don't think it's helpful to say 'if you were to get divorced'. It's an inflammatory thing to say, and ups the ante.

The OP needs to figure out what is acceptable to her - yes, after seeing how other people feel - but she isn't giving the impression that her DH is a selfish arse; more than he has recently taken up a hobby and become a bit obsessed and has lost sight of her and his DD a bit. She wants some perspectives on this, then she needs to decide what will work for her.

I agree with February - everything she says is correct. I have experience of a DH going through this particular obsession, which was ended when he broke his collar bone - as they usually do. it also resulted in no successful results whatsoever but mere participation in third cat races.

these guys need to get it out of their systems when they're younger with no commitments, or decide in advance whether they want to be a competitive cyclist or a family man with kids. in France, where its a more serious sport, men with children are almost never considered serious because the serious cyclists just make sure they stay single while they want to race - recent TDF winners with families are an Anglo-American thing and quite a recent change.

your dh is also doing way too much volume of training and probably not enough quality. how on earth can he possibly recover from that in order to see any gains. he could quite easily substitute a lunchtime run or gym session for two of the evening ones, and see bigger gains in performance, and do the same on one of the weekend days or one much shorter cycle, fitted in around his family.