DH always walks ahead of me. AIBU to refuse to go on walks with him?

[Biffatcrafts]

I'm really am not sure if I am being unreasonable here or not, so please tell me if I am. And I know this is pretty stupid and small in the scale of things, but it's causing tension between my DH and I.

My DH is taller than me by quite a bit (I'm 5'1" and he is 6') so whenever we go for a walk together even if we start out side by side he always seems to stride ahead of me. It gets to the point where I feel like anyone looking at us would think we weren't actually together so great is the distance between us.

It usually gets to the point where I either have to accept that we are effectively walking separately, or I end up having to half jog in an effort to catch up and then keep a really high half jogging pace to stay beside him.

I'm 64, and whilst I am fit and healthy and capable of keeping this pace up, it's not something I want to be doing when on what is supposed to be a relaxing stroll together. (I should add here it also happens if we are just going for a walk around town window shopping, or going shopping too. In fact on any kind of activity which involves walking.)

His reply when I ask him to slow down is that he is simply walking at his normal pace, and that it happens because his legs are so much longer than mine. I can see his point, but I do feel like a little kid running after a parent sometimes.

It's driving me mad, and now I feel like what is the point of going for walks together if he isn't actually going to walk with me? He is super fit, and I do know that if he is on his own he walks very fast (he records his solo walks on Strava and I can see the distances he walks and the pace he maintains).

I've said I am happy to walk a bit faster, but that he needs to walk a bit slower too, and he has tried, but somehow he always seems to speed up and ends up ahead of me again. It's getting to the stage where I've now refused to go for walks with him because I just can't see the point if we end up walking separately. But he is upset about it and feels I am being unfair (and rejecting him) by not wanting to do this activity together.

So am I ...
YANBU to not want to do these walks with him?
YABU - I should just jog on and try and keep up!

Also, do other DHs out there do this too, and if so what have you done / said to resolve it?

Of course it’s ‘possible’. And absolutely those of us who are parents have done it when our children are small. I could see the post office from our front door in the village we used to live in, but it could easily take 20 minutes to walk there with my toddler. But that doesn’t mean I want to force myself to walk at a pace that is unnatural and uncomfortable for me every time I go walking with another adult, any more than a slower person wants to be hustled along at a speed that’s uncomfortable for them.

Absolute rubbish he can't adapt his pace, if I am out with my mother I wouldn't dream of walking ahead and leaving her, how rude would I be? He is inconsiderate and selfish.
My dog is getting slower now as he's aging and I have to adapt my speed to accommodate him. What would he do in this case?
He has no excuse, he knows you can't keep up so he either chooses to walk at a compromised pace or he goes on his own for his solo walk.

I bet he didn't do this when you first were together.

I assume @Lamentingalways implies that he is embarrassed to be seen with you, and only will walk with you if you have a 'glow up'. How depressing.

I don't walk with my husband for the same reason- my son who is taller and quicker manages just fine to walk at a compromise speed. It is a shame. But I would never be physically able to keep his speed, even if I was 20.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant I just checked my pace from strava and it reckons my strolling pace is about 4km per hour. Not sure how that converts. Obviously my jogging pace is faster, but that's not what I'm concerned about.

I'm 5'4. My mum is 4'9. If I walk with her I slow down to her pace. My husband is 6' and slows his pace to match mine if we are out together. My best female friend is 5'11. She slows down to match my pace. My BIL always walked faster than my SIL and left her miles behind. My exhusband always walked ahead. In both those cases the man no longer liked the woman and didn't want to be there so walked ahead.

So many inconsiderate men in this thread. This makes me so sad 😞

I'm 5'1" and my late dh was 6'3. He was the one who noticed that my short legs needed almost two steps to his one. He never strode ahead or told me to hurry up, and liked to hold hands when walking. OP, you dh is just being disrespectful and uncaring. Sorry!

My friend though, at 5'10 just meets for coffee as I walk too slowly for her. 😃

Mine does this but I think it’s part of his covert narcissism 😀

He won’t slow down because his wish to walk at his speed is further up his Things I Care About List than being nice to you. He could quite easily walk at your pace but he won’t because he’s selfish and inconsiderate and wants to do what he wants.

I have to say, he is not normally an inconsiderate person at all, it's just this one real mismatch in our walking styles. I think I will just have to accept that it won't be an old age with him filled with arm in arm conversational strolls like you see in the movies 🤣😅🤣

Also, regarding the glow up, I have just asked him if he is ever embarrassed to be seen in public with me and he replied absolutely not. So I am at least somewhat reassured now that he is not marching off ahead to avoid being seen with an ugly short troll of a companion 🫣🫣😆

All these people striding ahead. One day one of you won't be there anymore. Stop being a twat. Slow down, link arms, chat, enjoy their company and the scenery. What are you walking that fast for. It will all still be there if it takes you 5 more minutes to get there. My mum is 86. Realistically she's in the twilight of her life. I'll walk at her pace now. There will be years to speed around .....but she will no longer be there.

I’m implying that some men are exceptionally shallow, yes. And yes it’s very depressing but it’s my truth.

Walking slowly is painful for me. Weird as it is I get bad lower back pain if I walk slowly or stand still for more than 5 mins or so. As soon as I walk fast it goes - I've always been the same, first noticed it when I was 7 or 8 years old being dragged slowly around shops.

And from experience, when I am faster than someone else, if I slow down, they slow down more - incredibly frustrating (and uncomfortable). I've even taken to walking backwards sometimes as at slow paces it hurts less - and I still walk quicker than most people it seems.

But it isn't entirely (or even significantly) about height and leg length. As any runner can tell you, pace is a combination of stride length and cadence. The only person I've ever walked with a lot who could routinely keep up and even go faster than me is about 5" shorter and with relatively short legs for their height, they just compensated with a high cadence and well worked hip flexors.

@AngelinaFibres You just made me cry with your post ... so true, every word of it. Thank you

I’m 5’10 and DH 6’3. We regularly go out for a run together. DH matches his strike and speed to mine.

I'm 5' 0". My friend is 6'0"

We walk together a lot, in towns and on hikes. We don't have this problem, so I don't reckon that your problem is entirely due to leg length.

Well he wants to walk with you but he doesn’t want to make it easier for you to do so. What’s his solution then?

If you don’t want to match your pace and strike, you might as well go out on your own otherwise there is no point you being out with anyone else

I also slow down with my eighty year old mother! I’m simply saying that I won’t generally choose to go for walks with people whose pace doesn’t match mine, because it’s tiring and not pleasurable to continually have to dawdle (which is what it feels like to me). So I’m not ‘striding ahead’, I’m declining a walk on the grounds of incompatible pace.

Why is it you who is the bad guy here, when it is DH refusing to compromise? How can he possibly say that it’s you being unfair when he’s the one charging off ahead?

Because he us the man and therefore really important

Do you have any small children in your family? Could he practise adjusting speed by holding a toddler’s hand for a while?? Mine is the fastest creature on Earth when she wants to be and the slowest whenever we have somewhere we need to be… Joking aside, I do think it’s pretty rude. Would he charge ahead if he was walking with an elderly relative? Hopefully not, because that would be rude and disrespectful… yet that’s exactly what he’s doing to you.

DH is like this, he says when he has to slow down to my pace it hurts his knees, he refuses to hold hands with me while walking because he says afterwards he feels so drained.

I leave the house 5-10 mins before him now and we just walk separately. I've given up trying to walk with him now.

I’m 5’ and have often noticed that tall people are uncomfortable shortening their stride.

It’s like when I have to slow down to a small child’s pace; feels very unnatural.

Well it could be rudeness or just very difficult to walk much slower than his natural pace.

Im a very fast walker and I promise I’m a nice person but I massively struggle to walk as slow as many of my friends. I have to really think about it. End up walking, stopping, shuffling a bit, walking again. I try and walk a pace behind but feel I’m tripping over my feet having to place my steps close together.

I would just avoid going on walks together as neither of you are getting what you want out of it. Or tell him to stay at home with a coffee and set off half an hour later and try and catch you up! That could be fun.

Dh does this so I just stop walking until there's a ridiculous distance between us. He has to stop and wait for me to catch up. This is often enough to stop him walking ahead.