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?

Hi @Biffatcrafts! I feel your pain as it's a bit like this when DH and I walk together... I'm 5'5" and he's 6'2". This is getting better as we get older (in our 60s now) as he's naturally slowing down a bit. But sometimes he still hares off like a Labrador. He's always sorry when I point it out and slows down, but it often happens next time. Otherwise he's mostly adorable.

However, there is an upside. Years of this has definitely made me fitter as we like walking and I have to work harder to keep up. I honestly think this has done me some good, so hopefully that's the case for you too.

We have a similar height difference and my husband walks ahead then stops and waits and asks if I'm okay, and I hate that too! I feel immensely patronised and incompetent - I think it's just a specific incompatibility and the solution is simply not to go on walks together.

To be honest I prefer walking alone anyway - for a few years walking and hiking alone was a big hobby of mine and I was doing multi day hikes, but DH wanting to join me killed my enjoyment completely AND I felt like an arsehole saying I didn't want him to come with me, so I stopped going at all and have lost the fitness I had.

It's a shame.

My husband is taller than me and manages to walk at my pace because he's not an asshole

My ex used to do this to me. One day I sat down and waited for him to notice I wasn't there. It took quite a while.

I think doing this shows his level of respect. He clearly doesn't want your company on his walk.

In the words of Mel Robbins, If he wanted to, he would...

@Parker231 @VikaOlson @Thingsyoucantadmitoutloud

Of course you can slow down to toddler’s pace. I did it for years with my children and recently with my grandchildren. It is just not a comfortable pace that I would choose to do on a long walk. It is also possible to learn to quicken your pace.
As I pointed out in an earlier reply, the OP is walking quite slowly and slower than average (Naismith’s rule) so maybe she should quicken her pace.

My brother is ex-military and superfit. He does insane extreme solo hikes that I couldn’t do in a million years. Once a year, DH and I do a wild camping long weekend with my brother on Dartmoor, and it’s a family joke that for the first couple of miles my brother has to keep stopping because he’s not used to walking at my pace. Then he gets the hang of it again, and we all walk together quite happily.

If your DH isn’t adjusting himself to walk at your pace, then he’s being an arsehole and I would stop going with him. It’s really not that difficult to slow down, we all do it with small children for years on end. He needs to put his wife above his ego, or get used to being alone.

This is terrible! Please start again. You sacrificed your fitness for a man’s feelings, that is so upsetting.

I have a sort of similar problem, I have to make DH slow down otherwise if I try and keep up with him my back hurts and then we don't get to see anything as I have to sit down.

I take his arm and make him walk slower, it benefits us both

But then she doesn’t get to do much exercise whilst he does.

Why is keeping up with him so important?

I think you need a mix of solutions. If he really wants to go for a stretch his legs, stride across the fields type walk, then yes fair enough for him to go at his own pace and you at yours - but plan for it, don’t just let it happen. Tell him that you’ll catch him up at such and such a point, he is to wait for you there, and wait for you to have a break too when you get there.

If you’re walking together as a companionable thing to do, agree this beforehand and he should slow to match your pace. Hold hands. If he drifts ahead call out “oy, come back here”.

Probably you need to do both. My dad walks far faster than my mum, always has. They don’t do a lot of walks together but what they tend to do is they’ll walk together for a bit, then she’ll sit and do birdwatching, and he’ll stride across the hills for an hour and come back to find her and they’ll carry on together. Or they’ll walk the first part of a loop together, then she’ll sit and read or walk more slowly, and he’ll go back and get the car.

I have a disability, which means I can't walk so fast any more. Of course, my partner slows down to my pace when we are out for a walk together, only a complete arse would stride out. He also checks that it's not too much for me, checks when I'm crossing over roads, as I can go quite slowly. He goes for fitness walks at other times and exercises when I'm not there.

I just wouldn't go out with someone who strode ahead and then sighed that I was too slow. We hold hands a lot as well, which I like.

Parents change their pace according to their kids all the time, he can do it, he doesn't want to do it.

I would say to him though that he's welcome to go off walking his own speed or doing proper exercise walks without you, or that you can walk together but he either needs to keep pace with you, or stop regularly and wait for you without making it seem like an issue.

Yep. Mine is 6'4" with gorgeously long legs but will walk at my pace without difficulty or complaint. It's not a physical impossibility, & if you're out in the countryside, surely part of the pleasure is actually looking at/listening to what's around you, as well as tallking to your companion? It's not a race, & I find it even weirder when the man's competitiveness is catered for by other types of walking - surely he can see it's not necessary in every situation?

Completely agree. I walk quite quickly and find it tiring and frustrating to walk at a slower pace.

I walk very fast, it was joked that the reason the grandchildren have their ears so flat to their head was because of the wind whistling past their head as I whizzed about with them in the pushchair! My dh, one pace, and it's a lot slower than mine. The temptation to slap the back of his legs and tell him to look sharp is great! (Lighthearted, obvs, before I'm accused of violence)
When we walk anywhere, we hold hands so the walking speed is more to his speed, but if we have to separate I tend to revert to my normal speed, I can't help it. I have to wait for him as he never speeds up but I love him so I don't mind.

There is nothing you can do - he has been clearly brought up to be a rude person, you can't change that.

I’m sure I remember a thread like this before that ended in divorce as it was just a sign o& other small disrespects that added up.

Tie his legs together with a bungee cord.

My DH used to do this... he'll also wipe me off on lampposts and other obstacles when we're walking in town together. In a narrow hotel corridor, he'll cut the corner in front of me, forcing me to hang back, then rush to catch up with him at the lift.

He's a really considerate DP in every other way, but, consequences, so I now don't walk with him at all, in spite of the fact that he'd really like me to. He's a very keen hiker too - but has to content himself with taking hiking trips on his own or with friends. I simply won't go.

When I go for a walk with my son who is tall with long legs, I have to keep telling him to slow down. He is just a naturally very quick walker.

My dh isn’t that much taller than I am, but we have the same issue - he ALWAYS walks ahead, and it’s not even when we’re going for a walk - if we’re out together anywhere, he he hardly ever walks WITH me, even when e.g. using the London tube.

TBH because of this, I rarely actually go for a walk with him any more, plus there’s the fact that instead of my usual walking pace (and I DON’T mean ambling!) he likes a route-march pace - his family were all the same.

I’ve long given up saying anything about it though, since he’s really not a bad old bugger in other respects. It does sometimes upset me to see so many other couples together, even hand in hand. Dh came from a very ‘male’, all boy family, even MiL was a bit like an honorary boy, and TBH I suspect that he somehow absorbed the idea that walking together or holding hands was sissy/uncool/whatever.

My DH is slightly shorter than me and he used to do this. He said he couldn't slow down. I highlighted that in fact he could, evidence was in the way he somehow managed to walk with others. While it is true that walking terribly slowly is oddly hard, most folks on this thread aren't doing that kind of really slow crawl. Respect is walking together or not at all.

I once watched a TV documentary about mountain climbing, there was a smug American couple who were climbing somewhere extreme in Asia, the two barefoot Sherpas carrying their stuff (masses of it) were miles ahead of the supposedly super fit tourists…every time they came round a corner the Sherpas would be sat smoking a fag, and would then set off leaving them puffing along behind. It remains one of the most unintentional funny things I’ve ever seen on telly!

"Difficult to adapt" is a rubbish excuse.

People can walk alongside toddlers or elderly family members, they CAN adjust. he just doesn't care enough to do it.

It's rude and men are the worst offenders.

Also, I'd like to point out that they mostly do it to their significant others, never to other men or female colleagues etc.

It's dismissive and rude.

He walks and you are on your bike, might make him run as it will be difficult to cycle so slowly.

My late husband was much taller than me with a long natural stride and he never ever did this because he wanted to be with me. I leave you to decide what your husband's behaviour says about him