With DH Inflexible 6pm gym schedule?

[notaurewhatusername]

need some perspective here because I genuinely don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or if this is a legitimate frustration.

My husband goes to the gym at 6pm most evenings. We have a one-year-old, and this has been his routine since our child was born. The issue isn’t that he goes to the gym - I absolutely think he should have that time - it’s that he’s completely inflexible about the timing because his friends go at 6pm.

Here’s what frustrates me: 6pm is the absolute busiest hour of our day. Baby needs attention, dinner needs cooking, and everything feels like it’s happening at once. He’ll often head out without sorting dinner first, which means I’m left juggling cooking, dealing with baby, or waiting until 8pm for dinner which is not ideal. He does deal with baby in the mornings for an hour or so, but it’s the fact dinner needs doing at the exact same time.

To be fair, he does bath time when he gets back and does pull his weight with other household duties. He’s not lazy around the house. But when it comes to the mental load and the baby-related tasks, it’s not quite equal.

I also like going to the gym, but I schedule it around dinner time and family commitments. With him, it’s just non-negotiable - 6pm, every day, because that’s when his mates go. He says it’s the only hour of the day he gets to himself, which… I don’t entirely agree with, but maybe I’m wrong?

My question is: would it be unreasonable to ask him to either cook dinner before he leaves, or consider going at a different time, even just a few days a week? Or am I being petty about him having his own time?

AIBU?

Eat separate from him. If he will be inflexible on the gym he cannot dictate your dinner times too.

Errrr no.

Of course it did. Once you were trapped.

Yep, he does not get to do that anymore. You can take turn about having 6pm free for an hour and you go to the gym or go for a walk or whatever on your time off.

Or he can stop being a wank and fit the gym around what his family needs, not what he prefers.

Fix your own dinner and leave him to sort his. Take as many hours for yourself at the weekend.
Have you ever just gone to the gym yourself at 5.45 pm, I think I’d do this sometimes?

Some women’s bars are in Hades….

Yup. There's always at least one who limbo dances under the bar in order not to mildly annoy de menz. Tammy Wynette had nothing on mumsnet 😅

This isn’t conducive to family life, although you often see women on here saying they do similar. Personally I don’t see how both partners can be in the gym in the evenings when you should be eating together and as dc grow up they will have their own activities they will want dropping off at etc.

I suspect he likes having a family but not actually doing the work of having a family.

Then eat when you want to and he sorts himself out when he's home

I agree he is BU. Who on earth can see their friends for 1.5 hours every day! No other parent I know gets this.

But definitely sort your dinner - no way does he get to dictate what you do after getting his own way with the gym. I honestly wish I’d put my foot down more when my DS was young. I didn’t and the resentment killed the actual relationship.

Funny how men always seem to develop a fascination for a new activity/sport as soon as their partner is pregnant/has given birth... usually that takes them out of the house for extended periods of time /every day /very regularly.

Mine tried that. After barely riding a bike other than for gentle, couple days out, he suddenly was a pro-athelite in training and went for 4 x 4/5/6h long rides in the 2nd week of our baby's life. On the Friday (after 5 days of this and 4 long rides), I said, "Come on now, what's going on". I think he felt he couldn't do much because I was EBF. He soon stopped it. I don't mind him having a hobby. But every day for several hours!?!? No way in hell.

That's the problem here, it's every day. Tell him you can both have 3 days a week and one day you spend together. And dinner is prepped before the gym goes leaves.. then you can go at 6pm, too.

He's not going at 6 pm because his friends go then. He chooses that time to avoid the baby's most difficult period when he's not in the mood for it after work.

He's doing his best to continue living like a child free man and doesn't care if you are left doing it all.

Do all his 'gym mates' have small children, too? Are they all like your 'D'H dumping the difficult after work/evening routines on their wives while they piss off to the gym, too?

I think it's rubbish, not only because he's leaving all the "work" to you, but because most Dads are only home from work for 2-3 hours before the baby goes to bed, and he's choosing to spend the majority of that time off suiting himself rather than with his child, and then he also gets all the time to himself when the child is asleep too. He should be home for family time, and he can go to the gym when the little one is in bed.

Could there be OW in this scenario and that's the only time she can make it?

The issue isn’t regularity of gym time, and how convenient it is. OP’s husband is dumping the worst part of the day on OP so he can swan off to the gym with his mates.

OP are you saying your husband rarely gets up with your baby?

This. He likes the aesthetic of having a wife and baby, but doesn’t actually want to be a husband and father.

@Pinkissmartno it is actually one of the areas I can say he’s helped with is the night shifts. I still do 60-70% of them but he does do them. He also gets baby ready most mornings and drops to nursery.

Every day. Cheeky f*er
Share it. You do gym
/class whatever at 6pm 2 nights one week and 3 the next. Dont cook before and see how he likes it

Every day. Cheeky f*er
Share it. You do gym
/class whatever at 6pm 2 nights one week and 3 the next. Dont cook before and see how he likes it

My partner gets in from work between 6&6.30 - from 5.30 to 6.30 is the most stressful part of my day! Trying to prep and cook dinner with a small child is the hardest part of parenting for me. I’m often waiting by the window for him to arrive - the relief I feel when I see his car pull in!
If he chose to go to the gym out this hour I would not be impressed 😂

seriously

id ask him every day

whats for dinner tonight?, what time is dinner tonight?

any other mental load - ask him, keep asking him

Oh and as he gets back from the gym

head out, leave him to it and don't give him any information unless he asks