To ask my partner to give up golf while he’s training for the marathon?

[NameChangedForThis2025]

Partner plays golf. To be fair to him, he’s not religious about it even though his membership is quite expensive, so he will give it up for other family priorities which means he doesn’t play every single week.

However he’s now training for the London marathon and he’s got to point where his long runs on a Saturday are over 2 hrs and then he has a recovery run on Sunday. So between that and golf that would be a solid 7.5 hrs of daylight time on weekends for his hobbies between now and April.

Would you suck it up for a few months on the basis the marathon is a one off and it’s supporting a big goal? - YABU

Or would you say golf needs to take a back seat during training - YANBU

And actual family time?

In all family relationships, most weekends should include his time, your time and time with the kids as a family. I am quite astonished by the people who seem to think that husbands are due more than their fair share.
OP, a discussion needs to be had as to how your husband is going to fit in your time and family time.
I have seen marriages with unfair time allocation and most of them don’t last.

I agree with posters who say it's the assmption that is so annoying. And of course, the run is more than just the run - it's the getting ready, the post-run shower and recovery etc etc so it's NOT 2 hours. It's at least 3, maybe more. And, in my DH's case many years ago - the faffing around on either SIDE combined with an irritating belief that he had to have a really good night's sleep so also couldn't do the night wakings.... (we had a bit "talk" row and he did realise he was being a dick).

I think this is definitely conversation time, "Look, I want to support your objectives here, but you're out of the house a lot and I land up being the default parent and it's exhausting". Then think about where your issues are? Mine were that I would land up doing the early waking with DS and then I was STILL with DS, alone, all morning. If he got up early and then went for a run later, so I could still have my lie in, fine. or if he went for a run early and then came back and gave me a break, fine. But it was neither.

Far too many women on MN squeeze their free time and hobbies around family responsibilities, yet are married to men who squeeze their family responsibilities around their free time and hobbies.

These men. 🙄

I see what you mean but I wouldn’t want that for myself. I didn’t have children so I could essentially look after them by myself for much of the weekend and then my DH could look after them by himself for an equal amount of time. I wanted to go out as a family and do things together with the kids. The idea that you just spend hours and hours each week doing solo leisure activities while having young children is not the lifestyle I’d want.

I also think he should have talked it through with you beforehand. But agree with a PP that he could be doing the runs at times that impact less on the family. For example, even if he's not doing his long runs at 5:30 he could be starting them well before you and DC get up, so he doesn't get home too late. And the recovery run could very easily be done first thing, or in the evening after DC goes to bed, or even replaced with a walk that DC could come on. Or just treat walking around the golf course as active recovery, if he doesn't end up giving that up temporarily.

My hobby takes up over 12 hours of time at the weekend and my husband still has time to do his hobby as well. We also have 3 children that do 3 different sports at the weekend that we get them too. So I really don't think 7.5 hours is much time at all especially with only 1 child at home!

I'd probably be pretty blunt and just say "Hey, when you start upping the runs I presume golf will take a backseat a little so we can all still have family time and get all the housework etc done." If he says no, or he hasn't thought about it then that's when yiu tell him "well I need time to decompress myself and we need to get normal family and house things done so I'm not sure how you'd think you could have fitted it all in".

I don't know if you have hobbies or not. I don't but my husband is gone 2-3 nights a week and one weekend day until approx 1 or 2pm sporting so I specifically remind him every week that he needs to takeover when he's back so I can get some time alone. I don't have hobbies per se but I do prefer getting jobs done with a toddler hanging off me. Sometimes I'll get a beauty treatment or hair done, sometimes I'll do a grocery shop and grab a coffee. But every week he knows that he is on duty pretty soon after he returns home (he has a shower, has something to eat and then I'm gone).

7.5 hrs each out of a weekend still leaves plenty of time for family time!

Ask him how he is going to juggle everything over the weekends, including you getting some time to do something for you. Prioritisation is required when you have kids, and something has to give.

Wowsers that’s very impressive! Well we all have different thresholds/capacities don’t we, I definitely couldn’t do that. One child is more than enough, and I basically struggle to have a social life or hobbies myself, just with one!

It absolutely is NOT a petty annoyance that one spouse unilaterally decides that he/she will be absenting themselves from all joint responsibilities for any period of time at any time of their choosing. That’s not how a respectful relationships works, marriage or other.

I don’t have an opinion on the actual activities themselves, perhaps your DH does way more for the family and home than you do during the week and everything you don’t do in the hours he’s gone at the weekends. But not discussing and coming to a joint decision isn’t acceptable.

I'm surprised when people say this. Between cooking, laundry, cleaning and general life stuff, it would be impossible for the OP to have 7.5 hours to herself and for them to also spend any amount of time together as a family.

Do you have some kind of magic watch that lets you control time?! 👀

Yanbu. He needs to drop the golf until the marathon is over.

Do you get equal leisure time? So 7.5hrs to yourself a week?

I think if you had more children or a really difficult baby you wouldn't be unreasonable but just one (assuming NT) 4 year old I would suck it up until April

it's not just the 7.5 hours, it's when they're happening, I think. OP says it's 7.5 hours of daylight time. Where I live there aren't even 7.5 hours of daylight in a day at the moment, so that's a full day's worth of family time gone out of the weekend. I think if he's keeping the golf, that needs to happen in daylight, but the running doesn't, or certainly not all of it.

Provided that he’s pulling his weight at home during the week just let him fill his boots.

Not everyone is a martyr and has to give up on having a life just because they have children.

if they each have more or less equal free time at the weekend, it means they each spend equal time with their children.

Just because many women decide to refuse having a life outside of their kids and have no interest in sport/ travelling/ socialising with friends (and it's entirely their right!) but it does not mean they should resent or stop their partner from having a life.

"if I don't want to do it, then I forbid you to do it yourself" is a ridiculous mindset, but too frequent. Completely different from going away every weekend, but we are talking about each partner taking the same amount of child-free time.

Surely it's also about having family time as well..

And of course, the run is more than just the run - it's the getting ready, the post-run shower and recovery etc etc so it's NOT 2 hours. It's at least 3, maybe more.

I love long showers, I have long hair and spend a lot of time faffing with my hair, my make-up and doing decent stretches after a session. It still does NOT take me anywhere near 3 hours in total when I go for a 2 hour run 😂😂

Blimey - is it horses?

@NameChangedForThis2025
I think there are several useful points.

You will get multiple perspectives on this - ask a busier person and you'll find that they've found a way to make it work so it can be done. Not necessarily useful for you.
It's the assumption that's rankling - ask him how he is going to make it work in a fair way to you and the family. Even if the answer is could you possibly cut me some slack on this until April, it is at least acknowledged that you are facilitating two hobbies.
Or ask him - I'd like to do X with my evenings and weekend on a solo basis and I'd like you to hold X time for us as a family. Can you make that work with? Not your problem whether he simply goes running at the crack of predawn if you are sleeping? It is an issue if he assumes he can run every night so YOU can go no-where unless you find a babysitter and arrange it all.

I think the concept (very broadly, there will be outliers on both sides) of 'family time' is very much a mum thing. I'm one of 3 kids and we very rarely did things 'as a family' that lasted all day on a weekend from an age that I can remember - hence it not being about the kids. We all had different sports and hobbies, as did my parents (both of them, not just my dad, he did more than his fair share of playing taxi). We would usually do things like a Sunday Dinner or go and see grandparents for a few hours. I think I had a very enriching childhood with hobbies and clubs, and friends. My dad played cricket, which lasts even longer than golf. We either used to go and watch if the weather was nice, and kick a ball around, or mum would take us to our own clubs, then my mum was in various church-based groups which took up a fair whack of Sunday mornings, when I played football and my brother did martial arts, so dad drove around the town, or we got lift-shares with neighbours/friends. I would say I had a pretty good childhood and I don't think I missed out on anything by traipsing round places together with mum and dad. I think personal hobbies and time for your own enjoyment are important.

It seems quite often the dad is happy to offer 4-5 hours of solo parenting to the mum on one day, to have the same time to do his hobby on the other day, but it's the mum it's not good enough for.

Will probably get flamed, but I don't necessarily think this makes the DH in these scenarios the Devil. He probably just sees 'family time' as your choice when given the same time for him he'd choose going for a run. I'm female and I'd choose going for a run if someone else offered to handle all responsibilities for a morning.

I am sure a grown-up is perfectly able to spend time with their children without a handhold from the other adult. There are enough evenings, holidays and time to spend all together to allow a few weekend without giving up on a couple of months training.

Kids are so busy nowadays anyway, it doesn't take 2 parents to manage their social life, clubs, parties, playdates 😂

Sadly when a mum decides to spend all her weekends studying to get a degree instead of doing "family time" watching tv for most people she's shamed just the same.

Kids do not need 2 parents at all time when there's a perfectly valid reason for the other parent to do something else. On the contrary, it's a great example that mum or dad are busy doing xyz/

How does the additional running affect you and DC? Is it stopping you from doing something because you no longer have childcare or did you do something all together before and now it’s just going to be you and your child?

If it was my DP I wouldn’t care, DC and I would do our own thing and have a nice time regardless but if it changes the whole dynamic of your weekend and stops you doing something you would normally do then it’s not unreasonable to ask your DP how he plans to fix that.