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

Given the age of your child, I think it's reasonable to have a conversation about how you both meet your needs over the next few months. I wouldn't frame it as, giving up golf. I would frame it as, I am so proud of you and I really want to support you with your marathon training, so can we come up with a plan for the next few months that means you get to focus properly on that and I can carve some time for myself at the weekends, too?

I don’t think that unilaterally deciding anything that impacts someone else is petty. It’s pretty expletive deleted not acceptable.

why would you do to to someone unless you genuinely think that they are not an equal partner, just that it’s their job to pick up any slack.

I would support my partner doing that, as long as he would also support me in any of my goals, and we got some family time too. I do feel sorry for families where one partner works away and never sees them (yes, I know it can be necessary for all kinds of reasons).
I would prefer he was doing something to keep him healthy than out drinking all the time.

This is all relevant for older children, but not for a four year old. Four year olds tend not to do a lot of weekend clubs - generally, they are looked after and taken places by a parent. Being with a four year old can be very intense - they need quite a lot of interaction and generally aren't very trustworthy on their own. They can't go to public toilets on their own, they tend to leap about in shops, that sort of thing. Plus doing things with them isn't always riveting for an adult. It's far easier to have another adult there, to chat to and to share the load.

My children are teens now and DH and I largely do our own thing at the weekend, in between inevitable food-serving and driving places. There would be no issue with one of us leaving for more than 7 hours. But when the kids were little? That would require a lot more negotiation.

Agree with this. It's not petty to be annoyed that your partner has effectively written himself out of parenting/family life for the next 4 months without a conversation.

I post this a lot on here - apologies for that but it was such a revelation to me when someone explained it to me in MN years ago! - but to me the core issue as in other posts up thread is the default parent thing, and default without discussion.

It’s not that he has decided to play golf for 3 hours on Sunday that is actually the central issue, it is that by making that decision, he has unilaterally decided what you are going to do for those 3 hours - you are going to look after your 4 year old. Again. Because somebody has to. Now, you could do all sorts of things about that, involve other people, take time out yourself another time etc, but it doesn’t change the moment that he decided that for him, during any given part of the week, parenting was optional, because you are the default.

Thats the key, to me. And nothing has to look different at the end of a discussion, in fact; you might decide that him continuing with his golf is a collective family goal that for some unknown reason is worth your time. As long as it is clear how the decisions should be made.

I dont buy the ‘you get 10 hours solo time so I do too’ argument. Most parents of 4 year olds don’t think their child’s week should look like that. This is about mindset, and him properly understanding what being part of a family actually means - not just a rugged individualist any more. There are lots of things that could look like. Classically, if he wants to be out and about outdoors, he could - crazy idea! do something his child can do too. He might explain to you that it’s actually very hard to get much meaningful exercise with a 4 year old along. Yes, you might say. I know that.

Runner here.... I recently switched my long run from weekends to a a weekday evening after work and bath & bed so as to minimise the impact on family time. Yes on those evenings I have a long day... but it doesn't disrupt anyone else;s plans

I meant with each other...

Hi OP. My husband plays football 2 x per week. Last year he was doing a charity cycle abroad which meant he had to cycle 4/5 hours twice per week (mostly weekends )and short recovery cycles in between. He stopped the football for that 6 months as it was just too much. He wasn't happy to give it up- but he did! 4 children. Both work. I do think a break from golf would make life a bit easier. It's only short term 😃

Good luck 🍀

Has he even considered taking the four year out out on any of his runs in a sports stroller.

For years, DSS did Parkrun with the twins in a double stroller, and recovered back to better with the stroller his pre twins PB. Lateral thinking at its best.

lol. No, @jamandcustard, no, it’s not controlling to expect an equal parent to be an, equal, parent. If one parent gets 7 hours me time a week, then so does the other. If there’s not 14 hours available then they both compromise.

Yes my friend who is a very good runner does all hers at 5am (rather her than me !) But this means she's back after a 10 /15 mile run and can then get on with the day.
As a PP said, it's perfectly possible for him to fit all this exercise in. The point is you sit down as a family and work it out. What's important to your family and what can be accommodated

Could you sit down on a Friday evening and plan out how the weekend will look in a way that accommodates his hobbies, a hobby for you and family time? We do this every week so I managed to get my long run in, DH gets his long ride in and we get to spend some quality time together? I may be wrong but it sounds like you need to make time for a hobby for yourself

I think when you have small kids they take priority and you have less time for hobbies. It’s the way it is

i did my first marathon last year but
a. My kids are older
b. During the last few months I was barely doing anything else other than work, training and parenting. Another hobby and socializing were both pushed to the wayside.

Good point re default parenting. Call his bluff
‘oooh I’m so excited, I’ve signed up to do X on a Saturday afternoon. I love X. What’s for dinner?’

why do you need 2 parents at all time? What's that "family time" people keep banging on about?

Do they have plans to go away at the weekend, and one bailing out is actually ruining the weekend - and fair enough, that would be a no for me.

Or, like most people on MN, do they actually do nothing at all, or next to nothing but must do it painfully together?

Normal parents I see juggle and swap kids so they each have time do to things and also have time to spend with their kids - I would hate missing my kids sports training, I do enjoy watching that, but then parents and kids spend an evening together, have a proper family time at some point during the weekend. There are enough holidays during the year to properly catching up too.

I'd be very proactive about scheduling you time. Unless he sees you are specifically losing our you won't get him to see that his absence puts extra burden on you.

Some people like spending time as a family @ThatCraftySquid
if it’s not for you, that’s fine, but I’m not sure the umpteen posts about it and endless laughing emojis about how other families work are necessary

From my perspective, he's taking the piss - but everyone's family setup is different.

We have 2 kids (one ND, possibly both) and both work extremely long hours - which soak up every evening and also cut into the weekend. So weekend time is extremely precious - the only time we have as a family and to do housework / batch cook / life admin - alongside OT sessions and 2 x kids' sports clubs. The idea that one of us would play golf every single weekend or train for a marathon - let alone both - seems insane.

It should be fairly straightforward to combine both. If he plays golf but runs instead of walking not only will he finish playing more quickly but also he'll get the marathon training in. It's win/win.

I do spend more time than most as a family as it happens , if reading this forum is anything to go by

It doesn't mean I would ban my partner from doing his hobby , there are enough hours in a weekend. So many MN posters pride themselves on spending the weekend in their pjs doing chores and batch-cooking (I am just reading the threads..)

But because we are busy, our family time is actual real family time, not wasted doing chores or boring walks to the park .

You just need to be organised and you can easily fit a few hours of sports/ friends in a weekend, and still enjoy time as a family, even better because you did something for yourself and weeks are already very short between work and the kids.

I don't much see the point in having a partner if the weekend involves each partner caring for the child separately while the other spends all the hours of daylight doing something else. That feels more like a separated couple to me.

When my children were little, we went to the park, National Trust places, swimming etc together. It was far more fun parenting with another person - less stressful, with more time to play. I also enjoyed parenting with my husband, it's a joint venture after all. If we spent 15 hours each weekend (essentially all daylight hours) doing our own thing, the children would grow up without us ever really being with them week to week.

Hours worked is very relevant to what is ‘acceptable’. I was a sahm when my dds were small, so got all chores completed in the week, so there was plenty of time to both spend hours on our own thing, and have plenty of family time still.

I think basic fairness is to take your total disposable time available (which will differ family to family) and divide by 3. Me time, me time, family time. If one person wants to spend their me time as family time, that’s their choice.

Marathon training can really dominate. I don’t have time for it so I stick to shorter distances because the time commitment is too much for me with a young family. Men seem to find it a lot easier to fit marathon training in, which says a lot generally I think. But YANBU. He needs to focus on one and put the other on the back burner. There’s lots of stuff I would like to do around fitness but I don’t want to take the time out of family life to do it currently as it wouldn’t be fair on DC or DH.

Yes - in most cases, when you decide to have children as a couple, it's because you want to be a FAMILY, not two financially entwined individuals taking turns o do their stint of co-parenting.