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

it's up to you

but you can understand that having a partner allow a lot of us to still have their identity, to keep up with sport, still see friends and occasionally go away.
It's a balance. We enjoy our time together more because everything doesn't revolve around the children - well, the first one, as soon as you have several children, you have to split up as they all go in different directions and activities anyway 😂

There are enough hours in a day to do things for you, AND doing things together.

Otherwise might as well be a single parent.

I feel like this is a slightly pointless argument because you're determined to be right, but I will say this. If a 4 year old gets up at about 7 am and goes to bed at 7pm and one parent is out or busy from 9am until 4:30pm - essentially, until it gets dark, when does family time happen that day?

I will add- given that dinner will probably happen around 5:30 followed by bedtime etc.

If he can’t reciprocate the personal time and there still be family time left, then it is too much with children.

Reciprocal personal time does not mean you get 20 minute pieces squeezed in when it is convenient and constantly interrupted. It means you get similar large, uninterrupted blocks of time. These provide a similar kind of relief from being on call as a parent.

No - for many people there are NOT enough hours to do both, and choices have to be made.

We have no time at all on weekday evenings to do any life admin / proper cooking / fitness / hobbies - it all has to cram into the weekend.

I would LOVE to train for another marathon - I ran long distance before kids, and marathon distance was my favourite - but it's just not feasible at this stage of our lives, and I would never expect my husband to accommodate it. We are both exhausted just covering the key bases, and I would be taking the absolute piss if I expected that. We both step up and parent separately when one of us needs to work at the weekend - and there is very little wiggle room left beyond that.

So many posters on Mumsnet just can't seem to imagine that the constraints of other peoples lives might be in any way different to their own.

That's fine but not my point. I'm stressing that what he gets, she gets, so it's equal. Each to their own re family time but I don't think that is what op is querying.

If it is, then I'd say divide by three - his time, her time, and family time. You can't ban him from having hobbies and enforce family time, but you can demand equality.

Thanks so much for the feedback.

Some thoughts:

• He’s not a piss-taker really, he’s just not a plan his/our time in advance kind of person and this is obviously going to need more planning to make sure we get the balance right.
• Of course I can look after my son by myself. But I’m perimenopausal and exhausted, we both have busy jobs, evenings are definitely not quality family time or good hobby time as we’re juggling commutes and nursery pick up etc. So weekends have to work hard for us - provide rest, family time, getting shit done time, his golf/running and some time for me to do running/whatever too!

Anyway he’s agreed that he needs to come up with a plan for weekends for us to discuss. I will suck it up for a bit as it’s not permanent so golf isn’t off the table until April but if something has to give in a weekend, golf is not top of the priority list to save. (Bear in mind I’ll probably end up doing more drop offs/ evening routines because he also needs to run during the week).

Thanks all.

Ok, with the update, no, there isn’t time in your particular family schedule for one of you to have 7.5 hours of hobby time of a weekend.

We could not do this. Absolutely we could not cope and your family are exceptional that you can. Weekends are: kids sports (11 sessions) and all the frantic prepping washing cooking shoppingand tidying a family with 2 full time working parents have to squeeze into the weekend plus family time, time with our parents, other events and our own free time.

As long as you get 7.5 hours free each week to follow your hobbies

I’d ask him why I’m having to police his parenting like I’m his mum.

and how deeply unattractive exploitative manbabies are to women.

It wasn’t raised until the end of the thread but the difference of time available is entirely dependant on whether both parents work full time or not, and how much help - cleaners etc - you have.
we’ve had people on this thread smugly belittling those who don’t have time for both parents to have 10 hours me time each at the weekend, but if all housework/errands/admin/etc has to be done at the weekend, then that isn’t going to be possible.