AIBU to wonder if middle-aged men increasingly retreat into hobbies, work and so on away from family life?

[brumfun]

Do a lot of men in middle age disappear off into hobbies or work? Currently my DH isn't like this, he does play a sport at the weekend on a Saturday morning but is home by lunchtime and to be fair he's always done a sport at least one day a week and I think it's important for his mental health and to get out and socialise with some friends.

However I increasingly encounter with my friends and family women who are my age and older complaints that their husband is always off cycling, playing golf, at the gym, fishing and so on and if not that they they have become a workaholic or they start spending a lot of time at the pub and if they are home they are on their phones or watching sport on tv. My sister in law complains that her husband is obsessed with golf and is increasingly playing on both days at the weekend. My other sister in law has a similar complaint her husband is always fishing and when he isn't fishing he's Sat in the bedroom watching sports while the rest of the family are downstairs. My own parents developed this dynamic as they got a bit older where my Dad would watch his TV is a different room my my Mum watched her shows in the living room, each saying that what the other wanted to watch was rubbish. My DH's retired parents seem to be asleep and awake at different times with DFIL getting up and watching TV through the night while his wife sleeps and if he's awake in the evening he goes to the pub leaving her sitting alone. My close friend's husband (early 50's) is obsessed with the gym to the point that when they took their young children on a holiday last year he grumped the whole time that the holiday was messing up his gym schedule and that he was being set back. He won't ever join my friend to watch a film or a boxset as he prefers to use his down time on his other hobby which is finance / trading stuff and podcasts and videos about that kind of thing so he sits on his laptop in the living room with headphones on while his my friend and their kids watch a film together. I feel like I could go on and on with examples.

I think its natural and even healthy to each do your own thing and have a bit of space but it often seems like the women are trying to make a family or couple inclusive time and the husband then acts like its a massive inconvenience to him to give up a bit of his time to join in on that. How common is this? How does it happen? How can it be prevented?

With my ex it was his phone. He’d have climbed into the damn thing if could.

Even during nice meals out he’d be glued to his phone. It was lonely and embarrassing.

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon That sounds grim and I'm so glad you got out of that situation. I see this with two of my BIL's actually at every family gathering they sit glued to their phones ignoring their parents, children, wives and other family members. Its really quite sad.

Watching with interest! I’m a mid 40s male and drifting in to spending a lot more time doing hobbies…be good to know what is acceptable!

My dh has a hobby that allows us to go and watch so he’s really keen to involve us but my dad used to get obsessive about hobbies and it would creep until dm lost her shit and then he’d quit in a tantrum before the next obsession. Pretty sure he’s autistic and it was hyper focus. He was always selfish with it.

Can you expand on why this is? Hobbies are great and most of us benefit from having them but I suppose the issue comes where they start to detract from family life if that still applies of if they seem to become the only sources of happiness meaning that requests from the wife or family to spend some time together is met with grumpiness or refusal? Do you find family life or coupledom less satisfying now?

I don't think it's getting more common but it's getting less acceptable so you're noticing it more.

@TeenLifeMum I think there really is a spectrum of behaviour and hobbies can be really healthy, and I don't want to be joined at the hip 24/7 and of course what suits one couple is quite different to another.

Yeah the obsessiveness and then on to the next obsession you mention would be difficult I think!

My dh (now 50) has always had hobbies. I increasingly do too. He has never used them as a way to escapd from family life though.

@Mixerfixer I don't think I meant that it was getting more common now than at any other time more that as men hit that stage in life they seem to become increasingly involved in hobbies almost to the detriment of their relationships and family life. I agree though that I am noticing it more because the women I know do complain about it a lot.

@1000StrawberryLollies I do think hobbies can be really healthy for sure!

I think the way to prevent this is to make sure the father is very central in the children's lives from a young age, and to plan very regular family outings with him.

DH could have ended up like this but we started having family days out every weekend, and taking it in turn to have DC for half a day each weekend so the other one got a chance to go to the gym/play footie etc.

It also helps if there is something that Dc always do with their dad not their mum. I made sure it was DH who drove them to their sports' fixtures, and, as they got older, collected them from parties, as he is a night owl and I'm not.

Hobbies are healthy and all relationship dynamics are different. The crux is does your partner have the same opportunities to do things for themselves and do your hobbies mean your partner constantly has to pick up the slack. And do you have hobbies you share with your partner so you can get quality time together

@Tonissister This is good advice and I think really applies when younger for sure but I think some of what I am seeing happens even if that has been the case if the kids are younger or happens when the kids are a bit older. I suppose that when the kids are a bit older and both parents have more time to themselves then they should also be able to explore new or pick up old hobbies but its when it seem to come at the detriment of their relationship or time with family it become an issue especially if paired with other detrimental behaviours.

@BrimfulofSacha True and I say that somewhere on this thread I am asking about when it seems like the focus seems to shift from the family or relationship to a hobby or even work in a way that really begins to harm the relationship. Maybe its just that these men don't really want to be bothered by all that anymore too much but are happy to go on as a couple without the same emotional or time investment for whatever reason. I would say that the women I speak to are typically not happy with that situation.

I work with a man who is going into the work all hours more and more. He is now the first one who enters the building and the last to leave. He has young kids at home and is gone before they get up and he goes home when they are in bed. The few times I have had to go into the office over weekends (normally to collect or drop something off he is also there). The role he is in does not need that level of hours.

I think some men want to pass on their genes rather than be a Dad. Not all men, obviously. I have worked with some absolute horrors who would brag about playing golf after work and pretend they were stuck in meetings so they didn't have to do the kids bet time routines. The way some of these men talk you would think they genuinely despised their wives and children.

Theoretically, both sexes should be able to do it. In practice, men are able to do it because their partners take on the majority of childcare. Nobody would be able to bugger off on their fishing trip if they knew there isn't anyone to pick up the slack. Women should really start asserting themselves when kids are younger (and, ideally, before kids are even conceived).
When kids are older it really helps if couple have hobbies they can share as well as individual interests. We have a very active lifestyle and quite happily spend the entire weekend hiking or working out in our garage gym, doing a bit of gardening or going on a day trip. But we also have two other hobbies which we do individually and then come together to talk about it. I think, there is also an element of being interested in each other's lives which is sometimes lacking in long term relationships, especially when kids flew the nest and couples find themselves with nothing to talk about now their main topic of conversation left the building.

@BrimfulofSacha Perhaps, I guess people end up corralled into doing the standard things like marriage, kids and so on without really taking into account what it all actually means and without being committed to the reality of it. The issue is that once you have kids you need to accept that and put them first, some men seem to find that harder than others.

This is excellent steer! Thank you! For the record partner has hobbies too…and we generally spend similar amounts of time doing them…i think

Maybe a controversial take, but I think it’s rooted in evolutionary biology. If you look at our early ancestors or even more primitive tribespeople today, the women and children tend to spend the majority of the day hanging around in groups in and around their homes, helping each other with the children etc. The men are usually out (also in groups) doing something. Whether that’s hunting, building, fixing, fighting, tending to animals, whatever.

The reason why this is an issue in the modern day is that the women don’t have anyone to help them, they don’t have their tribe of other women to support them with the child rearing and the house stuff. So the onus falls on the man to fulfil this role, which most of them are pretty rubbish at. Would you really care so much if your husband was out most of the day playing football (a ‘purposeful’, goal-oriented activity with other men) if you had a tribe of other women to support you? Probably not, as you wouldn’t need him in the same way.

Is it retreating or living? I think we only see it as that because we don’t do it! Now in my 40s a lot of my friends are starting to get back to the gym, go running, go to book clubs and writing groups, wild swimming etc etc . The only difference I’d personally say is that men stuff takes longer pockets of time and that they don’t fit it around all the crap we do, they just go for it

I wish DH would take up a hobby/ interest. He never goes anywhere when he’s off work.

Having taken up a "hobby", it's interesting to go do the hobby (which involves cafe stops) and the cafes on the popular rides out are rammed with middle-older aged men, all in groups....

I’d say it’s living. Our DC’s are pretty much all adults now and DP and I spend a lot of time separately doing our hobbies. We feel very fulfilled. The relationship is still very much a good one as we have our interests and goals to talk about with each other.

I think it’s only a problem when the children are young and there’s an imbalance in responsibilities, like you say.

In later life if one half of the couple has no hobbies and just wants to spend all their time with their partner I think they need to build some of their own interests.

My own parents developed this dynamic as they got a bit older where my Dad would watch his TV is a different room my my Mum watched her shows in the living room, each saying that what the other wanted to watch was rubbish

dh and I will quite often watch different things in different rooms, because we both enjoy different types of programmes. But that is nothing to do with age - we've always liked different things.

He won't ever join my friend to watch a film or a boxset as he prefers to use his down time on his other hobby which is finance / trading stuff and podcasts and videos about that kind of thing so he sits on his laptop in the living room with headphones on while his my friend and their kids watch a film together.

I'm not sure why you'd think this was a problem either. We both have a finite amount of 'relaxing' time. Why would either of us spend it sitting in front of something we don't enjoy ?

Depending on your definition of 'middle age', both dh and I have both been able to spend more time on hobbies and volunteering and meeting friends outside of the house as we have got older, because we have been able to leave the dc without arranging a babysitter. When we were young, there was obviously a need for one or the other of us to be there at all times, but one they get older, parents begin to get more time to pick up hobbies again.
Although some of them were also done with teen / young adult dc.