2skinnywheels

I’d like to hear from the females on this because I don’t want to continue being unreasonable if that’s what I’m doing. I would also like any advice from both sides if you have any to offer.

I just started a third weekly ride of about 25 – 30 miles to get me up over 100 mile/wk mark. This is the 4th week of this. I came home Monday evening and jumped on the bike before she got home from work. I rode from 5:30 – 7:30. She had called and left a message on the voice mail for me to get the kids from her mother’s house but I had already left. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. My mother-in-law doesn’t seem to mind and I usually still get home and get the kids before she get home.

I felt like my wife was picking a fight with me this morning over some menial stuff and then it came out. She thinks my priorities are screwed up and that I’m way too passionate about my cycling and nothing else matters. I don’t feel that’s the case. In fact I came straight home the next day, got the kids and played in the pool with them for 2 hours. She also says I don’t help her around the house enough. The only thing I can think of that I try to avoid is laundry, but I will help with that if asked.

I don’t want to get started about her and her job because I can go on for days about that but I will say I feel she stays late when she doesn’t need to and then works on stuff from home in her spare time. Sometimes my kids will ask her for something and she will tell them to ask me. After I help them I will go see what she’s doing and she’s doing stuff for work after she’s already come home late from work.

So I ask, am I being unreasonable and does anyone have any advice. I’m not looking for marital advice. I just want to know if anyone else has this problem and how you deal with it.

Thanks

well biked

From what I can tell by your post, yes, I think your priorities are screwed up, and probably your wife's, too. And in my opinion, they're not just screwed up, but FUNDAMENTALLY screwed up. But goodness, don't let that keep you from your "100 mile week"-

P.S. I'm not female, sorry-

supton

I'm not a female, but my wife and I don't seem to have this issue. We both bring issues up when they need to be discussed; and we both assume that compromise is required on our parts.

Cyclist0383

+1

Both my wife and I have our separate hobbies (although she enjoys cycling too) and respect each others need for personal time and space.

East Hill

If you really want to hear from women, you might consider going over to Team Estrogen and asking this question there.

Otherwise, virtually every response will be a man chiming in. That may very well accord with what you want to hear, but it isn't necessarily what a woman would tell you.

East Hill

apclassic9

I work outside our home, my husband works at home or nearby. He was the stay at home person when the kids were young.

So I drive anywhere from 140 to 260 miles for work, 3 to 5 days per week, and my husband wonders why I get cranky because HE'S too self involved to take something out of the freezer to thaw for dinner... or fill/empty the dishwasher.... or pick his dirty clothes up off the floor.... It's not like I'm asking him to take Salsa to a bike race or something.....

Buglady

Seriously, you might want to think about some couples counselling to get the lines of communication sorted out. It is much easier to work on communication issues with a neutral third party there. Communication is the single hardest thing in a relationship, and the single most important. You've GOT to get both people on the same page in terms of your expectations of each other and how you ask for things you each need.

(Learned this the hard way).

2skinnywheels

It does seem that way and I'm looking for ways to compromise without giving up like I've done in the past. I hear other non-cyclists with similar issues regarding their hobbies/interests. They usually have pretty good advice and I was just hoping to get ideas from people with similar interests. I'm not looking for people to tell me that I'm right and she's wrong because I know my faults and when I get passionate about something enough to set goals and go after them, I do tend to zero in and shelve anything that interferes.

btw... when you use sarcasm, your speaking my language and it gets through. Funny how that works huh?
Thanks

2skinnywheels

Yeah, I've considered that in the past but we've been married for 11 years and we're really good at working things out. This is not that serious or I wouldn't be turning to internet message boards for answers. Despite how it seems, my family is most important to me. This has just started getting sticky and I will not let it get to the point of destroying what I've been working on for 11 years. My family.

Retro Grouch 

Don't bet on it. I'm a grandparent and I socialize with a lot of other grandparents. A real common topic of discussion is being taken for granted as a babysitter.

2skinnywheels

I understand but before cycling, I was much more anal about stuff like that than she ever has been and I still am to some degree (except for laundry). That was a problem from the past. Cycling mellowed me out in that regard. She has even commented on that. I have to go back to what the sarcastic guy was saying in the previous post. I may have some fundamental thing going on with myself that I need to work out but this has been going on for 11 years. Cycling is just the most recent incarnation.

2skinnywheels

We pay her a salary. And I always ask her if it's ok before I ride.

Retro Grouch 

My wife nanny'd our triplett grandsons for six years until they started school. She got a salary also and I don't think that she ever complained to our daughter about being late. It was a constant PITA, however, never knowing for sure when she'd get off work. Making after work plans of any kind was always iffy. I hated it.

I don't want to overstate the negative, however. She (we) developed a much stronger relationship with the tripletts than we have with our other grandchildren. (And we have real good relationships with all 10 of our grandchildren.) You can't put a price on that.

One other thing. Please don't take my remarks personally. You asked for an opinion and I gave you mine. That's all that it is.

aadhils

You should read that book "Men are from Mars and women are from Venus"...

2skinnywheels

I get that. I am very rarely late from work. So my mother-in-law knows I'm flexible and will not ride if it's going to interfere with her plans. To be honest, I'm more dependable to my mother-in-law than my wife when it comes to picking my kids up from her house. She knows when I'm going to be late. I think this is really about how my wife thinks I should prioritize my time.

Buckshot77

Hmm, i had just about the exact same conversation with my wife a month or so ago when I went from riding a couple times a week to really ramping up some mileage because I was enjoying riding so much. Basically our solution was I only go out once a week where it takes time away from the family and that's a Mondy night ride. The rest of my ride time is taken out of my own personal time which means I get my butt up way early on the weekends and ride both mornings. Then we also take out the tandem on Tuesdays for some us time.

In our case, it was an issue of her thinking I was shirking my responsibilities by going off biking and/or not spending enough time with the family. We just compromised how we could both make it work and so far it's been good. Now she is a stay at home mom so it's a bit different with us in the fact that part of her resentment comes from the fact that she see's me getting out of the house and wishes for some time for herself so we also worked it to where she can get out one night a week on her own too if she chooses and I'll watch the baby.

Rick

Sir Real

It's actually fairly easy to get 100+ miles per week if you really want to, and not take too much time away from the family. The way I do it is to ride during my lunch hour, getting 12-13 miles in a day. On weekends I'll get up and be out the door before 6:30 and get 30-35 miles in on both Saturday and Sunday and be back by 8:30. Is there any way you can do this kind of schedule? Compromise is key.

Portis

Married with kids male here. The obvious answer as has already been mentioned, is to try and ride early mornings if you can. You probably can't, but this is what i do. Get the riding in while everyone is sleeping and you are never even missed.

Honestly, like most of us, you have found some form of comfort or therapy in your cycling. That is the part that shouldn't be lost. If your wife truly cares about your happiness, she will understand that it provides you with pleasure and a well earned diversion from daily life.

It doesn't sound like you are out of control with your riding, in terms of sacrificing family time. So i would suggest finding the time to talk to your wife and tell her, "look the last thing i want to do is create problems but I want you to know how important this is to me and would like to work TOGETHER to find a way to work this out."

Hopefully, this will give her some feeling of being involved in the process and will help her let down her guard. If she digs in and says to hell with you then you have a bad wife in my opinion. One thing is for sure, it is ALWAYS a bad road to go down, when you start comparing job duties. Because both of you will be partially right and partially wrong and neither are very good about admitting the wrong part.

operator

Having never been married I can't imagine how you can go from like "I lub you" to, "I want to kill you/your bike".

DataJunkie

I ride to and from work to avoid this exact issue. No one misses me due to the fact they are asleep. When I grab the occasional weekend ride I get up early and am back around noon. Plenty of time to avoid conflict. However, I require the occasional very long weekend ride.

CommuterRun

I don't think you're being unreasonable. Nothing is more important than cycling. Uh, well there is golf...and fishing...and hunting, can't forget that...canoeing/kayaking...cycling, oh yeah, mentioned that one.

mirage1

Not to hop on any "beatin' you up" bandwagon, but from what you said, it sounded like your wife was maybe going to pick the kids up around 6-ish but instead you picked them up after your ride, an hour and a half later? If that's the case, even if you do pay her for her services, you wouldn't pick kids up 90 minutes late from a daycare place where you had a contract (and if you did, there'd be a fine associated with it!). Even if you're paying her, it's just not respectful to change times all willy-nilly .

That said, if your wife left you a voicemail, I'd say it was her responsibility to make sure you'd gotten it before she assumed you were dealing with it.

I went through some of the same weirdness in my marriage. What I saw as him blowing off family responsibilities, not helping me out, and not spending enough time with his child, he saw as necessary solo recreation on the golf course. What he saw as me foolishly being overly involved with work ("I don't know why you try so hard or care what they think, just blow it off"), I saw as me trying to do the best job I could so on those many days when I had to stay home with a sick infant, I could rest on my reputation as a dedicated manager.

I'd suggest counseling over this one, too. It can never hurt, y'know?

2skinnywheels

Accepted Answer

However, I will entertain others. I do the early morning rides on weekends but it is difficult for me during the week. For one morning traffic where I live is scary for some reason and there are only a few days a year when this will work with my job schedule. But I like the way you explained the importance of cycling. That is dead on the way I feel about it and my wife is usually a reasonable person to deal with.

2skinnywheels

The words "I Do" fell in the middle there

2skinnywheels

Good points! I used to use daycare. They didn't go on all expenses paid vacations with me, call my house 3 times a day, ask me to pick up groceries and they never took my wife shopping and managed to convince her that she works hard and and deserves expensive item X.