Originally Posted by BillyD

Here's a somber perspective:

No matter what your passion is, if you have a passion in addition to your wife and she doesn't share the same passion then you need to tread carefully. Sometimes even if she does have the same passion you need to be mindful of the fact that over time things change. People change. And if you're married with a child you need to constantly remind yourself that the last thing in the world you want is a divorce.

Why? . . . two reasons. Unless you're rich, divorce becomes a severe financial strain due to child support, sometimes w/ alimony, along with the expense of supporting yourself in a separate residence. Then there's the little matter of attorney fees, yours and possibly even hers. The concept of bike schwag is now just a fantasy.

Secondly and more importantly you lose your family. I repeat, you lose your family. Your kids that you used to see every day you now see only every other weekend and every Wednesday after school for 2 or 3 hours. Let me do the ugly math for you . . . that translates to basically 5 days out of 30 on average.* She sees them every single day, but you, the 2nd class parent see them only a fraction of that. That is not what you had in mind when you decided to have kids, let me tell you. It can be devastating.

Then there's the element of losing your wife. Remember, at some point you used to love this person . . . at some point you vowed "for better or for worse I'm gonna stay with this person", and you were committed to that. Now look where you are! And for what . . . biking?

What I'm saying is no matter how passionate or committed or fanatical you are about biking, if you also treasure your wife and family then you better find a way to work things out. Marriage is about compromises . . . you can't win if you're too bull-headed or macho to meet your wife half way. And if she's not the compromising type . . . ouch . . . you have your hands full.

It's no fun having the friggin' state tell you what to do with your family, your money, and your life.

My apologies for being such a downer this morning . . . just trying to help by sharing some hard-earned wisdom on a very important issue to us obsessive-compulsive bikers.


* The standard in NY State.