This isn't right is it?

[Cerealchanger]

So I've been with DP for 13 years and we have two children, DS(5) and DD(3)

DP is self employed and his hobby is also his job. I can't be too specific but it's something like being a golf instructor and still playing golf as a hobby. It involves working most weekends which is not ideal but I accept as it's his job. For the record though, the business is doing very well and we're not exactly on the breadline (which is relevant I think.)

So over the course of a year he spends four weekends with me and the kids. We go away for October and February half terms, so that is a total of 18 days spent as a family per year. He takes a day off during the week which he spends with DD while I'm at work.

I really struggle with this as I'm on my own with the kids for 48 weekends of the year. I work part time during the week but I just really don't see how you can sustain a relationship like this.

The main problem is that he will not take time off work just to spend it with us. But he takes off 9 weekends a year to do his hobby, including 2 and a half weeks out of the country every august. On his weekends away he goes straight from work so I don't see him from Friday morning to late on Sunday night. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask him to give up his hobby (which he does every day at work as well) to spend some time with us and to help me. He has kicked up the most almighty fuss about this and is refusing to give them up completely.

I think that if he can afford to take 9 weekends off to do his hobby then he can spend it with us. His friends all think I'm dreadful for asking this. For the record, if he had a Monday to Friday job, I'd have much less of a problem with this hobby.

So am I being unreasonable in asking him to give up his hobby and spend some time with his family? I'm so fed up with being on my own that I might as well be on my own for good and at least have the opportunity to meet someone who actually wants to spend some time with me.

[Fudgeface123]

He sounds like a selfish prick to me!

[JeanSeberg]

Are you sure it's his hobby that's taking up so much of his time?

[icanmakeyouicecream]

If the shoe was on the other foot how would he feel?

[temporarilyjerry]

His friends all think I'm dreadful for asking this.

Have they said this to you or is this what he has told you? It sounds like the kind of thing my teenage DSs tell me. "Everyone else ....." [hmmm]

[JeanSeberg]

Has it been like this for the last 13 years?

[Cerealchanger]

Jean, absolutely sure!

Euphemia, he is high profile in the field, partly as a result of the weekends away doing competitions. However, he is now so well known and so involved in all aspects that I don't think there's any more benefit to be gained

[picnicbasketcase]

He could at least give up a couple if the weekends he spends on his hobby per year as a very small concession and compromise. Is he refusing to change anything at all?

[Cerealchanger]

Jerry, fair point.
Jean, it has been like this since setting up his own business 8 years ago, obviously a lot harder since having kids

[Cerealchanger]

After much discussion he will drop a couple but good god I've had to fight for it. And he's so bloody miserable that he makes it really obvious he'd rather be there. As he so kindly put it, it's the only enjoyable thing in his life

[ViviPru]

I'm so fed up with being on my own that I might as well be on my own for good

This sums it up really

I couldn't live like that, but it sounds as though he's of the attitude you either like it or lump it. It doesn't sound as though him changing his lifestyle is an option as far as he's concerned. So the only variable in this scenario that can change is you.

[ApocalypseNowt]

I'd be very uncomfortable with 9 weekends on his hobby vs 4 weekends with you and his dc. Seems the wrong way round....

I think as he's been doing it 8 years he's got used to it and you suggesting he rethink it has been a shock to the system so he's got very defensive.

I'd tell him you find it worrying he'd rather listen to what his friends say rather than what his wife is telling him.

[Littleturkish]

Could you compromise by cutting down the time by half?

I'm not surprised you think you'd be better off with someone else. You're more a nanny than a wife.

[wowfudge]

Is there any way you and the DDs could go with him on the weekends he does his hobby?

[ApocalypseNowt]

Sorry xpost

it's the only enjoyable thing in his life - what a complete cockwomble.

[picnicbasketcase]

It's the bit about 'the only enjoyable thing in his life' that I would find intolerable. As though spending time with his family is making him suffer because he'd rather be somewhere else. I'm not sure I could forgive that.

[wowfudge]

Crikey - just read your post where he said it was the only enjoyable thing in his life. He sounds horribly selfish.

[ApocalypseNowt]

I think I'd be off enjoying myself on the couple of extra weekends he's granted you. He can stay home and get to know his dc a bit better..

[ViviPru]

Sorry x-post. So he's martyring himself now, you've got to be grateful for some begrudged scraps of time thrown your family's way. What a shit situation OP

[Cerealchanger]

Wowfudge, we have done in the past but it's really not a spectator sport. I end up in a field in the arse end of nowhere with no facilities waiting for him to show up for a few minutes at a time, trying to entertain the kids. It is really not a fun way to spend a weekend

[wowfudge]

Actually - apart from the money his job brings in there doesn't seem to be much else he brings to the relationship. If that's how he feels then he doesn't deserve you and your DDs.

I am distantly related to someone like this: he has never been to any family get togethers for anything because he is away every weekend. His DW (I have never met him in five and a half years) looks after their two children and does it all on her own.

[3littlefrogs]

He says his hobby is the only enjoyable thing in his life?
Where does that leave you and his children?

That is a truly awful thing to say.

I had a friend who put up with a man like this for 20 years.
Turned out he had a second partner in another country where he was "always working". He did work abroad, a lot, but it was the perfect excuse for him to have a whole separate life.

Once they were divorced, she met a lovely man. They are now married and her life,and that of her DC, has been transformed.

How much longer do you want to live like this? He won't change.

[3littlefrogs]

What I meant to say is that the first husband still takes no interest in his DC. He has no idea what he is missing/has missed. He just doesn't care.

[MrsTaraPlumbing]

I think you should get in a substitute husband to fill in on all the weekends that he's not around!

[Softlysoftlycatchymonkey]

He sounds like a selfish wanker.