How the hell do people find the time to seriously date, get married, and have kids?

Et tu Brute? wrote:

vivalarepublica wrote:

About what, bruh?

Are you 1 or 2 or both? Neither?

I am #3: a special snowflake!

I'm going on 30-yrs of marriage (to the same woman) and we had 7 kids. I have two grand kids at present. I don't think I hardly ever missed a shower! Actually, my situation worked out very well. I was the financial provider and my wife was a homemaker. She bought most of my soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. She also cooked most meals, did most of my laundry, and her and the kids did most of the housecleaning. We all chipped in (in different ways) and it worked.

and I found a lot of time to do a lot of things. Completed a masters degree, went on vacations, gardened, skied, hiked, fished, hunted, scuba dived, coached some sports, was involved with scouts, was involved at church, ran, and a bunch more. Kids and spouse make it worth-while!

I'm late 30s. My wife and young kids are awesome. We both work a lot during the week - evenings are a whirlwind of controlled chaos. Actual quality time with the kids are mostly on the weekend. I have no issue with sacrifice and hard work but your wall of text seriously depresses me and sounds like something someone would say to justify being miserable for half their life hoping it may or may not pay off when you're body is too old to take advantage of it.

Someone please start a thread about 40 years of partying your balls off.

blamb61 wrote:

I'm going on 30-yrs of marriage (to the same woman) and we had 7 kids. I have two grand kids at present. I don't think I hardly ever missed a shower! Actually, my situation worked out very well. I was the financial provider and my wife was a homemaker. She bought most of my soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. She also cooked most meals, did most of my laundry, and her and the kids did most of the housecleaning. We all chipped in (in different ways) and it worked.

Must have been nice living during a time when a decent single income could support 7 kids. Not being a jerk, just honestly jealous.

Old guy who is coming out the other side of this referred to "fo wrote:

is the ONLY way to live a meaningful like.

Sounds like your life is fine... for YOU. Everything you say though, is invalidated by the snipped quote. Your way of having a meaningful life is not the ONLY way to have a meaningful life, and if you really believe that you are not half the grownup you think you are.

OP - dude - you are an idiotic loser. Go thank your Mom (tomorrow is Mothers Day) that she was not pathetic loser like you.

loooooser wrote:

OP - dude - you are an idiotic loser. Go thank your Mom (tomorrow is Mothers Day) that she was not pathetic loser like you.

2/10 since you got me to bite.

How is a person who works, maintains the house, takes care of himself, and enjoys some hobbies an "idiotic loser"?

Maybe you're the pathetic loser who's posting from Mom's basement.

M-F looks like this with the exception of skiing Tuesday and Thursday nights in winter and spring.

6:00-6:00 wake up take dog out feed him have coffee

6:30-8:00 Run

8:00-8:30 shower and dress

8:30-8:45 go to work

8:45-5:15ish work

5:15-5:35 go home

5:40-6:00 unwind change

6:00-6:30 easy run with dog or go ski

6:30-10:30 chill out (here is where you’d either cook, eat, get beers with friends, Go on date, hook up etc)

There. I planned your day, ya dingus. Don’t complain about time again lest you sound like a little biotch.

The telltale line is: "shop for personal care products."

big question wrote:

During your waking hours, you have to work, commute to work, cook or buy food, wash dishes, take a shower, do the laundry, mow the lawn, shop for personal care products, make sure your vehicles are maintained, etc. I don't have much spare time, and the spare time I do have is spent on running, vacations, and various non-running activities like snowboarding or taking a few minutes to look through letsrun.

How do you guys do it, and is it even worth the effort?

Right now I'm sitting here on letsrun as my wife bakes a cake for mothers day tomorrow, and I'm about to plot out a route for our long run in the morning. Not much has changed since I was single, except I used to never bake cakes.

You see it's fine as long as you can be yourself. When I was dating girls who I felt I couldn't relax around it was exhausting. Drop the charade and the exhaustion will be dropped too. As soon as you find someone who's a 70-80% extension of yourself, lock them down.

Same here, found time to both get graduate degrees over the years, took many great vacations, skiing, Europe, etc. We dont feel like we missed anything while they were growing up. Now that mine are almost out of college, we are finding new adventures, and we always have someone to share experiences with.To each his own, but im pro-relationship/marriage.

Op is lame wrote:

8:30-8:45 go to work

8:45-5:15ish work

5:15-5:35 go home

Most people do not have a 15 minute commute to work and would kill for a job that only requires them to work from 8:45 - 5:15.

big question wrote:

Luckily I'm not interested in any of the above, but I'm genuinely curious as to how this is even possible without sacrificing something big. During your waking hours, you have to work, commute to work, cook or buy food, wash dishes, take a shower, do the laundry, mow the lawn, shop for personal care products, make sure your vehicles are maintained, etc. I don't have much spare time, and the spare time I do have is spent on running, vacations, and various non-running activities like snowboarding or taking a few minutes to look through letsrun.

How do you guys do it, and is it even worth the effort?

The benefits of having someone who loves you and whom you love make it work. The right person will work with you. She will know running is important. You will know she is important and you will make it work. You will run in the morning before work if you and she have a date that night or a work event. Plenty of people have kids and train for Ironman triathlons. Training for a marathon is easily doable.

Also, once you have kids you might just find how your priorities change.

Like anything, you prioritize your time based on what you want to do.

You've put running and snow boarding ahead of any relationship.

You also listed vacations but you would vacation with a significant other if you had one.

How do you do it without sacrificing something big?

You're sacrificing potential fatherhood and calling these other things something big.

To the overall question, you become less selfish and do more for others including your family.

This may shock everyone on this thread. That may involve staying home in the morning so your wife can go to gym and you giving up running sometimes. At least a couple days per week. You know, because exercise and stress relief means something to her too. And all you single guys, if you have kids you can’t just leave them alone. And before you say I’ll just do those days on a treadmill. May not be room in your place for it.

If you actually spent time dating, you’d find someone who helps you do all of the things you listed. As an added perk, said person can go on vacations, snowboarding, etc with you. Crazy, I know.

What’s all this give up running stuff? I must have run a couple thousand miles pushing a Burley bicycle trailer/jogging stroller. I was lightning fast whenever I ran a race without it. My kids are 100 pounds between them now, but I still take them out every once in and run a few miles to get ice cream.

No, it's definitely not worth it.