My running goals (and the work required to meet those goals) conflicts with my wife’s happiness.

M'aiq the Liar wrote:

I see these threads pop up all the time on here. It is mostly guys complaining about their wives. Ladies of LRC have you encountered a similar situation in your lives, where your husband is the antagonist? Why so against running?

My husband doesn’t really run. He’ll do recovery runs with me, and will do a “participation jog” for a 5k, but that’s about it. I’m not a morning person so hats off to those of you who get up at 4am’ish to get your miles in before your family’s up. I mean it. My running doesn’t cause any antagonism, though. It probably helps that we’re over 40, don’t have kids, and are generally live and let live kind of couple. I only run 70mpw at most, anyway. If we travel to a race for me, we make a long weekend of it and my husband is an awesome kibitzer. The only occasional friction is over my not easing up now that I’m older. Hubs thinks I should; I say age is in the eye of a couch potato.

My wife is also supportive and doesn't antagonize. I also choose to get up early/be flexible because I'd like to keep a good marriage/family. I actually noticed a big jump in improvement when we had our child and I cut out one of my weekly hard sessions out of shear exhaustion. I'm in the same boat of 6-7 hours (sometimes less), but it's part of work/family/running balance. Not to be too rude, but I think the op and some other posters in here need perspective.

In a bind wrote:

No kids but I do all my runs in the early morning before work. That’s not the problem. It’s recovering from workouts. Getting enough sleep. Staying off your feet as much as possible. Eating right. My wife likes to travel a lot. I used to run with her too until it became a drain on my own ability to run well.

"It's recovering from workouts" really means dude is having a problem with wood and she ain't too happy. Don't worry soon you'll have plenty of time to train for the Joe smooo 5k

Isn't that what makes it great?

road races are more important than your wife man :$

Then SHE need to redefine her happiness!!!

It's important to you

It should be to her also

Selfish !!! And hurtful !!

M'aiq the Liar wrote:

I see these threads pop up all the time on here. It is mostly guys complaining about their wives. Ladies of LRC have you encountered a similar situation in your lives, where your husband is the antagonist? Why so against running?

Not husband, but boyfriend disliked my running. He would swear to the moon and back that he supported everything I wanted to do, but then when I would actually go running he got pissy and said it was taking up too much of my time -- and seriously, I was doing about 20 mi/wk at that point.

He was controlling. I should have seen the writing on the wall when he instructed me on multiple occasions about the best way to wash my toothpaste spit down the drain (yes, really), but it took me several months to finally break it off.

If you're wondering, the "proper" way to wash your spit down is to turn on the faucet and spit into the stream of water. You will be corrected any time you spit before turning on the faucet.

It always takes some work to manage the runner/spouse issues that come up in relationships. Very normal. My wife would always forget that I needed an easy meal of pasta on Friday night before a big long run Saturday morning. She would either cook some weird Indian dish or order a pizza. That would end up meaning a lot of port-a-can stops during my run. The solution was that I would volunteer to cook on Fridays.

You also have to keep some perspective on your running and the bigger picture. In the short term, it seems like taking a day off will destroy your training. But in the long term, taking a day off so you can stay up late and go out with your wife may actually prolong your racing longevity. And the difference in PRs between the seven days a week runner and the six days a week runner is pretty insignificant.

On the other hand, when hobbies create a conflict in a relationship, you also need to be sure that the dispute is not a proxy for some other issue. "I am tired of you spending all your time ____" is often another way spouses say "I wish I had something that I liked to do as much as you" or "I wish I had more friends now that all my college friends have families and do not hang out anymore." If you can find out what that issue is, you can make a big difference in resolving the conflict.

This. All of this.

It is possible, maybe even likely that your wife is unhappy for reasons that are not really related to your running. If you modify your schedule to alleviate the very small impact the running is having on her, she may just find something else to complain about. Maybe not, but that was my experience.

divorce her.

Getting a divorce is the best thing I ever did. Don't knock it until you try it.

GBohannon wrote:

In a bind wrote:

Assuming this is true, how do you handle this situation? Easy to say that she is your priority but what about those who say you can’t make someone else happy if you’re not happy? In other words, I wouldn’t be any good to her if I had to stop running competitively?

When my wife and I had our first baby in May, I realized that there was potential for my triple digit weeks to negatively impact her happiness. So, I started setting my alarm for 4:30 everyday and I get my 10.7 mile loop in while my wife and baby sleep. My coworkers surprised me with a Bob IronMan stroller before the baby came and,

if my wife is feeling overwhelmed, baby joins me on my evening 5.3 mile loop. Life is good.

I've tried this with mixed success. The key here is actually having a baby/toddler that is a good sleeper. Getting up at 4:30 for a run is all good - until your wife is stuck alone for the 5am wakeup call and diaper change....

run to work(if you can), run at work when you get there, run while she sleeps, run on the way home from work somewhere. These are all reasonable ways to get it done. Then ask for just 2 hours on the weekend to do your long run. It will seem like that's all your asking for. I ran into a similar issue as you when I first got married. Adjusted real quick to being a morning runner!

This is all a little absurd. If you have kids, I can see how running might be a sore subject (maybe invest in a treadmill?), since it means one partner needs to say with the kids while the other runs, but for childless couples, you should really think twice before staying with someone who won't support a simple hobby. I mean, yeah, if you never want to go out or travel and need to spend all your free time resting your legs, stretching, and foam rolling, that gets old and you probably need to be flexible on that. Is the juice worth the squeeze type of thing. But running once a day 5-6 days a week is completely reasonable and anyone who takes issue with this is a control freak. I'm a woman and I run after work every night and on the weekends, save one rest day per week. I typically run 40mpw and lift weights 2x a week. This causes absolutely no strain in my relationship. My boyfriend is usually at his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes while I am running or just enjoying some alone time. He even gets up early to come to road races with me and hold my stuff on weekends sometimes, or jogs himself. We live together; maybe he would be a little annoyed if we didn't live together and it cut into out hang out time.

My marathon training buddy of a few years back - not an obsessive runner - had a wife and two daughters who just couldn't understand why he wanted to run ("How could anyone enjoy such drudgery?"), and they were of the mindset that running was unhealthy. In his face, they called him "the Ethiopian" because he was slim. (He was not emaciated, and he was very healthy and health-conscious.) Ultimately, the parents divorced...and one of the daughters went on to run a marathon a few years later! She's slim and health-conscious, like her dad. The ex-wife married a sedentary rocket scientist who has already had a quadruple bypass.

I think you should leave a note on the kitchen table and move to Hawaii.

I've lived both sides. I'll say defn. if you can run when everyone is sleeping then they wont complain (or even notice). This requires getting up early and not always ideal conditions (dark, cold, etc). I had to change up workouts if it was too dark or icy to see, etc. but for the most part my running hasn't affected anyone because of this. On the other hand running isn't always enjoyable going so early and you rarely get the sunshine on your face which I miss...

I also lived the other way around where my partner was an elite level runner and also worked so it ate up a lot of his time with us. Our lives at that time were centered around his running for the longest time. I did pretty much everything alone with our little ones (kids weekend games, events, etc.). His Saturday's were either a hard workout or race (in another state). Sunday's were for the long run that ate up our whole Sunday morning and then u know too tired to do anything afterward deal. At times it was bothersome but I knew it wouldn't last forever. I guess it's best to have a like-minded individual who understands it to a degree. Which I did...

born in the 80s wrote:

I ran in HS and college. I wasn't great (4:25 1500 PR), but the whole experience was fun and satisfying. I no longer run competitively and haven't gone over 30 MPW in years, but if anyone wants to drag me away from my planned run, it needs to be for work-related reasons, a medical emergency, or something exciting.

You want me to skip my run so that we can ride dirt bikes this weekend/hunt deer/go skiing? Sure, let's go! But no, I will not give up my run to shop at a fashion store with you or to watch that chick flick that I have no interest in.

The problem is that most women aren't interested in things that guys like, which creates conflict even if running is no longer one of the most important things in your life.

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