re: What is an appropriate amount of personal time to spend away from your family

I don't involve my wife in anything I do outside the house.

Work
Workout
Ski trips
Golf
Hunt
Fish
eat dinner
eat breakfast
eat lunch
go to movies
go out to bars
go to parties
mountain bike
go to the beach
take cruises
drive around town
etc

my wife's not invited to any of this shite.

I have a similar discussion with my wife, not as much anymore though. Your dads schedule was insane. 2-3 rounds of golf every weekend is insane.

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Zero chance my wife has any interest in either. She has her hobbies and I have mine

Eta: I bring my son

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Exactly right. Mrs Cove and our daughter have their weekends, and my son & I have ours now. He's not quite old enough for hookers and blow yet, so I am actually living a more healthy camp lifestyle these days too.

He worked when we went to bed and worked weekends from the house. But he was typically home from 6:30 till bed and was focused on hanging out with us. I could have left the workaholic part out. Didn't really change the scenario.

My Dad was a workaholic by necessity. He was a fireman (working 24 hour shifts) and he had his own carpentry business.

He never had a day off and I didn't see him a lot when I was a kid.

And my Dad will be the first to tell you that he wishes things were different, but he was doing what he felt he needed to do to support his family.

And he made sure me and my brother got an education so that we wouldn't' have to work as much as he did.

So I would never find it reasonable to spend the majority of every weekend away from my family.

With all due respect your opinion doesn't wash well with this conversation since you don't have kids. It's a different animal.

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Good for you. My wife freaks out if I so much as mention I might go fishing without letting her know 3 weeks in advance with triple forms filled out

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she would have divorced me 2 weeks into it


you can't forecast offshore weather 3 weeks in advance, hell I'll leave for the weekend with 3 hours notice

I spend most of my time away from work with my family. My "alone time" is going to the gym 4 mornings per week, but I'm gone and back before any of them wake up. I generally take off early on Fridays so I've got 2-3 hours then as well. Just my preference to spend time with my family.

I grew up on a farm and my mother was a teacher, so I was used to everyone being at home or in the general area a good bit.

If you WANT to spend that much time away from home then your the one with the problem. Since I've become a father 3 yrs ago it's tough to spend 1 night away from my family. I've been so soooo fortune to have a job that allows me to feed them breakfast every morning and be home in time to cook dinner. Every man is diff but my advice is this baws... That "you" time that is taking away from your time with your family will never come back. You'll never have it again and I'd imagine that the absolute worse feeling in the world is to look back on life and say man o man, why wasn't I there more.

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I used to get annoyed when my husband would go mountain biking most every Sat or Sunday morning. Then I saw how much less stressed out he was when he was able to go versus when he didn't go riding for a couple months. Finally made me realize how important that was to his well being. Now if I want to do something together on a weekend morning I let him know earlier in the week so he can make arrangements to go riding another time that weekend.

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That's my biggest deal. My wife is in residency so her time off is limited and I accommodate for that, but she knows I need time to stretch my legs and get out to do things by myself in the woods or on the water or else I go stir crazy and it's bad for both of us. She really only objects when I come home piss-arse drunk or come home waaaay later than I told her and mess up some other plans. I also have every other friday off and try to use that for my personal hobbies so that when she can break free we have time together.