For context me and my husband have been married a few years now. We have been together almost a decade in total. We also have a 1 year old child. He has always been an avid hunter and fisherman. This has been the case our entire relationship. He spends a lot of time hunting in fall throughout winter. Gets tags for three different states. Does ice fishing in winter. Does spring fishing. Summer fishing. Camping. Goes on hikes to set up trail cameras, you name it, he does it when it comes to that stuff.
Before we had a baby he promised me he would slow down. He takes a hunting, fishing or camping trip which can vary from 2-4 days atleast once a month. 2 days trips more often and 4 day ones less often. He also will typically do one of these activities once every weekend as well. He thinks this is slowing down. We both both full time jobs Monday-Friday so the weekends are the only time that we have down time to spend together as a family and one day is typically dedicated to one of those activities for him leaving me and my child alone to do something. We rarely do things together as a family. Most of his friends don’t have wives or children so they of course have all the time in the world to do these things with him.
For example, lately his thing has been fishing due to the weather. He has been doing a lot of night fishing which i do not mind because at that time I’m going to bed and putting our toddler to bed as well. I have an issue with him spending most of the day on a Saturday or Sunday doing these activities though. He argues that he is home every night during the week. (Of course he is because he just got off work and we are both home at that time).
Everyone needs a hobby and it’s good that he has always been so passionate about these healthy hobbies but it is really starting to affect me mentally. It feels like it always something. If he has a single weekend he doesn’t do something like hunting, fishing etc he will use that to his advantage and feel like that justifies him going to do something more extensive.
Also just to add, he will justify certain times he is hunting or fishing by saying “it’s the rut so it’s the best time to hunt right now. “It’s spring so it’s the BEST time to fish right now because of xyz” “bear is only in for two days” “it’s the first day of turkey so I have to go out”. It’s always something. There is always SOME reason.
I threw out the idea of him taking a “trip” 4 times a year and doing an all day thing twice a month with unlimited night fishing and he just laughed.
I should also throw out there that for the most part, before having a child I allowed all of this and didn’t usually fuss much at all because it didn’t bother me much but now it’s just insane to me that he is still living this way as he always has. In my eyes he does just as much as he did before having a baby but when I say that, he thinks it’s absurd that I think that and that his life has changed SO much and he has really cut back (in his eyes)
SOOO PLEASE someone tell me if I’m overreacting or if I’m crazy because I have felt like I’m going crazy for a long time and I’m tired of being told I’m being unreasonable.