Husband is choosing road biking over our relationship

A 57-year-old wife feels her husband of 13 years is prioritizing his road biking obsession over their relationship. Once an active couple who enjoyed boating, hiking, and weekend getaways, their shared activities have dwindled as his cycling routine takes precedence.

Despite several conversations about her feelings, he promises to change but never follows through. While he’s emotionally supportive in conversations, she feels neglected in their shared experiences and doesn’t know how to salvage their connection. Read her full story below.

‘ Husband is choosing road biking over our relationship’

Me, wife 57, husband 60, together 13 years. When I started dating 13 years ago I purposely didn’t date guys that had hardcore hobbies. I did tell my husband this when we met. My friend is a golf widow and I saw how their relationship became non-existent.

My husband has a tendency to get super obsessed about things so I did know this going in. We used to go boating, fishing, hiking, swimming at lakes, RV’ing, swim in our pool in the summer and have a few drinks, go to the beach, go on weekend getaways, watch movies/shows together.

Now our life revolves around his biking. He bikes about 5-6 days a week. He’ll leave in the morning and return about 3-4 hours later, sometimes rides start at 10 and he’ll return 2 pm. There’s a lot of prep before and after plus the some maintenance of his bike/gear.

I stopped cooking dinner for us because he wants to eat at 4 or 5 pm at night. He doesn’t suggest activities or trips for us anymore. If I suggest it you can see the pain in his face. He immediately thinks how much this may affect his riding. Forget happy hour drinks at home.

That’s just non-existent and was something we really enjoyed doing together. He is emotionally there for me. If my work day is tough or I want to share good things that happen he’s eager to talk, etc. If I ask him to ride less he still doesn’t replace the time with things I mentioned above plus I want it to come from him.

I don’t want him to resent me. Before anyone suggests he’s having an affair I’m 100% sure this is not the case. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve talked to him about this several times. He says he’ll do better but doesn’t.

tl;dr Husband is choosing road biking over our relationship. What should I do at this point?

See what others had to share with OP:

booo2u −  Instead of talking to him about how his biking is an issue, talk to him, **without mentioning the bike**, about how you are currently unhappy within the relationship; ask if he feels the same and if he wants to work on it.

cloverthewonderkitty −  My Dad was this way. Absolutely *obsessed* with riding, gear, big weekend rides, after work rides, nonstop communications with his riding group, changing his diet to be as slim as possible – it went beyond a hobby. My mom would *beg* him to go for walks with us after dinner but he had no interest in any other sort of activity that wasn’t riding.

He was unhappy in his marriage to my mom and used riding as a way to escape/avoid his family and hyper focused on his gains. He found a girlfriend that feigned enough interest in riding for awhile so he cheated with her, then left us (his family) for her. He is now in an avoidant relationship with her now that the shiny newness has worn off.

You’ve addressed the issue with your husband, and he doesn’t care. You’re the only one who can prioritize yourself, and you need to do that. He’s not going to change. It doesn’t matter whether this is a hyperfocus issue or an avoidance issue, the result is the same – the life you used to share doesn’t exist anymore, he doesn’t care and doesn’t want to change how things are now, and so you need to make the choices that are best for you. Waiting around to get get scraps of his time is no way to live.

muslinsea −  Contrary to what others are saying, I am not convinced you need to leave him. I am, however, convinced that you need to be WILLING to leave him.  Let him know that the marriage might be meeting his needs but it is not meeting yours, and you are ready to think about moving on.

If he is a loving person, perhaps he just needs a cold splash of reality to break him out of his stupor.  In an ideal world, he would have heard you say, “I need more than this” and would have taken immediate action, but perhaps he is too deep in his own head to have heard you. All of that being said, if he always needs a kick in the head before he is willing to hear you, it may not be worth the effort to keep him around. 

putoelquelolea −  It sounds like – more than the biking – he just doesn’t enjoy spending time with you any more

No_Promise_2560 −  What did he say when you shared your concerns with him? 

roseofjuly −  So I expect that your issue is less this. He bikes about 5-6 days a week. He’ll leave in the morning and return about 3-4 hours later, sometimes rides start at 10 and he’ll return 2 pm. There’s a lot of prep before and after plus the some maintenance of his bike/gear.. and more this

I stopped cooking dinner for us because he wants to eat at 4 or 5 pm at night. He doesn’t suggest activities or trips for us anymore. If I suggest it you can see the pain in his face. He immediately thinks how much this may affect his riding. Forget happy hour drinks at home.

That’s just non-existent and was something we really enjoyed doing together…If I ask him to ride less he still doesn’t replace the time with things I mentioned above plus I want it to come from him.

You can have intense hobbies and still have a family and a partner – I have an intense hobby, too – but you do have to put the work in to balance the time you spend on your hobby with other things. I also tend to get obsessive about things, and sometimes the passion for the thing you love can threaten to overtake you – it takes mental fortitude to bat that down and make sure that you are keeping things in proportion.

Therapy helps, because it teaches you to recognize when it’s happening and techniques to keep it in check. I’d suggest couples counseling for you both and individual therapy, if he would do it, for him. But I’d at least suggest couples counseling – it saved my marriage.

Not from the intense hobby, that happened later; counseling taught us to communicate with each other when we were having issues and how to calmly have discussions and delve into our emotions like adults, rather than hoping the other would read our mind. It also taught us how to apologize to each other, and you’d be surprised how long a heartfelt and meaningful apology can go.

In a way I also think it worked indirectly on the intense hobby too – because by the time I started the hobby, my relationship with my husband was so good I didn’t want anything to take away from that, so I was careful in how I planned my hobby time so it didn’t interfere with my partner time. And I made a policy that I would never choose hobby over partner, even if that meant I occasionally had to cancel stuff.

NYExplore −  Having once been a cyclist for a long time myself, there are some things in OP’s husband’s behavior that I find odd — chiefly the need to alter his eating schedule that much. I never stopped eating with my wife and kids when I was a serioius cyclist and I’d take rides of 2-3 hours or more with a group most every weekend.

He could simply prepare a simple protein shake to replenish himself when he returned home and then eat with OP. Even when I was strength training in addition to cycling, I wasn’t that nuts about my diet. A small bowl of oats with whey powder gives you the energy you need for a vigorous workout or long ride and still allows you to eat other meals on a regular schedule. You just focus on eating more, smaller meals rather than three “normal” ones.

I obvously don’t know OP’s husband, but some people get WAY TOO INTO certain aspects like miticulous diets, etc. when unless you’re doing hardcore training for a big event like an Ironman, you don’t need all that.

I think the issue here is OP’s husband has all the elements of an addictive personality — meaning when he gets into things, he goes “all in.” Those people struggle to put a sense of balance in their lives and can be tough to be with. Just like people can be addicted to food or be workaholics, there are some people who just can’t moderate themselves in a number of ways.

I know people often HATE the concept of meticulously planning things in many cases, but if you’ve got a serious hobby, your life will have to involve some meticulous planning as long as there’s something else near and dear in your life. He needs to be scheduling his rides and budgeting his time if he’s going to go that hardcore into something. That ensures there will be time left over for other things.

I had young kids when I was seriously into cycling, so that added another element of necessity to scheduling because it wasn’t fair to ask my wife to take on a bigger burden since we both had full-time jobs and similar responsibilities. I saw a number of guys who would basically shift all the childcare burden onto their wives.

I saw a number of guys that barely had anything to do with their kids on the weekends. Interestingly, these same couples hardly did anything together. I never got the point of that. A fulfilling life HAS to be about balance.

whatsmypassword73 −  You’re already living the life of a single person with the added burden of daily reminders why you don’t matter. I urge you to see that life comes at you pretty hard at your age (same age as me btw) my husband died this year and I am utterly alone. What I do have is the comfort of knowing that he loved me more than his own life and he fought to stay with me.

You might think I would be coming here to say “oh treasure your husband” but your husband isn’t worth it. His actions each day show that he doesn’t love you. You give him the veneer of normalcy and a wife and he gives you?

The sooner you get out, the more opportunities to create a life that matters without the anchor of his lack of care holding you back. You are worth so much more than this. I believe in you. Being single is much more joyful than this.

dca_user −  Get individual counseling to figure out why you’re not leaving him. He is making his choice every day to choose biking over you. There is no discussion. There’s no need for couples counseling. He knows what he’s doing and he wants to keep doing it.. I’m sorry.

tradjazzbaby −  Middle-aged woman to middle-aged woman, get your own hobby. Do you have friends you can do stuff with? You don’t have to be joined at the hip all the time. Sounds like your husband is retired. If he had a full-time job, you’d see him even less. He bikes 5-6 days a week for 3-4 hours. Sounds reasonable to me.

You mentioned drinking as an activity twice. I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting the full story here. Maybe talk to your husband about reserving one weekend a month for an adventure trip to the lake or something. Frankly, good on your husband for being so physically active at 60.

Hobbies can bring joy and balance to life, but what happens when they start to overshadow a relationship? How do you communicate your needs without causing resentment? Have you ever felt like a partner’s passion has left you behind? Share your thoughts below!