Wife is 2.5 months pregnant. Somehow got on the discussion of hunting post birth... she has some friends whose husbands are pretty much assholes and prioritize things like golf or sports over their family. Gone every weekend, don’t help out with the baby, just expect their wife to just deal with the fact they want to get drunk with their buddies all the time. She was saying that she was glad I wasn’t that way.
I agreed, then somehow hunting came up and I mentioned, “I’d still like to do my yearly western trip, but obviously the family comes first, and that’s only if we can arrange child care with my parents, etc.” I certainly wouldn’t be golfing or in the bars like her friends husbands are every weekend post baby. I also told her I’d hope that she would get a break too when she needed it to go on a girls trip or whatever.
Well needless to say that blew up a bit, stated there would be no way we could afford it, I’m already gone too much with my career, and that by continuing to go on hunting trips out west after we have a family I was being selfish. That if we want time off from parenthood we should spent it together, etc.
A little backstory, I’m a career firefighter (24 on/48 off) while she works 8-5 M-F in corporate retail. I’m also in the National Guard as a pilot part time and that’s a significant time commitment as well. I’ll deploy for a year starting next June. To top it off, we’re in the process of building a house.
Maybe I’m coming here to vent a bit... given the circumstances, I completely understand where my wife is coming from. She’s got a lot on her mind, and the thought of a baby on top of it is freaking her out a bit. The fact that I can at all think about hunting post baby probably put her over the top. I’m completely sympathetic to that.
That said my yearly western DIY hunting trip is my zen time. My yearly mental “reset.” I don’t golf, I don’t go to bars, I don’t go out with the boys much. I’ve got very busy career(s). If I don’t do anything else the rest of the year for “me” I want it to be my 5-7 days in the backcountry. I’m not sure my wife really gets that. It’s hard to articulate really. This is probably the only collective group of folks that really gets that.
Looking for a bit of marital advice from those who have BTDT. I’ve got a great wife, that said she’s very much a planner, and the uncertainty of the future has her rattled a bit. Obviously I’m not going to push this issue for now, but how do you articulate what hunting means to you to your spouses that don’t hunt? How do you balance family commitment with the need to get in the woods?
Yup, first year I totally get it. But baby is due in Feb, I’ll be gone from June of 2020 to June of 2021. Baby would be a year and a half until I might go hunting again.
The way the discussion went it was pretty much, “You aren’t going out west hunting again until the kid is at least 10!”
That left me feeling more than a little depressed.
Sounds like the conversation got heated. Nothing ever gets negotiated well at that point. And, quite frankly, the "black or white" posts from above are way too simple. It's never that easy and the easy way out never yields good results in the long run.
Revisit the conversation. Maybe she didn't understand how important hunting is to you and what it does for you (e.g your marriage). It doesn't sound like you're the guy that is blowing off your responsibilities or aren't considering the family. But I also know that maybe something in the career needs to give -- that's a choice you may have to make.
Either way, good luck.