Golf widow anyone?

I remember that too SusiQ8. We had to buy food on my 'flexible friend' who finally became 'rigid'! Scary days, had to sell my grandmother's emerald ring for a song one month to pay the mortgage as child care costs had gone up too.

Annaram1 I like your style but not sure anyone would want me

I've just been with a friend who's terrified her DH will be the same as soon as he retires next month!

It's one thing if you choose to garden and do housework. Quite another if you're left with it. Grr

My DH is a Freemason and is a member of more than one lodge. He's always either going to meetings or doing stuff at home related to it. And I love it!! Since we are both retired I really appreciate time to myself while he's out!

DH has been retired 12 years Pollyanna2 and the novelty of having him occupied with his hobbies/commitments has worn off. I think we should have at least one day per week, family time even if it's just us two. Otherwise we are merely house sharers and he's not pulling his weight there and not doing anything as a couple.

I'm a widow widow and have been since just after my 42nd birthday.

However, prior to that, I was a Cricket widow. In the Summer at least. I could not take the children when they were small because just about all the cricket fields were quite confined and there was the chance a ball might hit them on the head.

Just after we married I went to one of his matches. I stayed on the hill away from the field, in the car. I was shortly to be sitting exams so was revising. After an hour or so a lady walked up the hill and said to me that the wives had a rota for making the tea for their husbands' matches, so when could I be available? I said, I will be available when my husband does the tea for one of my lacrosse club matches. I am only here this weekend because I am revising, at other weekends, while he has his sport, I am away playing mine.

I think I heard her sneering at me as she returned. I was clearly a very unpopular "new women's lib type" apparently, or so I heard!

From another perspective -
I envy those whose DHs go out on their own! Mine never does and so he is a “golf widower” as I am not happy being in the house 24/7. He says I’m out all the time, (which I’m not) but when I suggested having one day a week to do something together his response was that he wants to do things on the spur of the moment and he might not feel like going out on that day I am free!

When we retired he said we would go for walks and pub lunches which we did for the first 6 months, that was over 5 years ago. It’s my retirement too and I don’t see why I should stay at home just to entertain him. He is not ill by the way. He shares the cooking and cleaning, and I do the gardening in the summer months, which I enjoy.

So my advice is to find an activity to do on a Sunday. The National Trust are always looking for volunteers at the weekends and are very flexible on hours. They pay travel expenses too which might persuade your DH to take you and pick you up and even volunteer himself!

I may have sounded unsympathetic, which I am not. It’s doing things together as a couple which I miss, and as you say it seems as if we are just house sharers.

Lots of options .....if you drive - drop him off at his hobby location so you have the car and if you do not want to pick him up at the end of the day ask him to arrange a lift home with one of his ‘hobby’ buddies

get a part time job on Sunday

Join a walking group - Sunday morning walks are a great way to start the day and meet new friends

Become a regular at church - Sunday morning services are often followed by coffee gathering afterwards

Invite the family over on Saturdays and not Sundays - after all the weekend consists of two days and note just Sundays!

Just be resourceful - it’s not an unsolvable problem of you choose to put a positive spin on it!

DH and me do most things together but we do things separately sometimes. I meet ladies for lunch occasionally. He doesn't have friends (from choice) but we sometimes go out with the whole family. He considers his brother in laws to be his friends. I have a friend who rarely goes out without her DH, as his first wife left him for another man and she doesn't want him worrying that she will do the same. I find that odd, but each to their own.

My DH belongs to a toy model aeroplane club which takes up his Wednesdays and Saturdays, and goes popgun rifle shooting once a week. I'm very happy with that, but wouldn't be happy for him to disappear on Sundays, every Sunday. For me that's a family day.

When I retired early due to ill health we had to let go the cleaner and ironer and I took on all the house and gardening cleaning, maintenance, decorating and repair activities. On a large four bedded house it is an exhausting full time task.

My DH was made redundant and, to my great shock, decided that he was now free to indulge in what used to be a shared and passing interest but which had now become an obsession. He signed up for many days away including weekends and weeks when we could have holidayed or seen the children, expecting me to keep working while he was not pulling his weight.

He was on constant pleasure seeking duty while I was skivvying.

It came to a head, finally, and I made an ultimatum. I was prepared to split up as he had so betrayed our tacit pact of equality and shared life.

He chose to wind down his pursuit to fit home and family life and to do it when other important things were not competing.

What I found most hard was the DH’s assumption that he was a person with status and rights but that I was some enslaved cipher.

I suppose the lesson is that others see you as you project yourself. Be too obliging and kind and you will be walked over like a doormat. Their kind gestures are ‘over and above’ but yours are ‘natural’ and ‘ only to be expected’.

Now, I actually look forward to the odd day on my own while the DH plays at his hobby. But it was touch and go, for certain.

My OH plays golf two to three times a week and I can’t wait to see him go out the door! As he’s gotten older he’s become more and more cantankerous so a bit of space is welcome. I have learned not to work around him and have developed my own interests. I don’t rely on him to validate me any more. If he doesn’t want to go to an occasion I’ll go on my own and have a good time. It’s up to him how others view him. The crazy thing is, if you say, fine I’ll go on my own, more often than not they suddenly become available! Good luck!

This weekend, after all your good advice, I planned an afternoon and evening with a friend.
He not only spent the morning with me but wanted to know when he should join us for tea!!
I was grateful for the behaviour change but quite amused to tell him he wasn't invited.
I think all my grumpiness has paid off and he has been quite thoughtful and attentive.

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