My Husband Doesn't Understand - I Need Advice

Agreed. (hit wrong button) - but agreed w/ above.

Do you think he may be feeling like your "obsession" with health may have replaced him? (and no, I am not saying that it is not good to be focused on fitness/health) I'm wondering if he may be feeling a bit left out.... even though you are sharing what you are doing and learning, maybe he is feeling a bit neglected?

I would suggest not talking about fitness or foods for awhile and just continue doing your thing. I totally understand how you feel because I'm the same way. I started my weight loss journey in November 2011 and was introduced to MFP in January 2012 by coworkers. I got very excited and I still am. It's all I seemed to talk about at home and at work. Then last month I decide not to mention it at home, to friends and also cut back my use of MFP at work on graveyard albeit on it tonight. Lol. Anyway something exciting happened on Monday. My wife sent me a text while I was working asking me if I would mind training her in the evenings when she got home from work. I almost fell out of my chair. I quickly replied of course and we hit the gym later that evening. I realized that as I gave her more attention, cut down my use of the computer and limited my fitness/food conversations that she really was listening along but maybe felt like she was competing with cyberspace/fitness/mfp friends. She never really complained just lacked interest. Now we are working out together three times a week. How cool is that?

^^this^^
also (and sorry guys if this offends!) men like to help, teach, lead ect... and weight lifting is "supposed" to be a guy thing. I would hazard a guess that your husband was once pretty into working out but has fallen off the wagon and probably feels bad about it, especially seeing you get so into it. So by you talking and being so excited about it its reminding him how unexcited he feels about it, it makes him feel guilty, less manly ect... and hearing that you want to use HIS weight bench is the final sign that he is never going to get back to lifting like he once did. this is my husband! my advice:
as the above poster said: lay off the exercise talk for a bit. set aside time for the books and websites and hard core workouts but make sure you're also setting aside time for family. hikes & bike rides aren't a bad idea actually, get the family involved. then, play the girl card: ask him to show you some stuff. I'm not saying pretend to be a ditz or lie to make him feel better, honestly he probably does know some tricks or variations. My husband LOVES to give me tips (generally they result in me having arms like jello and not being able to laugh without my abs screaming for the next few days) it makes him feel good to be helping me and gets him more motivated to workout himself and has the side effect of showing me some new stuff or just giving me a different workout I wouldn't have gotten on my own.

its all well and good for people to say do what you want, girl power rah rah rah, but honestly marital harmony is a complex thing that can only be obtained through a delicate balance of love & compromise. You have to find ways to work with him on it, make sure he feels part of your life and not just a lump on the couch watching TV while you get ripped and sexy. may not be very feminist of me... please don't tell my mom on me...

u go girl!

What should I do?

Arrange to have some friends come over and help you clean up your basement. Get rid of the things you don't need. Have your friends help you set up the equipment you need and make it your exercise space.

You don't need his help.

Also, make time for HIS interests. Set aside time where you don't include your fitness and wellness conversations. Have those with people here or other friends who share your passion.

I have a feeling your husband is proud of your accomplishment, he does support you but he misses aspects of his wife he used to enjoy. Make time just for the two of you.

Perhaps your passion for health and fitness is bringing out some of your husband's own insecurities. My BF is very active and pushes me to be too. I want to be healthier and I want to be fit, but it just doesn't come as naturally to me as it does to him. For example, we both run after work (not together because of our different fitness levels) and when we return we compare our distances, times, etc. He is always telling me "I can go faster" or "I can run further". And I KNOW he is telling me this as a motivational push, that he believes in me and I can push myself harder. But it is frustrating. It makes me feel like I am coming up short. It makes me feel insecure.

This may be how your husband feels. You say he doesn't exercise and that he is a smoker. Maybe he is insecure about his health or scared to start working out. And maybe your love for fitness is just a reminder to him that he should be looking after his own health. It can be very intimidating. I am not saying you should stop or start working out ANY less. And this may not be the issue at all. But I would ask him sincerely what his concerns are and listen. You will most likely be able to figure it out.

Good luck! :drinker:

I think your hubby understands you perfectly well. You need to be a wife as well as a fitness nut.

Wow... :huh: ...just... wow... :explode:

To start, I really think you need to step back and define what your overall goals are. Nothing wrong with being focused on your health, but if it’s hurting your relationships, is that really what you want? In my opinion, no obsession, even a healthy one, is okay if it’s hurting the people you care about.

I honestly can’t believe all the people on here that are saying "do it anyway" even if your husband does not want you to. Relationships are defined by compromise. He gives some and you give some. Is it any wonder why so many marriages end in divorce these days? If this weight bench is a point of contention between you, THERE’S A REASON and you need to explore it together. Either a), he’s jealous in some way of your fitness (or that you’ll leave him for some young stud if you get too fit!), or b) he’s feeling neglected. The only way to know for sure is to talk about your feelings with him and get him to open up about his “concerns”. (Don’t you the “feelings” word by the way, us guys don’t have feelings but we do have “concerns”!)

Anyway, originally I was guessing he felt neglected based on what you said, thus I recommend some family activities. If this is the case, finding some healthy things you can all do so you have more time together would be a great compromise.

Oh, as an aside, to the poster that suggested I was being misogynistic… hogwash. I would certainly have suggested the exact same thing to a man because this is advice I had to take myself. How about quoting my entire post next time instead of taking parts of it out of context? I noticed how you conveniently left out my comments on lifting because they didn’t fit your point.

As to that recommendation by the way, I’ll stand by my original point: a weight bench is just not needed. If your goal was to become a power lifter, sure. Bench presses are critical to that sport. But to overall fitness and strength NO ONE has to do bench presses. There are way too many other exercises out there that will give you more bang-for-your-buck and are probably better for you anyway. (Can you tell that I’m anti-gym much?)

Think about it this way: aside from living longer (and looking good naked), why do any of us want to do strength training anyway? There’s always a goal, and for most of us, it’s about feeling strong and being more capable than the next guy or gal. Me personally, I want to be able to lift heavy things when called to do so, have lots of muscular endurance, etc. so I can do whatever I want physically and not be defeated by my own body. If that’s so, what’s a better exercise to do, lie on a bench and push up a defined weight, or find heavy things and lift them, throw them, drag them around, etc.? When in real life have you ever needed to lie on you back and push something really heavy off of you? Sure, I suppose it could happen, but why would I spend so much time and energy training for such a once in a blue-moon deal? Wouldn’t it be better to train for picking up heavy things off the ground and putting them on a shelf over my head, moving heavy things out of my way, carrying heavy things up and down stairs, etc.? For those that have yet to figure this out, I’m a big-time functional strength training proponent. If you don’t know what functional strength training is, feel free to Google it.

All the best.

I think you and your husband have a healthy relationship and you describe him as supportive and loving. I just think your timing is all wrong. It sounds like that is his time to wind down and relax and think of nothing and television lets him zone. Mentioning a small task ( the weight bench) to him probably signaled to him all the other small tasks (toys, games, unfinished projects, etc.) you mentioned that translated to a LARGE task. You got some great advice here, and so did I, but the most important thing to do is to let him know how much you appreciate him on a regular basis. Get obsessed about him, love on him, increase your sex life, and then he will see the advantages of your work out obsession

As for your daughter, I think you could elicit help from her to help you clean out all the toys in the basement and to give to children who do not have many toys. In fact, it could be a regular thing to do around a birthday or holiday where the receipt of gifts are plenty. Children who grow up with a giving nature tend to be more compassionate adults. Then you and your daughter have a bonding time, she learns important lessons, and your husband doesn't get stuck doing chores he doesn't want to do. He will make sure your weight bench will show up

Be kind to yourself, but be kinder to others along the way

The OP is asking for the most normal thing in the world... a bit of me time, to be fit and healthy, and a bit of space clearing out disused junk from the basement to do some weights at home.

Her training is done totally outside family time as she finishes work early afternoon.

However, smoking, non-exercising hubby, who thinks nothing of going fishing for 3 hours gets his knickers in a twist... and instantly some people are having a moral outcry of the OP neglecting her duties as a wife and mother, needs to reign it in, remember her place in life and go back to being a good girl pronto... and poor OP comes back with posts saying she is feeling guilty and ashamed.

Well done. I feel like someone has transported me back into the middle ages.

Let it rest a week or two (depending on his attention span), then start on organizing the basement, donating unwanted items, maybe finishing a project, and throwing out the broken items. Even if you don't get your weight bench, you've made room for family activities (Wii Bowling or whatever) that you all can enjoy.

As was previously mentioned, you don't necessarily need a full on machine. Try just a cleverly disguised bench for rows, dips, etc etc that can also be used as seating? The only way I got my wife to let me use the garage for working out is I have everything either able to fold up out of the way, or used for multiple things (bench for rows is the bench for bros)