Men have hobbies, women have pastimes - discuss!

Sadly my wife passed away but I lived with my father as I had inherited my mother's half of the house.
My father had a lady friend who had her own house and she moaned when I purchased a new laptop costing £360.
She also moaned that I was wasting £30 a month on membership of my local leisure centre and also when I changed my 3 year old car.
Towards the end she wanted me to pay for herself and my father to go on a cruise and when I spoke to my father he told me he did not want to go on a cruise. They did go on some other holidays.
In the end she wanted my father to tell me to leave but he know I owned half of the house and he told her this when they started the friendship.
Dad told her I was not leaving. I own half of the house at that point in time and the other half was willed to me.
She just stormed out.
As some of you may know she came back after Dad died and wanted the house and she had a lot of support from other people.

Frank

Some of you guys need to try being married to Mr Toad! Mind you, it has its plusses. He's driving me up to Speyside in March so I can take part in the Glenlivet Frostbite Quaich (archery tournament for 'traditional' bowpersons – barebow and longbow). His idea!

Neither of us has ever had hobbies that cost money. DH has been a semi-pro danceband drummer since his teens and the money spent on instruments and maintaing a big estate car (why could he not have played a small, portable instrument?) has been repaid 100s of times over. Since he retird (carpenter and joiner) he has spent a lot of time renovating the DDs houses, (but not our own house ) which he thoroughly enjoys as he can take his time and achieve an excellent finish because he is not working against the clock and trying to make a profit.

My hobbies, if you could call them that, have been logging, organic gardening, jam making, etc. - a necessity to make ends meet + political activism which does not cost a lot.

Just admired the WM's beautifully made frame. He's a real craftsman.

The Wonderful Man has hobbies and some of them cost money and some of them save money. Yesterday for instance, the WM spent most of the day in the garage making a present for his dad's birthday. He made a beautiful oak frame for a piece of Norwegian Rock Art that he brought back from his travels there last year. I shall try to upload a picture. It's beautiful and would have cost a fortune to buy, but the WM enjoyed making it. Of course the eight weeks he spent in Norway weren't cheap............................!!!

My DH is a Brass band and orchestral brass player. The house is full of new but unused brass instruments as there are not enough days in the week to play them all.

My father used to build model steam engines, he had a garden shed, where he spent most of his leisure time, working on a lathe andwith other tools. On a weekend he took the locomotives to a park, got steam up and played nicely for several hours. My mother was long suffering and did her own thing.
DS is an astronomer and spends any decent nights watching and photographing the sky. He has an observatory in the garden so if you can't see him that's where he is. DS has a very understanding wife too.

We have always worked on a 'sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander' basis. I have never objected to the time and money DH spends on studying, performing in and producing operas and he has never objected to me dedicating time and money to my consuming interest in archaeology. I enjoy attending performances of the operas he is involved in and he always comes on my archaeological society's spring tour, 4 days visiting archaeological sites in a differnet region each year. He enjoys going on a holiday that involves no driving.

shd be ... tease him about having delusions of grandeur. Funny I had a BBM from a friend in SA today saying how she would love to come to UK for a holiday - they were here a few years ago and we had a smashing road trip to Scotland visiting the areas their families originally came from - but that they couldn't afford it soon or any time again really, because her husband had just fulfilled his dream of buying a yacht!

glamma movedalot I'm part joking! I don't really watch that DH doesn't spend more than I do ... but he is definitely much more extravagant than I am, it's a family joke - his side of the family tease about having 'delusions of grandeur'. And I'm not a mean person either, I'm simply not a consumer, and he is.

I would add that I think if either partner, spends too much of the family income on their particular hobby so it impinges financially, or indeed timewise on the other partner, or dependent children then that could be deemed unreasonable. I have a very close friend who was horse mad, and acquired a mare when her children were still school age, her hobby took her out of the house all day Saturday, at least an hour or so every day mucking out, she spent £10,000 per annum of family income on this horse, took it to a stud farm so she could have it impregnated which took a few goes, it eventually produced a foal so she had two lots of livery, feed, vets fees, horse shoes and coats and everything else horses need which is a helluva lot. I'm not a horsey person, I like them, as I tend to like all animals, but have never wanted to own one, I had no idea just how much their upkeep costs until this friend took on the one horse, let alone two of them. All in all over the years she has put herself into a lot of debt and her husband has bailed her out several times, she doesn't feel she is at all unreasonable, we did talk about it a while back and her rationale was " why can't I have the hobby I want" and she didn't seem to care how it impacted on her family.

grannyknot I had to lol at your discription of expensive golf balls,do they find the hole in the green better than the cheaper ones ? mr glamma often asked DS1 did the more expensive football boots he insisted on buying make him score more goals and play the game better ? still waiting for an answer to that one.

We've always supported eachother in our hobbies. Years ago DH drove me, the kids and their ponies around numerous horse shows/pony club rallies, I cooked lunches for shooting parties. Nowadays he fishes once or twice a week (I collect him as he can no longer drive) I like choral singing and gardening and thankfully they don't require any input from him - other than turning up at concerts and sitting on a ride on mower

Thanks Rinky, hope I don't sound too smug, I know I have a gooden, second time around for both of us. 28 years tomorrow since we moved in together and I like to think still going strong!

Bananas ..... Aw that's lovely

My hobby is genealogy and my husband has been very good at trailing around graveyards and record offices, which can be tedious I know, so I do try and do a quid pro quo and make sure he can play golf, his hobby, at least once when we go on holiday. I find anything to do with golf boring, but I do acknowledge that it's good exercise, keeps him young and makes him happy, so horses for courses! I would also add that he doesn't take golfing holidays as he says he rather go away with me than a load of blokes!

I think women do guilt far more than men .

I take your point, Movedalot however I have known several couples where his hobby has been an activity totally outside the partnership, and quite expensive to boot!

My ex used to spend quite a bit of time going sea fishing with friends and taking part in clay shooting competitions (how the poor dear managed that with a back so bad that it rendered him unable to work I just can't imagine) and once after we had separated managed a week in the Gambia on a fishing trip, while on benefits but that's another story.

I think that dorset has indicated the sort of hobby persuing that she means, i.e 2 week fishing trips etc. Similarly I have known couples where the man regularly goes off to Portugal twice a year on golfing holidays with like minded chums. I take it that the holidays to which you refer are taken together, which is a bit different!

Oh dear, you do all sound negative. We both have our interests and share quite a lot of them. I don't think either of us ever thinks about comparing the costs but then we never argue about money as I manage it all .

When I stop and think about it our holidays are more expensive than himself would like so those would be down to me. He has a football season ticket so that would be down to him. I have girly times at the spa so those would be mine. I think we pretty much share everything else. Does it matter? We don't worry about whose clothes cost the most or who eats more so why worry about hobbies/pastimes?

Some men have hobbies.
Women have men - and so, cooking, cleaning, shopping, mothering, nursing, tidying, washing, ironing, teamaking, organising, then children and grandchildren (start litany again)
QED

It's the 'boys and their toys' syndrome by the sounds of it. I don't want to generalise and get into trouble ...! But my husband plays golf and has every gadget (range finder) etc plus likes new fashions in golf shoes etc, can only play with certain golf balls (NOT the budget variety). Every now and again I'll remind him that he is my greatest extravagance! and when I retire I may not be able to afford him. Hm, are my hobbies, really pastimes? Will have to ponder.