No more triathlon for me (Page 6)

Take your balls back. If tri is your passion, she'll resent you for backing down and giving up on yourself. Its a test. if you can't stand up to her, she'll guess wether you will stand up for her.

Say you are warmed by her your concern, and will take all precautions,  but i'm racing. Your cute when you're crazy.

(whipped.jpg)

Ok, I was TOTALLY lost until I got to this post.  Now my addled brain is working again.    LOVED that movie! 

Wow, just wow.

Might want to check urban dictionary before throwing that term around. Not really something to joke about in my world.
 

I think there are some missing points to this story. In my humble opinion there are two reasons why somebody would forbid their significant other from doing something like this:

1) They have control issues. If this is your situation... well, good luck. Ain't going to be solved here. Or at all, probably. And it certainly won't be just about swimming.

2) She has a legitimate fear. Not that her fear is legitimate, just that she is really and truly afraid for some reason. So let's look at this one, so I can make a short post exceedingly long.

Why is she afraid of you swimming? Is there something you haven't told us? Have you had a heart problem in the past? Where do you go swimming, and with who? Is it a safe open water swim, or are there lots of boats, and current? Have people died where you swim? If you swim in a pool did you have an incident in a pool? Does she know somebody who had an incident in a pool? My wife's brother drowned when she was a kid, and she is deathly afraid of water now. It takes all her willpower to let me take the kids into the pool. She lets me, but I know it's hard for her. Is it rational? Of course not, and she knows it. But being afraid of spiders or of flying isn't rational either, yet millions of people have those fears, and for many of them - especially with the flying - it has a serious impact on their lives. Is that the case with your wife? Why is she afraid? If you can figure that out, then you can work together to fix it. And you know what? If it's just something she can't get over, and she is otherwise a reasonable, rational person with no other control-freak tendencies, then just let it go. Stop the triathlons. Yeah, it would suck, but marriage and love is about compromises, sometimes big compromises. If your wife was deathly afraid of flying, to the point of heart palpatations and full-out panic attacks, would you constantly book overseas vacations? Of course not, even if you really want go overseas. It would be an acceptable compromise, if only to save your marriage. People say it all the time; assign your priorities. How important is this to you? Worth losing your wife over?

I'm not saying that you should lay the jewels on the chopping block so they can be ground up into dog food, but figure out what is REALLY going on here. Like I said, it's either a control issue, or she has a real fear. Figure out the fear and maybe you can fix it. If not, and again, if this is really the only thing she has an issue with it, then I say let it go.

What, you don't go to COJ?

Has anybody seen my copy of Nuns Life?

"Roger.....Huh?", "Roger......Huh?"

OK, imagine this scenario with your hypothetical spouse. He comes back after disappearing for a couple of weeks. You ask "Where were you?". He responds "Oh, I went on a sex tour in southern Asia. It was great - those thai hookers learn their stuff early!". This is

(a) OK because he doesn't need to ask your permission to do his crazy stuff?

(b) You are upset because he didn't invite you along?

(c) Or are you upset because he clearly showed no respect for the relationship's boundaries?

If the answer is (c), then the issue is not one of "getting permission to do things", it is that people's tolerances of behaviors and risk are different. And part of a successful marriage is accepting that you can be married, or you can do whatever you want when you want, but you generally can't do both all the time.

Perfect example.  Spot on.

Urban dictionary is your guide for approriate/inappropriate use of slang terms?  I always heard it used as control of a situation, not domestic violence.  Maybe it's regional.

I think it's a terrible example.....why wouldn't you just say, "I was at a buddies house".

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p14/weezy420247/funnyshit-1.jpg

Wont use the img tag for this one.  A braver soul than I can do it. 

I've got to wonder if you are married - and if so, how that is actually working out. It's not "a test". It can be an expression of concern.  Calling your spouse "crazy" rarely helps a situation. 

In my relationship with mrs gearboy (together 32 years, married 28), we have long held that neither of us is "the boss" of the other. At the same time, this means that we take into account what the limits are of one another to stay together. In other words, I can go beyond those limits, or I can be married to mrs gearboy, but I can't do both. Because I am not the boss of her and she is not the boss of me. But we work towards common goals which means we sometimes sacrifice things on behalf of one another.

Saying you are doing something because you are "passionate" about it is the same as saying you value that thing more than the relationship. Here is my thought experiment for you - assume you are in a happy relationship with your spouse. It's a great time - the laughs, the trips, the meals, the sex. So great, in fact, that you want to have ANOTHER spouse to do things with - kind of like having 2 kids or a second dog. So you announce to your spouse that you are going to start dating again, because you feel "passionate" about those things. When she gets upset, is she just testing you, or busting your balls, or leaving you "whipped"?

It's a little like the joke about the guy who says to his wife on their 30th anniversary that she got the better end of the deal. That when they got married, they lived in a crappy studio apartment, and ate spaghetti every night because that was all they could afford, and didn't even own a car. But he got to have hot sex with a 25 year old every night. Now they have a big house, 2 cars, and eat at restaurants regularly. But he has sex now with a 55 year old woman. She then tells him that he is free to have sex with a 25 year old woman, and then he can again live in a crappy studio apartment, with no money for food or cars...

Instead of pimp hand, perhaps we could call it hand (Cue scene from one of the top 6 sitcoms of all time) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g3tQaqizh0 "Why does SHE always have to have the upper hand? I have no hand!"

And I consider myself lucky that my wife also participates in endurance sports, especially triathlon.  She was the one who kept riding through an intense thunderstorm in our last Century Ride together!

for 2-3 weeks? And what IS that rash on your Johnson?

Precisely.  Same usage, but updated phrase.

You just said that Seinfeld is 'updated'.

You are getting old!

Speaking of pimps, did anyone see Victor Sifuentes on Sons of Anarchy last night?  I think sex scenes on cable are the new Cinemax.

the expression comes from a pimp controlling his workers with a backhand across the face.  don't need urban dictionary to tell me that.  i get the joke, but do not think smacking your wife is funny.

as for the original post and all the responses...wowsa.  you have a lot of great advice already in this thread.  talk to her, bring her to races or the pool, visit a doctor, etc.  "divorce her" is not good advice.  her "ultimatum" is an emotional gut response and she just needs reassurance.

^^^ This.  My husband is my biggest supporter.  He has the very same stipulations..no OWS alone, no running after dark by myself, etc...just general safety concerns.  However, I have learned that with such support from him comes a responsibility to make sure I don't take advantage of that and burn any bridges to where he doesn't support me anymore.  

That being said, he would never ask me to give up something I love and something that he knows makes me happy and a better wife/mother.  It would be like me asking him to give up golf.  That would be a HELL NO from him.

Good luck to the OP.

I don't think murder is funny, but if someone says "I killed that guy in our race," I'm not offended.

I don't feel your hyperbole is  helpful.

More than you need to know, 20 yr and absolutely fantastically. My bobble was when i did not demonstrate family leadership becuase it wasn't well modeled for me, stiopped pointing fingers, man up, worked on myself  and recovered tenfold.

You assumed in err

One doesn't speak like i suggested without love in their heart and voice they are willing to share with her,  independant of her response.

Women rarely mean EXACTLY what they say. As been adressed, apprehension about his swimming could mean almost anything, and needs to be understood

but if his particular mission is to race, i maintain the consequence of giving it up is far reaching.