Quote Originally Posted by teigyr View Post
Imagine being active and being with someone who gets winded going for a walk?!
This has been my frustration since I re-took up cycling about three years ago now.

When I met my husband in 1989, I was still really young at not-quite 19 years of age. I was full-bore into cycling -- racing, riding 200mi/week, the whole nine yards. I was in a somewhat rebellious stage with my mother and she disagreed with my relationship with him (he's African-American). He was really into basketball and working out, and so he was in pretty decent shape, etc., and it was this that I was attracted to, besides the personality. Nearly all my previous boyfriends were non-athletes, and I thought it was really cool to be finally dating someone who cared about me and enjoyed playing sports, too. I stubbornly kept seeing him, things escalated with my mom, she kicked me out of the house, his parents took me in until we were able to find an apartment together, and the rest is history. Not once did I look back and really stop to think about the future. It was all about the present. That was 17 years ago.

Fast forward to three years ago, three kids richer: Although I never really gained much weight just because I was active, I had completely dropped cycling because I felt the duty to stay home to be a wife and mother. He completely let himself go, was now over 325lbs, and I was growing increasingly and completely turned off. I turned to my bike for comfort and started riding again. Felt awesome and as I got more and more fit, my thoughts turned to racing, which I started again also.

But.......as teigyr said above, my husband couldn't walk around the corner without breathing hard. I had hoped that perhaps he would follow my lead and get himself motivated to get back in shape, but I was continually disappointed by his unfulfilled promises to do so. Our relationship was seriously deteriorating. We were SO disconnected, and I dispaired because it was partly the cycling that was to blame. But it had woken me up out of my huge mistake of trying to be someone I'm not --- a couch potato companion -- and I wasn't about to give it up again. And it was NOT the unhealthy example I wanted to set for my children.

Fast forward to now: About three months ago now, after biting my lip hard and praying for not yet another disappointment, I agreed to buy my husband a Bowflex home fitness machine, and I dare to state here that we're on the comeback because of it. He's taking his weight loss serious now, and in his first 6-week diet plan cycle, he lost 24lbs (4lbs a week). He's been working out on the Bowflex, and is obviously enjoying the feeling of strength he's getting from the workouts, the sore muscles, the euphoria of a good workout....all the things we all know about here at TE.

Best of all, his attitude has changed. He hasn't been sulking and withdrawn, he's talkative, self-motivated, alot more lively, and I now feel that I'm not married to so much of a zombie. We still have lots to improve on, but it's a great start, and I definitely don't want to be a single parent. We both realize that we have to fight for this marriage if it's going to work and provide a stable home for our kids.

However, this might sound very bad, but I have to say that IF I had stopped to reeeeally consider what I was doing all those years ago, I should have listened to my mother --- NOT on the racial thing, but when she told me that I was too young and naive to be making major life decisions at that age. I now believe that I should have waited to figure out who I was and what I wanted before plunging into living together, marriage, etc. But I've made the decisions I have, I'm making the best of it, and I feel good about that part. Plus, my kids are awesome and I wouldn't have them if I'd done things differently.

Sorry this is so lengthy -- but my answer is hard to condense into a short one. Teigyr's comment sort of hit home, though, and I felt I had to respond.
~BikeMomma