Is Hunting a want or a need? Advice needed please

[Smart]

Hunting and fishing is a want plain and simple. It can be a selfish time consuming endeavor that can wreck families if not kept in check. I almost learned that the hard way with my wife and wish I could do it all over again just because I can see what I doing now.. You could almost say that my uncontrolled selfish drive to hunt and fish and my wife's want to pursue her Master's and PhD kept us from having any kids. Sadly if I have a regret in life that is it. Those two things consumed us so much that before we knew it we were too old to have them. Thankfully, we both opened our eyes when we found each other growing apart....... I cut WAAAAAAY back and she graduated with her Master's putting the PhD on hold for awhile. We are stronger than ever right now and frankly in life, family is what matters... Family first.....all the other stuff can wait...

[bowhuntntxn]

Which will hurt your heart more to lose?

That is your answer.

[LukeDuke]

... and was able to hunt every day over Thanksgiving on her family land while visiting her family. So it's not like I'm not getting to hunt at all.

Life, like hunting, has seasons....and it's wise to operate differently according to the season you find yourself in.

Right now your marriage sounds relatively new, you have young kiddos and a wife that has some insecurities about you being gone hunting.

Here are a few suggestions:

1) Take your wife to a nice dinner, you arrange the childcare, and have a heart to heart visit with her. The goal would be to explain your perspective, but also find out why she is insecure about you being gone hunting. She may be worried about you chasing women, or getting hurt...who knows??? Just listen - be slow with the rebuttal.

2) Get her a copy of the book "Wild at Heart." From a Christian perspective it does a good job of explaining a man's need for adventure. I have a buddy who's wife read this and then encouraged him to hunt more - no lie!

3) Prepare to compromise. If you have a place to hunt on her family land that may be the best fit for now. Can you hunt there more? Maybe focus there and agree to one travel hunt per year until the kids get bigger. It can be mundane to hunt one spot but make it a challenge. Get your cameras going and find one target animal. You may also find another place to hunt that's close to home for a season or two.

4) Be encouraged, like all other seasons this one will pass! As the kiddos get bigger it usually gets better. Smaller children are more needy - that makes her more needy when you are gone. It won't be long before you can take them with you - that's the funnest season of all!

[scubasteven25]

All great advice above. I'm not old and experienced but am 37 with a 10 year old daughter and 9 year old son. My wife and I have been married for 12 years now and stronger than ever but it wasn't always this way. I was SELFISH for a great many years. It took her almost leaving for me to see and understand that hunting was getting in the way of what mattered most. I was forced to figure out how to balance career, family, faith and my passion of hunting. I also had to get my priorities straight. I swallowed my pride and sat down with my wife and preacher and hashed out these differences. Just talking about our issues worked wonders. We continue to talk about issues or differences we have and it has helped us grow closer in both trust and love. Hunting is still a passion, but I will sacrifice it for my family every time. I would have chosen differently just a few years ago. If it means I lose out on a hunt this year, so be it. There is always next week, next month or next year. Lord willing, I'll be able to cash in on all those rain check hunts but if not, I'll still be a happy and content man knowing I had my priorities straight.

[ckamp52]

I'm not an elder, but I am 37 with a 3 year old and a 1 year old. I figured out that my wife resented the fact that I got to run off and go hunt while she had the kids. Her question was more of where is my time to pursue a hobby or have time to spend doing things she enjoyed with her friends that didn't involve taking kids with her.

This is what I have done that has solved the majority of the conflict. I give her breaks all year long. And I jump at the opportunity to give her a break. If she mentions something she wants to go do, I insist that she goes and does it. She may say "I'd like to go get a massage" - I make her go and I take care of the kids. And while she is gone I bathe and feed them.

It boiled down to me making a lot of effort to give her down time so that when hunting season rolled around she remembered all of what I had done for her.

CS

good advice here. glad i read it. Been in the same boat as this is the first year since we have been married that we have been able to be on a lease. My work schedule changed and i get thurs,fri, sat and sunday off every 2 weeks so i didnt even think and come quitting time on wednesday i was off to the lease because i thought shoot she has to work anyways. But me not being at home at the end of the day and her not being able to go got her a littel pi**y . Glad her Christmas break(school teacher) is coming up and we can go together

[popup_menace]

I'll give you my take on it as a newlywed. Which to a lot of people isn't worth anything.


As a hunter, you will always crave the adventure and thrill of the hunt. It isn't going anywhere. I know how you feel because I am the same way. My brother and I could spend months at camp if allowed the time and money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the simplicity of the outdoors. In fact, having that passion in your life is an extremely positive thing.

The danger comes when you begin to prioritize in a way that hurts your spouse/family. There are definitely times where it is much more fun to hunt and explore, but those times may be the most critical for prolonged happiness with your family. When you die, I am sure you would rather have your children remember you as the father who sacrificed so they could live good lives. You would much rather have a legacy of caring for your family than a legacy of killing trophy animals. This is what separates a passion for the outdoors from the love for your family.

The best solution is to completely air out your feelings with your wife. As others have suggested, let her read what you typed. Only you two know what is best, and you will both need to be in agreement going forward. My wife and I talked long and hard about my hunting obsession. We came to the agreement that hunting is the one steadfast passion I have outside of our marriage, and that is to be respected. She does not mind me going to camp, as long as I make sure I do not miss any obligations to family. Yes, I've had to cancel hunting trips for things I deemed unnecessary, but it has taught me to see situations through her eyes.

You'll have to step away from your own passion for a bit to truly realize how your wife and kids feel. I know you mentioned the fact it is hard to take them along when your hunts are done via invites, but that excuse will fall short. I'm not saying it's not a legitimate reason, but at some point your family will want to experience that with you. You need to get your wife to hunt with you in order to fully understand how you feel about it. I know that this was the only thing that got my wife to realize just what it meant to me. You neve know, she could become just as addicted as you are .

[txdukklr]

Family first end of story.

If you are a believer in Christ then your home is your first ministry where you are the head and that is what God mandated. Not the opportunity to hunt. I'm not going to lie that I've been a awash with disappointment but I've had to cancel hunts for greater priorities.

[Matt_C]

Welcome to Adulthood..... Family first. There will be hunts after they are grown and out of the house. On your tombstone, do you want "Wonderful Father" or "Great Hunter" I squelched my desire to hunt for 10 years so I could do stuff with my kids.

Choose the family, you won't regret it.

[TimH]

I think some good things have been said already and I probably won't add much to it, but these are my thoughts.

It sounds like both of you need to figure out what a good balance is for all of this. I gladly put my hunting and fishing on the back burner when our three kids were younger. I still went, but I found something that let me go for the day instead of being gone an entire weekend, or we all went. As they got older and started school, I found ways to hunt during the week while the kids were at school and then would be home in the evening to help with them. I think it's all a balance and you have to work through it together. The older the kids get, the easier it became to take more extended hunting and fishing trips.

The family unit comes first IMO and if you get all bent out shape because you can't hunt as much as you would like, then I think the priority is out of balance. She should get equal time away during her thing as well.

[lovemylegacy]

OK, here goes. 1st off, if she married you in this state then she must understand that the desire you have is part of you, its what makes you...you. Do not change or try to change or put something in its place, GOD made you this way. If you abandon this "passion" you betray yourself and do your family a disservice. That being said...you married her and made a family and can hear the "passion" for them in your words. There is a balance that you can achieve in this situation. When my wife and I were married, she was a nonhunter and had never eaten wild game. She didnt like me going off to hunt, but I went anyway. Then I started taking her with me...kids too. Now she hunts with me and took her 1st deer this year, this after she has said in the past "I could never kill a deer". My advice to you is to work a balance between hunting and family, take them with you whenever you can, not just hunting but on your scouting trips, workdays at the lease so on and so forth. You will find that when they go with you, life is even more satisfying. I can remember when I would go on a hunting trip without her, how much I missed her and most times I would cut my trip short by a day or 2 so I could go home. So in conclusion, embrace your passion, include your family and the satisfaction will go off the charts. Thats what I did and its been great for both of us.

[Eric Pence]

My Boys/Wife come first..If I cant take them I DONT GO...I have turned down a trip to Alaska and Mexico because it was "Just the Guys"...My boys are 14 and 16 now and they are still my life...I have hunted every weekend since Nov 1 only missing 1 and always with my kids except when he had plans...My Priority is passing the love of the hunt to my sons..I have been married 22 yrs and together 25...I can kill a Deer anytime I want after they are married and out of the house, but I wont be able to watch my sons sporting events or share their life with them forever..

[CMLambin]

Wow...I never imagined how many heartfelt, genuine, and thorough responses I would get. I should have known considering the quality of people on the green screen. This thread has given me way better perspective then I have been able to find by myself the last few days. Like minded folks with the same issues make things for me much more clear. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[popup_menace]

Wow...I never imagined how many heartfelt, genuine, and thorough responses I would get. I should have known considering the quality of people on the green screen. This thread has given me way better perspective then I have been able to find by myself the last few days. Like minded folks with the same issues make things for me much more clear. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sounds like you really came here with an open mind/heart, and when that happens you will get like responses. May God keep you on the right path, show you how to love your family, and guide your arrows straight and true!

[salth2o]

I'm married and have 4 kids (3, 8, 11, & 15). Everything outdoors consumes my thoughts year round. Hunting/fishing/camping/exploring, etc is all I want to do. I dream of wild adventures into some back country to chase elk, but that is not my reality right now. One day I will do that, but now is not the time.

Hunting is a want, but it is also something that is important. Important to you and could be to your family if you get them involved.

The key is as mentioned before, throughout the course of the year, you need to make sure your wife has time to do the things she enjoys. My wife is a stay at home mom after working for 12 years as a teacher. She says staying home is 10 x's harder than going to work. I try my best to regularly take the kids (or at least the littler ones) and go do something so she has a break. I make sure she knows that I understand how hard she works and how much I appreciate what she does.

You have to make family your first priority. They truly grow up in the blink of an eye. However, this does not mean that you neglect your desire to hunt/explore. You just have to temper it, with quality family time. My son and I spend 10 days each Thanksgiving on a hunt together and we also hunt often throughout the season. There are some weekends, like last weekend, that she wanted to take the kids to ride the Polar Express. Despite the rut being in full swing...we went and rode the train. Oh well, no complaints. We had a blast.

Do I disregard those thoughts of adventure? Heavens no! I quench my thirst by creating adventure (although on a slightly smaller scale) for the entire family. I have a lease 20 minutes from my house and this is what we do...

[dezigirl78]

There is a lot of great advise on here, but I will add a female perspective as I used to be a stay at home mom. It's so freaking hard. There is no job I have ever worked that could be more stressful at times than being a stay at home mom.

Every woman is different and every woman has different needs. What I can say pretty well across the board... women need to feel important. It really boils down to that. She needs to feel like she is the most important thing, and that her voice is heard.

There have been some excellent suggestions of ways to do just that on this thread, probably from men who understand this.

My vote is for including the family at an annual lease. I grew up on my dad's lease and those are some of my most favorite memories. Plus there is something so calming about the woods. Those babies go to bed, you can cozy up by the fire under the stars with a big blanket listening to the sounds of nature with a glass of wine... dang... I think I just swept myself off my feet! LOL

It is also true that it gets easier the older the kids get.

Hang in there and good luck!