I think this is one of those things where everyone is going to be different - I probably talk to my husband for around an hour a day when one of us is away. Why wouldn’t we - we spend way more than an hour a day talking when we are both home. And we’ve been married 37 years.
Huh.
More enmeshed than is my wont but I’ve known plenty of happy couples still teenager style obsessed decades into it. It’s the attached at the hip style. RichAndAmy from Zits all grown up! I don’t think either my parents (not that style of love) or my in laws ever spent a week end away from each since they got married and until one of them died. My in laws in particular did everything together. Worked together even.
Have you talked with him about your being resentful and jealous that he took away from “your” time with him to be on the phone with his wife, who is his world?
Why would anyone assume that such is the case from the little information given?
I’m obviously not in this young woman’s place. But she knows what she wants. Announcing it right off filters out a bunch of guys who are not interested in possibly finding a long term partner. Of course after a bit check in with where do we think we are going with this? And don’t keep throwing good time and emotional energy after bad if it isn’t happening.
No, because we have a typical “guy” type relationship where we rarely discuss emotional things. Besides, any such discussion would inevitably drift too close to being perceived as “advising” him to exercise more independence, and that’s even worse – that sort of meddlesome advice never goes over well. I do find your use of the words “resentful” and especially “jealous” to be strangely incongruous in this context. I would just use the word “annoyed”.
Well, you do you, I can only speak for myself. I see conversations at home as a completely different kind of communication from the long-distance telephone. And the reason I wouldn’t do this to excess is because if one of us is on a business trip, there are often business dinners and other nightly events, and after that what you need is a good night’s sleep to get ready for another long day. And if it’s a trip where I’m visiting friends or relatives, then I’d feel a social obligation to spend time with them. Besides, I don’t think that kind of joined-at-the-hip dependency is healthy. Of course I don’t recommend the extreme example below, either! 
Yeah, definitely different. I’m sure most days I don’t talk to my wife for even an hour a day at home, but we’ve got two pre-teen daughters to keep us busy.
And it will probably filter out a bunch of guys who are interesting in finding a long term partner, but not one who is nuts. Not nuts for wanting to get married, nuts for bringing it up so early.
Indeed. And many people have an understandable desire to find a marriage mate. Why not discuss frankly with a new friend?
The ultimatum over a two YEAR period, not two months. They still had the option of a year and a half of recreational sex.
I dunno. Sometimes people just like to talk to each other.
A mandated daily check-in is a bit weird.
My husband is going away for four days for the first time since our son was born. Beyond having all of the child care for the first time, I’m not sure this is that big of a deal. I don’t know whether we’ll need many check-ins, but he will be at a conference, so something interesting might happen, I dunno.
We talk a lot, but in other ways we don’t have the stereotypical issues. When he was looking for a post-doc internship he crashed on single women’s couches on the regular while he was traveling and it never even occurred to me this was something to be jealous about, or that some relationships would consider this a problem.
He has a lot of female friends in part because his profession is female dominated, in part because his communication style is more feminine, who knows? I never thought about it that deeply. I don’t care whether he hangs out with other women. He still goes out to lunch with female colleagues. I’m vaguely interested to hear how it went but if he never breathed a word of it I wouldn’t actually care.
You sounded resentful to me, too.
I don’t talk to my husband for an hour when I’m traveling, because he doesn’t enjoy talking on the phone. But when I’m visiting friends, i usually spend a chunk of time doing something not-with-them. I try to spend time with them, of course, but i don’t want to be in the way, and i usually want some alone time, too. I might read a book, or browser the SDMB, or just have a quiet breakfast by myself before they wake up. (I’m East Coast, and many of my friends aren’t, so i often am up an hour or three before my hosts wake up.)
I expect my house guests to stay out of my hair for some of the time they are visiting, too.
Also, when i stay with friends (and vice versa) the person traveling often has some other reason for traveling. They are visiting a nearby university, or I’m attending a nearby square dance or actuarial event. So there are big chunks of time we are apart, both for the event itself and for prep. I kinda expect to share dinner, and perhaps brunch, with guests/hosts.
An hour on the phone? Quietly, in the guest bedroom? I’d probably not even notice.
I travel more than my husband, and often split a hotel room with a single guy. Heck, my husband and i have split a hotel room with one of the guys i travel with. I’m talking about sharing a cruise with a gay male friend.
Obviously this goes to different theories of relationships. Just like, as a father, I felt that my goal was to find out who my daughter was and be the best father to that person, in relationships… at least with women I wanted to pursue for a LT relationship… my goal was to find out who they are and be the best boyfriend/spouse to that person.
Will say, it works very well. My daughter is a winner, and my 2 wives have been/are fantastic.
Anyway, it would not have been an issue if some woman I was on a first date with said “I want to be married in two years”, because, again, I’m trying to find out who they are.
When either my husband or I are out of town, we have a daily check-in, although it might not be very long (maybe as short as a few minutes), especially if one of us is really busy (as is often the case). And I guess that one time he traveled for work in a place with really bad cell signal we didn’t check in daily. IDK if I’d call it mandated, but I’d be kinda sad if he didn’t call (and didn’t have a good reason like the aforementioned lack of signal). I just like hearing his voice.
Of course, at this point we have the kids, so a big part of that daily check-in is saying hi to the kids and getting caught up with them, although the kids themselves don’t actually seem to miss us when we travel. (I think we miss them more!)
Yeah, I feel like it really depends on relationship/context.
We did talk and it sounds like while my husband is away he’ll be too busy to check in, which is fine. I’m looking forward to the evenings alone after my kid is in bed.
We go through periods where we talk a lot and then sometimes due to circumstances only a little. Just whatever the moment demands.
I have to say though if you are talking to your spouse for an hour, you are complicit in that conversation, it’s not like you’re a hapless victim the conversation is happening to.
Seems quite reasonable to be resentful in the circumstances, assuming it is the wife refusing her husband permission to visit a friend, and not the friend making excuses.
My husband went on a week’s skiing trip when our daughter was just under two, and it was a bit of a disaster: first the car broke down, which I needed to take her to nursery (and it was the morning when I had an important 9 am meeting!), and then a few days later I caught a stomach bug and was unable to leave the bathroom for hours. She enjoyed way too much screentime on both occasions.
I hope your husband’s trip goes more smoothly. We did video calls every couple of days; it was great for our daughter to be able to see him as well as talk to him, especially at that age.
Ugh, that sounds stressful!
Yeah, I’m hoping for uneventful. He asked me to take my son somewhere (like the park or something) since I don’t have a lot of practice doing that on my own. I found the suggestion both patronizing and probably he’s right. Maybe we can go to the park. Also I might be going to see a friend I haven’t seen in a long time (a former Doper!) and my son would come with.
Sure gives me more appreciation for what single parents deal with.
It was very stressful, especially trying to sort out the car while working and caring for a 22 month old. And I didn’t get many quiet evenings to myself because our daughter was always a bad sleeper. It did make me appreciate how much my husband does usually, though - I don’t know how single parents cope.
What do you do together? I take my daughter to the park most weekends. If it’s raining I take her to the garden centre so she can look at fish and ride the escalator 20 times. I’d struggle to keep her entertained if we didn’t go out somewhere.
That’s cool. Does he do okay with travelling?
My husband is usually the one coordinating outside activities for the three of us and I just sort of go along. I don’t have great initiative for this stuff. I have social anxiety and find it difficult at times to leave the house. Which speaks to my husband’s point, I guess. I can take him to the library, I guess.
When me and my son are at home we usually just talk or play some math game or whatever he wants to do. I enjoy teaching him things, so sometimes it’s as simple as introducing him to a new concept. I taught him binary, we did some easy science experiments, or I showed him the space X launch or something. I’m not very good at playing with children, but teaching I can do.
I wish I could teach my daughter things, but for some reason she seems to really hate it if we try. She even refused to believe us when she had misunderstood something in phonics and we both corrected her! It’s a shame; I quite like teaching too. I used to help my sisters with their schoolwork when we were kids, especially maths.
She’d probably enjoy the science experiments, but that’s more effort. What she usually wants to do is play pretend games, which aren’t much fun for me, especially since she tells me exactly what to say and do. So I have to find other ways to entertain her. 
Filter out the ones who perceive it as nuts anyway. Which would be a good thing! They wouldn’t be a good match.
Of course take this with a grain of salt, it requires some imagination on my part as I haven’t been unattached in over four decades, but it wouldn’t scare me off. I wouldn’t think it nuts at all. It could open a fine conversation not only about what each of us are looking for in a possible relationship but what our mutual thoughts are about the process. My hot take would be to react that that seems fair, that assuming we started seeing each other, and the night is young, two years seems like enough time to decide if someone is the right one. Lots quicker to decide that many are … not the right one.
I also don’t get the perception that this friend is a victim here. Maybe he is cowering in fear of his wife but I’m getting the impression that he is an active participant in the decisions. If she is very needy and afraid to be alone or apart, a big if from what we’ve been told, then maybe being that needed is something he wants?
@DemonTree, in another thread you expressed great concern about low birth rates. Seems to me like you would be supportive of a woman who is active and clear in her desire to get to it in a reasonable time line.
My impression was that the wife did give permission for the visit. It’s just that the husband spent an hour a day talking to her while he was away. That feels like the high end of normal to me, but not outside the range. Certainly, there should still be time for the visit.
Yeah. That’s my logical reaction. It makes sense to discuss expectations and even to set some kind of deadline. But my emotional reaction is that back when I was single, I’d have run a mile if a man said anything like this on the first date. 
Settling down and having a family was not on my list of life goals.
Mine was that the big issue was the wife only giving permission for visits on the rare occasions she went out of town herself, and the long calls were merely the insult added to injury.