It's human nature:
- My position is: enjoy and share whathever the other person pleasure is as long as it doesn't put any family member in danger.
- Wife position is: you and your bloody mistress (ooops, sorry "hobby"). Whatever you like, it will be the same (Football, Cars, Cigars, Stamps, ...)
Girls are always jealous, parents are worried and we, boys, only want some peace and pleasure.
It takes a long long time to teach your partner to share your personal pleasures because they always look at theirs first, they are human too, sometimes.
I solved the problem.
I live alone and share the kids time with my wife and we are finaly happy.
She has her own life and space and so do I.
The kids never look at me like I have an obessive compulsive disorder because I'm not. I spend time with them, 100% when they are with me.
But, hey, they are not jealous of their father.
They love me without conditions, and so do I.
Adults might be jealous of me, well, in fact, they are for sure. This assh** with his watches, nice car, nice job, nice house, nice kids, ...
Today, we spend the afternoon doing things they love, the 3 of us togheter, daughter, son and dad.
My watch hobby doesn't hurt them...I'm not putting them in front of a TV or PC and tell them "Dad must work now".
They even recognize my watches now.
Tonight, when going to put them in bed, my son said: "oh, you wear your Omega".
Me: "well, you seem to be a 9 year old expert now"
Him: "looking at all your watches for a while, I learned to see which is a Rolex, or a Panerai, Jaeger Le Coultre, Omega, Baume & Mercier..."
Me: "so, you might want to become a watchmaker some day..."
Him: "I don't know. Why are you not a watchmaker"
Me: "well, I have a job and it's too late to go back to school"
Him: "so, you cannot change job anymore (meaning you have to stick to this forever)
Me: Yes I can, but becoming a watchmaker needs a lot of study and I can't go back to school because I must make some money and school is not a job ...
The reason I write all this is because what is seen with the eyes of a boy of 9 is beautiful.
What is seen thru the eyes of an adult is very often stupid and disapointing.
Some of us here at RWG are kids, for sure...we do not match that much with adults.
Cheers
Stephane