This is a more serious question (at least, until I start getting goofy comments! 
), and I’d appreciate any feedback I can get.
A lot of unicyclists on this forum are younger and aren’t married. But then, there are those who are married. I’m somewhat in between. I’m engaged (I got engaged over Thanksgiving), and as such, am thinking about a family, etc. My fiance is a beginning unicyclist, while I’m an intermediate MUni rider, which means most trails don’t stop me and I do 10 mile offroad rides frequently.
I believe strongly in doing activities as a family and don’t want to abandon my wife and kids every chance I get to go “play with the boys,” yet at the same time, I really love riding and pushing my unicycling abilities.
So how do I balance my love of riding with my love of family? If it comes down to my unicycle or my wife, I’ll sell the uni, but I really don’t think it should come down to that. How have you married folk found the balance?
Try getting your future wife on a mountain-bike and have her go along with you on Muni rides. I’m sure the kidlet could be strapped on somewhere to the bike or to her. There’s been only one time when I was able to pass a MTBer, and that was a kid about 7-8 years old. So unless you’re really good, I think she’d find it to be a relaxed ride with you.
Or perhaps if you wanted to work on other skills such as wheel-walking or gliding, you could go to a park or a bike path where you could Uni and she could Rollerblade.
I’ve set up some trials at home. I keep most of the trials stuff low so my daughter can do them on a 16" bicycle (she is 6 yrs old) and I do it on my MUni. Long skinny ramps, slight up and down ramps, bumps and small steps. I also work on hopping over and onto the obstacles. Lately I am working on riding frontwards and backwards on the 9" wide ramp to make it harder for me. It’s taught her a lot about practising and perseverance. She even tells me to keep practising sometimes when I fall off. Haven’t been able to get my wife to play with us on the trials yet, bummer.
Sometimes we do a rails to trails ride, my wife and daughter on bikes and me on the uni. It’s a fast ride for me, relaxed for my wife and a great pace for my daughter.
A few days back they went for a walk and I rode along. I’d do a few sprints to work on fast pedaling and then ride back and talk while riding slow. I’d also stop often and work on a still stand as long as I could (1 - 4 seconds) and do a stop/go ride while they were walking.
By the way, my daughter is learning to uni, but no interest from my wife yet.
Bill
re: life balance
Congratulations on your engagement! In my opinion marriage is underated. Make your wife’s comfort and happiness your highest priority and I can just about guarantee you’ll find a way to achieve balance and joy in your life. Unicycles, motorcycles, boats and hang gliders can be wonderful sport or recreation, but don’t be misled by those who would have you thinking that they will bring you true happiness in and of themselves. There will be times when you will be tempted to resent family for standing in the way of your sport. Be patient and loving and good things will come back to you plus a lot more than you expected. I finally have five kids who love unicycling as much as I do and it is just so wonderful! Even my wife is starting to say she wants to learn how!
It’s not too late to back out. Don’t let family stand in the way of your sport. Unicycles, motorcycles, boats and hang gliders are wonderful for sport and recreation, and they will bring you true happiness in and of themselves. Don’t ruin your life, run for it before there is no turning back!
Thanks guys for the responses.
Elmer: That is exactly the sentiment I was looking for! You hit it right on the nose. Now, how do I go about doing that?
Her interest isn’t in roller blading or mountain biking. One of the first things that attracted her to me was my stories of MUni. She bought a unicycle after I knew her for less than a month! That’s when I knew it was true love. Unfortunately, she broke her wrist while trying to learn how to mount, and is in her last semester for her Master’s degree, so hasn’t had much time to practice.
And Rowan… I’m not even going to respond 
Paco,
Congratulations! Really great news, and don’t let Rowan scare you off.
I have to say if it REALLY came down to selling your uni or keeping your wife, you might have stopped short of finding that soul mate. Whether they share your passion for a particular something or not, it’s important for partners to appreciate and honor the big passions of their other halves. Or as Travolta and Duvall said in “Phenomenon”: “you have to buy her chairs…”.
Good luck.
PS: my 10 year old has been riding since age 8, and my wife has gone to a beginner workshop and is threatening to get up on her own one-wheel by end of summer.
You may not be able to ride as much as you used to, but don’t sell the unicycle. There should be room in a relationship for doing doing things separately once in a while. If you have kids it will be more difficult, but if you try you’ll work something out.
I sometimes used to ride for an hour or two in the evening when my daughter had gone to sleep, and I don’t think my family suffered from my absence. Now with a baby in the house again there isn’t that much time for that anymore, but kids won’t be that demanding forever.
Take a look at this. You may need to substitute unicycling for beer.
Morten
P.S. Congratulations on the engagement. Good luck. I hope you live happily ever after.
Re: Family riding
On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:52:06 -0600, paco
<paco@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote:
>So how do I balance my love of riding with my love of family?
The replies so far have focused on combining the two at the same time.
If it works, that is a fine approach. I sometimes (i.e. not often) go
out riding with my kids and/or wife, me on the uni and they either on
their unis (not my wife) or on their bikes.
But there is enough time in a life to express your love of riding AND
your “love of family” sequentially and to (more or less) full
satisfaction. I speak from experience.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
You have to keep in mind that those of us who post on RSU are not normal. - John Childs
You can work it out
Compromise can be a powerful tool. During your engagement and until you have kids there should be some time to get her riding better, maybe well enough to go with you on some rides(ride, make out, repeat) perhaps wlking the tough sections. Once the kids come you’ll understand why so many of us pick it up or renew it around 40. You just have to make them a priority and support your girl. Chances are she’ll try hard to make you happy as well. Figure out TOGETHER how much time you can devote to your sport when she can’t do it with you and I’ll bet she won’t resent it. Finish when you said you would and call her if plans change. There’s actually some excellent advice given for you by all the others and Rowan had me laughing pretty hard. I’m not so serious usually in person.
how is she on balloon modelling?
the lady in my life has absolutely no interest in uni’ing or juggling
my thursday night visits to the juggling club are my ‘church’ nites
she’s quite into climbing with me and even tho we haven’t done much of it recently, we enjoy sharing that
u asked how to balance your family life with your uni-life?
no one can really tell u
we can all share the ways we’ve reached some kind of balance but u’ll have to work out your own
as long as u keep the ‘channels of communications’ wide open(paradoxically, this could also mean shutting up from time to time…), u should be more than fine
My wife Jacquie started learning to ride in 1999 (before we were married), but never finished. She got to the point where she was just starting to let go of the wall. She figured out she wasn’t that interested in riding unicycles, and she would always be compared to me (how come John Foss’ wife can’t ride like him?). Instead, when she goes to unicycling events with me she likes to relax and be a spectator/booster.
In her own world, she’s a business owner with high responsibilities, and many, many employees. People are always coming to her with questions and needs, day and night. So when she goes with me to “unicycle land,” she gets a chance to relax!
Recently she got a recumbent bike (Rans), for the comfort factor. We’ve gone on some paved bike trail rides, with me on the Coker. At first she was intimidated by the bike, but that didn’t last very long. Now I have to work hard to keep up, and she can leave me behind if she wants. Plus her crotch never wears out!
Unfortunately she can’t ride trails, due to a vision condition in which she has very little depth perception. So unless we got a mountain tandem, we won’t ride (narrow) trails together. Sometimes I will ride while she hikes, but that’s slow for me.
So sometimes you just have to do your own thing. She probably has some of her own things she likes to do too. Even if it’s just shopping, you probably won’t mind not being there for that, at least some of the time…
I am still seeking the balance of “together” time vs. getting-out-to-the-trails time. So far the trails have been the losers, but part of that is because of where we live also, which is about an extra half hour from the nearest “good” trails.
Thank you everyone for your responses. This was exactly what I needed to hear. I’m not perfect and I’ve screwed up a number of times (who hasn’t?) But we’re working through everything we can think of right now so that when we do get married, the transition will be a lot smoother (around here, the average is knowing someone for less that 4 months before getting engaged and getting married 4 months after that. Ours has been much longer). My unicycle has really helped shape who I am (fortunately, it hasn’t reshaped any of my bones 
) and so I don’t want it to be the first point of tension in our marriage.
Re: Family riding
My wife doesn’t have any interest in learning to ride but since I ride with
both our sons she doesn’t get upset.
Carl
42 and just learned to “one foot idle”!!
“paco” <paco@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:paco.zktqi@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com…
>
> This is a more serious question (at least, until I start getting goofy
> comments! ), and I’d appreciate any feedback I can get.
> A lot of unicyclists on this forum are younger and aren’t married. But
> then, there are those who are married. I’m somewhat in between. I’m
> engaged (I got engaged over Thanksgiving), and as such, am thinking
> about a family, etc. My fiance is a beginning unicyclist, while I’m an
> intermediate MUni rider, which means most trails don’t stop me and I do
> 10 mile offroad rides frequently.
> I believe strongly in doing activities as a family and don’t want to
> abandon my wife and kids every chance I get to go “play with the boys,”
> yet at the same time, I really love riding and pushing my unicycling
> abilities.
> So how do I balance my love of riding with my love of family? If it
> comes down to my unicycle or my wife, I’ll sell the uni, but I really
> don’t think it should come down to that. How have you married folk
> found the balance?
>
>
> –
> paco - Proud owner of 2 opposable thumbs
>
> Sounds exactly like an orthodic support for shoes, only different. Would
> this be called a butt-thodic support? or glutethodic?
> -S_Wallis
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> paco’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/3715
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/29749
>
So… Unicycles really are chick magnets! Congratulations on the engagement. If you have found the right women it will be the best decision of your life.
For me the thing that brought us together was me being a Black Belt and Instructor in Martial Arts. My wife had been in martial arts earlier while in college, and was a very rewarding experience for her. As time went by we found other common interests like we could both juggle. We both loved kayaking and many other off the beaten path sort of things. So when I said I wanted to learn how to ride a unicycle last year she was completely supportive and downright excited. She is about 2 hours practice from riding and freemounting herself. My daughter turned 3 last week and she got her first unicycle for her birthday. She probably won’t be able to ride anytime soon, but was she ever excited. It is laying in the livingroom, and she tries getting on it 5-6 times a day. She asks me to help her “ride” it at least 2-3 times a day. She is definitely Daddy’s girl.
So don’t fret, you can have your cake and eat it too! Also make sure your fiance has good wrist guards next time she tries.
Paco, you have received lots of great advice. I especially like elmer’s words of wisdom.
I will just add two comments. With you having the desire to even ask this question, you will do great as a husband and one day, a father.
Second, If you really want to show her how much she matters to you. Sell on of your unicycles and take her on an extra special date with the loot. That will let her know where she stands, and your uni-time will never intimidate her. (NOTE: If you only have on Unicycle, don’t follow this advice. :D)
Congratulations!!! A great wife is one of the most wonderful thing in life. Much greater than any unicycle, or all my unicyles for that matter. But, a great wife also wants you to enjoy yourself. When you give 100%, marriage always works out for good. --chirokid–
The vultures are circling already.
I think this was similar advice you gave to Jagur before you talked him out of his SH 29er. 
with all this talk of our ‘significant others’, i thought putting a face to all the people we’re talking about might be a kewl idea?
this is katy doing what she does best when we juggle at emmarentia dam (i jest, normally she reads)
and the other picture is us in the studio of the internet radio station where we met (africam)
