How Freedom Brings Energy Back Home
Time to Read: 2 mins
Is wanting to escape the home a bad thing?I have yet to meet any parent who didn't need some form of escape. The home could feel like a pressure tank, from that first moment when you realise leaving hospital to coming home (the best feeling ever), just means you have replaced comfort for a lack of support (a scary reality)!!
The word escape comes up a lot especially with new Dads and when you question a little further, the escape is linked to ‘freedom’. The idea that you can leave, recharge and consequently bring back more of YOU to support at home. The intentions are always good but can create resentment with the other parent. But the value of freedom is contextual. By that I mean, if you can find ways to genuinely bring positive energy back to the house, then yes - this is a good idea. If you are out getting drunk and have a huge hangover to show for it, who are you kidding, you have actually depleted the house further. I felt this intently when after one Friday night session, Saturday morning we were faced with a crying baby at 4am, both parents screwed and frankly I only had myself to blame. It wasn’t the best weekend!
But freedom was still required and I started to do something I had never done before, I started to honestly appraise what escape I needed. There are roughly two forms of personal escape, one was based on exercise, the other based on hedonism. The former was valuable for all three of us, due to the positive energy it created, but can be at the risk of time away from home. The latter was for me, a selfish time to get away and recharge socially and drink pints / watch sport. This one had no real benefit for the family but my wife actually encouraged it as she respected it was necessary. When I said I encouraged it, it was because I was finally being honest with myself and her about why. That enabled me to manage expectations on the amount of time I needed and also the expectations of what I needed to be when I came home and put on the parent hat again. It wasn't the hangover, rather the need to be fully operational to enable the other parent to take their time for freedom.
I also learned a valuable lesson in moderation, something that both age and parenthood helped with. Even with running and fitness, which created positive energy for us all, it was better to space this out throughout the week versus big chunky events, these I reserved for special races I wanted to complete. I even built my fitness to a level where I could run a marathon in the morning and be home, showered and ready for fatherly duties in the afternoon. In short I found the more I used my freedom to benefit my own health and energy, the more inclusive it felt for my family. That even led us down the road of escaping together, going for runs as a family which everyone enjoyed, triple wins are rare but beautiful gifts.
There is so much to unpack here centred on communication and managing time, areas which you can deep dive here to learn the foundations of positive energy, connection and growth. But at the very start, acknowledging freedom is a good thing, ask yourself why you need it and be honest. The honest answer is correct! Understand and communicate the impact it has, sometimes good, sometimes bad and with this you will find more freedom when the good things outweigh the bad. You can even escape together!
Zoe’s Response
This topic has come a long way in our relationship in just under two years! In my article about resentment I mention how miffed (to put it lightly) I was during the first few months of our child’s life at the amount Greg was going out to escape, both through exercise and going out with the boys. While I knew the adjustment period was hard I was hoping we could have figured out a way to get through it together but alas, we needed to figure it out individually in our own time. Now we have, like Greg mentions, I do encourage him to go out and see his friends. Especially because most of the time when he does it doesn’t impact our son and I on his return, instead of nursing a hangover and getting short with us he tells us funny stories about the day / night out and pulls his weight with childcare and jobs around the house.
Greg is high energy and the life and soul of the party; that's one of the main traits that drew me to him, I don’t want him to lose that!
For any partners who are hating me right now, I am only encouraging because Greg really does pull his weight when he gets home. It would be a very different story if he didn't, if you have a partner who will be bed bound or worse for wear the next day why not try doing a few nights out or pub sessions with alcohol free beer? Greg does that every so often and has really found some drinks he loves and can’t notice the difference in taste. Another trick we both like to use is having non-alcoholic drink for the first hour when we arrive - then it will go 50/50 as to whether we will stick to non-alcoholic or move to alcohol (because the first one is always to ease a little bit of social anxiety so once you move past that you can see if you really do want to drink or not). I hope you can find something that works for both of you getting out to have a bit of an escape because once you do, it's a game changer.
TAKEAWAYS:
Be honest with ‘why’ you need the freedom and be accountable for its impact.
Include movement into this to ensure a positive outcome for you, your partner and children.
Try freedom together: connection and positive energy is a powerful mix.
