Letters to the Editor
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ADHD
I'm no shrink, I'm no neurologist, I know nothing about anything involving the head and body. But I do know a few people with ADHD, and "getting there fast!" is symptomatic of it. I'm not going to try to suggest how you should approach this or why, but maybe some research is in order. It may help you understand him and deal with him in a more productive way. I wish you luck.
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A Test
If he just walks faster than you do, he should get farther and farther ahead as you two are walking. If he's being a jerk, he'll stay about 5 feet ahead and even when you hurry to catch up and try to walk faster to stay even with him, somehow he'll still end up about 5 feet ahead. My guess is that it's the latter.
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Are you sure it's him?
For years, my mother walked faster than my father. She could not get him to walk any faster no matter what she did, and he seemed to slow down when she tried to match his pace. The real problem? My father had bone spurs which he wouldn't acknowledge. Walking was painful for him. Now that he's had the problem fixed, they walk at the same pace. Has the wife had herself checked out?
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Cary's right
If he's unwilling to slow down, don't exercise with him.
I can run with my husband, but we both have different paces. I'm actually faster, so I have to slow down. He walks faster, so I walk with a hand on his shoulder or holding hands, so he can "block" for me. It's a matter of pride for him to make a path for his wife and children, to stay close and protect.
I can not, however, lift with the man. He does that guyish "one rep max" thing, and lifts for power. I lift more for rehabilitation, I do 2-3 sets, and I have no idea what my "one rep max" is. I don't max out for fear of aggravating my back. We can be in the same room, I can spot him, but I can NOT lift with him. We drive each other nuts.
Instead of giving it a value judgement, find other partners. But the thing about kids is right. He needs to carry the kids AND the stroller. Because if he ever yells at your child for going to slow, you need to hit him. HARD. That's jerkish selfishness.
The one problem with the LW is that she does seem to take pleasure in her slow pace. Perhaps she should not do the races. It's not fair to the race judges.
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I was the kid in this scenario
I have an older brother, but after he went to college, it was just me and my parents. Dad liked to go for family walks after dinner. So I was the kid in the middle saying, "Wait up Dad! Dad, wait for Mom!" and "Hurry up, Mom! Come on!" If I rushed ahead with Dad, I felt disloyal to Mom; if I stayed back with Mom, I missed walking with Dad.
God bless her, Mom stuck to her pace. Having grown up with allergies and asthma (in the days before good identification and treatment), she's not, and never has been, athletic. It didn't take a genius to figure that out.
Was Dad controlling? Um, you could say that. Was he maybe also typically male in his results-based perspective on the family walk? Maybe.
I have no great words of wisdom, other than to say my parents eventually divorced after 33 years of marriage. It's not mine to say whether issues like this one played into their inability to salvage the marriage. Suffice to say, it sucked being in the middle of their dynamic before I was old enough to know to get out of the way.
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If you are a team, he should friggen act like it
It's one thing when it's competetive racing scenarios, he goes fast, you go slow. I have no idea why you race when you want to go so slow the judges just ask you to leave, why not just ski for the activity when it is very obvious you are not a competitive person? But I suppose that is a different issue.
Anyway, so you two should either not be athletic together, or he should load himself down with weights or equipment so he will go slower.
But when it comes to walking together, that is when he is supposed to act like you two are a team. A team that walks next to each other. I don't know if you walk heel to toe, faster; or if you walk toe/flatfooted which is slower, but the fact is that he should not repeatedly be walking ahead of you and then being annoyed because you cannot walk as fast. Is this new, why would you marry someone who refuses to walk next to you, or slow down to your pace? If it's a new behavior then hey, there is something else going on. But if he's always been this way, why on earth did you marry him?
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The opposite problem (or not)
I am taller than my wife and she walks faster than I do.
It's not an issue when we're holding hands. When we're not, I don't mind that she's not matching my pace; I only mind that she sometimes looks back and tells me to pick it up. When this happens, I tell her that I'm OK at my pace and she's OK at hers. Besides, I like hanging back a little, being in my head, and watching her. It's nice.
Lestat1, your notion that the LW should disappear is a bad one, I'm sorry to say. If my wife ever deliberately caused me unnecessary alarm about her safety, that would be a worse act than whatever I had done to deserve it. And she'd never stop hearing about it. Not ever. That's not a loving way to correct what does seem to be a less-than-critical problem in a marriage.
Which is why those who are advising the LW to dump her husband are making me laugh a little. This is a husband! A marriage! They should divorce because he's rude when they're walking? Or skiing? Yes, I'm sure it's indicative of other ways he's rude, but still--my goodness.