I need the forum's help settling something. My wife Linda says I pump "too much." Her words. Direct quote. She used air quotes and everything.

Here are the facts. I pump 6 days a week. Each session is 2-3 hours. I have a dedicated space in the garage. I have a routine. I have a system. It works. The pump is consistent and I am in the best shape of my life.

Linda says "normal people" don't do this. She says I spend more time in the garage than in the living room. She says our children have started calling the garage "Dad's pump dimension." She says this should concern me. It does not.

I told her the pump does not have an upper limit. I told her that "too much" is a concept invented by people who have never truly experienced it. If you have experienced a real, genuine pump, you would understand that the idea of doing it "too much" is like saying you breathe "too much." It is necessary. It is life.

She showed me a WebMD article about exercise addiction. I showed her the Pump Codex. She said the Pump Codex is "not a real medical document." I said WebMD is not a real pump document. We are at an impasse.

So I am asking the forum. Who is right? I already know the answer. But I need it in writing. For the discussion.

I have created a poll. Please vote honestly. I will be showing her the results.

Gary is obviously correct. This is not a close call. This is not a matter of perspective. There is a right answer and it is Gary's answer.

I have pumped every single day since 1997. Not most days. Every day. Rain, snow, holidays, funerals, jury duty. Every day. And in all that time, not a single person has successfully argued that this is "too much." People have tried. They have failed. The pump continues.

My own wife left me in 2004 over this exact issue. She said I cared more about the pump than our marriage. I told her that was not true but that the pump was not negotiable. She left. She came back in 2006.

You know why she came back?

She realized the pump was not going anywhere. I was not going anywhere. The pump and I are a package deal.

Once she accepted that, everything got better. We have been married 29 years now. The pump is part of the marriage. It was always part of the marriage. She just needed time to understand that.

Gary, print this thread out. Leave it on the kitchen counter. Let Linda read it at her own pace. She will come around. They always do.

I found this thread. Gary left his laptop open. I cannot believe there is an entire forum for this.

I want to be very clear about something, since my husband has apparently presented this to thousands of strangers as some kind of legal case: I do not want him to STOP pumping. I have never said that. I have never asked for that.

What I want is for him to occasionally eat dinner WITH THE FAMILY instead of in the garage doing overhead press. That is it. That is the entire ask. Dinner. At the table. With his wife and children. Maybe three times a week. Maybe four. I am not being unreasonable.

He eats dinner in the garage. He has a folding table next to the squat rack. He calls it "the fuel station." Our 8-year-old asked me last week why Daddy lives in the garage. I did not have a good answer.

Also, I would like to address PumpMaster3000 directly:

Sir, your wife left you for two years and you are citing this as a positive example. You are presenting "my wife eventually came back after leaving me for two years" as evidence that everything worked out. I need everyone in this thread to sit with that for a moment.

I love Gary. I support Gary. I just want to eat dinner with Gary. This should not be controversial.

I have seen this situation many times. It is, in fact, the most common issue in what I call a "pump marriage" — a marriage where one or both partners are committed pumpers and the pump schedule conflicts with domestic expectations.

The key to a successful pump marriage is Scheduled Pump Windows. Both parties sit down and agree on designated pump times. These are non-negotiable blocks where the pumper pumps and the non-pumping partner accepts this. Outside of those windows, the pumper is fully present. Dinner is attended. Children are acknowledged. The folding table next to the squat rack is used for its intended purpose, which is holding plates, not holding dinner plates.

I speak from experience. My own marriage was in serious trouble in 2015. My wife said I was "impossible to live with." I said I was "impossible to live without." We were both right. It was a difficult time.

Then something changed. My wife started pumping too.

I cannot overstate how much this improved things. She understood. She felt it. The arguments stopped overnight. Now we pump together 4 days a week. The other 3 days we pump separately, for personal growth. We have never been happier.

Gary, my professional (not real) recommendation: invite Linda to the gym. Do not pressure her. Do not explain the Pump Codex. Just invite her. Hand her a dumbbell. Let the pump speak for itself. The pump is more persuasive than any of us.

Okay. I need to update you people on something.

After reading DivorceCoach_Pump's post (and against my better judgment), I went out to the garage last night while Gary was doing his evening session. I told him I wanted to try. He looked at me like I had just told him he won the lottery.

He set me up with some light dumbbells. He showed me a few things. I did about 30 minutes. I did not understand what the big deal was at first. It was just lifting things and putting them down.

But then, around minute 25, something happened. I don't know how to describe it. My arms felt... full. Warm. There was this tightness that wasn't painful, it was just... present. I looked in the garage mirror and I looked different. Not bigger. Just... more there. More solid. More real.

I felt something.

I'm not ready to talk about it. I need time. I need to process what happened in that garage.

I will be back. I have questions. Many questions.

Maybe you people aren't completely insane.