I've been married since 2009. My wife and I are both in mid-forties and she has two daughters from previous marriage, in their teens, and we have a girl together who is 5.

It's been a rough couple of years and, officially, about one year ago, I pretty much found myself "outcome independent", which changed a lot of how much I was letting my marriage affect me..

I've been, slowly but steadily, making progress in owning my own shit. It hasn't been easy. I slip, a lot.

A current struggle of mine is dealing with her constant need to be doing something, and she never is really present... meaning, if we are at a park or something that she wanted us to go to, while we are there, she is already talking about the next thing that she wants to do... "we should go to ".

Almost every weekend, she has to be doing something... this past weekend, on Friday night, I was in no mood to do anything after going to a school event for my little one. She wanted to go to a Halloween party that friend of ours invited us to. I could tell she wasn't happy about me not wanting to go... she kept asking me if I wanted to go... then, at one point I asked her to come sit by me to watch a movie and it finally came out "I don't want to just sit around watching a movie on a weekend night". I went upstairs and watched a movie in a bed with my little one.

This weekend coming up, I have to take a trip to shut down a camping property I own, and she decided she was going to come up too, for part of it... the following weekend, she is going to New York with my step-daughters... At least once a month, she goes out of town for some activity for my step-daughters. She's had two weekend trips out of town this year to meet up with high school friends... New Years she is going to Florida for some events for my step daughters... In January we all go to Disney for our annual trip... and, not to mention multiple concerts she goes to every year.

When I grew up, these sorts of things were things that were planned and saved up for, and, I remember, clear as day, these sorts of events.

From a finances perspective, we both make good money, but, she makes more than I do. We have separate accounts, now, after I separated my account from hers when I saw ALOT of frivolous spending and poor management of finances.

But, money aside... by doing these kinds of things so often, it seems to dilute the experience a little bit, doesn't it?

One thing I have thought about recently is that saying "keeping up with the Jones'" I see her, all the time, with her face buried in her phone looking at facebook... and, sure, if you are looking at facebook, everything that people post is usually when they are doing something fun, taking a trip, vacation, concert...

And, if their dad takes them away for a trip somewhere fun, it is usually followed by my wife setting something crazy up, almost as if she is in a contest, and will not be outdone. Two years ago, after their father took them to a theme park in another state for a long weekend, shortly after, my wife organized a long weekend trip with my step daughters to go to New York.

Is this normal behavior? How often do some of you on this subreddit go on vacation? Out to eat? Out of town? How often do you stay in town and don't really do anything more than just some things around the house and maybe catch a movie and visit with family?

Sorry for the long post. So much to say and ask, at the same time.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

You guys rock.