Whether you're fanatical about football or swept up by salsa, once you team up with someone special you'll have to share your 'me' time, writes Fionola Meredith

Responsibility catches up with most of us in the end. It seems that both our personal and professional lives are increasingly mapped out by the competing demands and duties exacted by work and family. The relentless hamster-wheel of daily routine leaves many of us with little opportunity for "me' time - time to indulge the hobbies, activities and passions that add meaning and colour to our lives.

Often, giving up a pleasurable activity is seen as a marker of maturity: a sign that we've finally grown up, fully assumed the mantle of adulthood with all its sober deliberations and duties.

Refusing to compromise on time taken up by personal interests can wreak havoc in long-term relationships.

Sean (33) has played amateur league soccer since he was 17, training with his team two evenings a week and playing a match on Saturdays. His wife, Fiona (32) didn't find his obsessive interest in football a problem - at least, not initially.

"When we first met, I used to stand on the touchline to watch him play. Actually, I thought he looked pretty sexy in his kit. But since we got married and had our two little girls, that's the last thing on my mind. I just don't think it's fair of him to spend so much time away from his family - especially on such a pointless activity. It's not as if he's 17 any more - he's a father, and there's responsibilities that come with that. I think he should grow up!"

Relationship psychologist Mo Shapiro, author of Shift Your Thinking, Change Your Life says it's common for people to become jealous of their partner's hobbies.

"It's important to decide together what's reasonable, otherwise one person can end up feeling neglected and undervalued. Sometimes a little reassurance and understanding are all that's needed. But it's true that women more often get the worse side of the deal. However equal the relationship, once children come along, it's much more likely for the mother to give up her interests."

Lisa O'Hara of the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service (MRCS) in Dublin agrees: "Traditionally women have taken on the role of homemaker, thereby taking up their own free time - but their partner may still have a similar amount of leisure time as before. It's important to look at the impact hobbies may have on our intimate relationships.

"The amount of time spent away from each other will depend on what feels right for the couple, and that's best agreed mutually. For example, if you like a game of golf on a Saturday afternoon and you have a young family, ask yourself what can you give back that your partner will agree is a 'fair trade'."

But not all women seethe resentfully at home while their other half gleefully romps around the nearest golf course or football pitch.

Ireland may indeed be awash with GAA "widows", temporarily abandoned by their football-mad spouses, but a growing band of women are bucking that trend. Mother-of-six Brenda McAnespie plays for the Monaghan Senior Ladies' Football team.

She's out playing or training at least three nights a week, sometimes more: "I eat, sleep and drink football and always have. It works for us because everyone in the family is involved, including the kids."

While selfishly over-indulging in personal pleasures can lead to relationship problems, staying clamped firmly to each other's side isn't the answer either.

Agony aunt Susan Quilliam warns, "However independent you were before, marriage has a habit of sucking you into being a couple. Particularly if the marriage involves children, your lives are increasingly tied up together day to day. The result is often feeling both dependent and depended on - as though you have someone constantly clinging to your ankles. Successful couples encourage each other not to be always 'us', to take 'me' time, to have 'me' hobbies and even 'me' friends. This way, each partner brings individuality in to the marriage, keeping it fresh and alive."

Sometimes a partner's obsessive interest in a hobby is symptomatic of deeper problems within the relationship itself. Escaping into the safe familiarity of a favourite activity is a common way of attempting to block out unpalatable home-truths.

O'Hara cautions against this head-in-the-sand approach. "Be aware of whether you are using a hobby as a way of expressing avoidance in a relationship. One way to do this is to take a reality check - am I the type of person who feels guilty taking any time for myself? Or conversely, do I feel guilty partaking in my hobby when I have knowingly made a selfish choice?"

There's no doubt that some extracurricular activities cause a little more anxiety to the partner left at home than others. While most men would feel perfectly comfortable waving their partner off to her fly-tying workshop or macramé class, would they feel quite so blasé knowing she was spending her evenings leaping, prancing and swooning languidly in the arms of a succession of male salsa dancers?

Hilary Clarke, who teaches a range of "strictly salsa" classes in Dublin, says it's not as raunchy as it appears. "Although salsa has a reputation for being an incredibly sensual form of dance, most beginners keep well away from each other, with their hands firmly clamped to their sides. It's only after a year that they begin to shimmy closer."

Lynnea FitzGerald is a former student of Clarke's, who admits she's hooked on salsa dancing.

"I'm totally addicted; I'll be at the club up to three times a week. My all-time record was 13 nights in a row, and I often attend salsa weekends (or "congresses", as they're known) in Ireland and the UK. When I first started I was single, but now I have a non-dancing partner I dance less than I used to. I did talk him into trying it, but it wasn't for him."

While clubs and classes are a well-known way to meet new friends and partners, others find that their personal enthusiasms have the opposite effect. Malachy Coney, graphic novelist and manager of the Forbidden Planet sci-fi store in Belfast, says his lifelong Dr Who fascination seems to put off potential partners.

Coney, who has a full-size replica of Dr Who's time-travelling police box, the Tardis, in his "empty, rambling, junk-filled" home, says, "People think it's strange, eccentric: they wonder if I sit in my Tardis and fantasise about travelling through space and time. I don't - I use it to store all my Dr Who merchandise - books, replica daleks and so on. I love showing people into the room without telling them that the Tardis is there. They nearly always scream. I'm waiting to hear the right kind of scream - then I'll know I've found the perfect partner."