Note that depending exactly what it is you need (or think you need), certain lifestyle changes may be able to get you parts of it "for free". For example, I choose year-round bicycle commuting, which is a hardship in the winter, but it does mean that almost no matter what, I get 5hrs/week of time to myself for fresh air, thinking, and physical exercise.
My son just zones out for an hour or more when I do this with him. We're together of course, but I also have most of the feeling of freedom and solitude that cycling gives me, and he generally has a great time.
As far as finding solitude, I’ve found that a few solo camping trips a year help. They don’t solve the problem and it almost feels hopeless to take a couple weekends out of the year to solve a weekly problem, but it actually helps enough that I wouldn’t want to go without it.
The first two years of having a child have been 70% crap, 20% sleep, 10% rewarding moments.
There are a couple of up-sides:
- The rewarding moments are pretty cool, and there are more all the time.
- You don't appreciate free time until you have none. I no longer procrastinate and overall I think I get more things done than I did with unlimited free time.
Raising the kids is actually the easiest part.
Going into work less productive because you are exhausted and having your boss yell at you for missing deadlines is the hard part.
Struggling with money is the hard part.
Etc.
Our culture is a lot less family friendly than it was 50 years ago.
TIL I have it easy...
You will miss them when they grow up and move away. Ignore your longing for "alone" time now. You're going to get plenty of it.
That said, I wouldn't enter a partnership with someone who did not respect my need for an hour or so of exercise 3-5 days a week and of course I would make the same effort to provide them that time as well, if they wanted it. In fact, I would argue that a persons physical fitness(to a certain level, of course) is crucial to a partnership and a healthy family. Full disclosure: my wife and I don't have kids- but these are my values and I'm proud enough of them to hope to bestow them on my kids if we ever have them.
If you're taking care of others to the exclusion of yourself, you're going to end up in a downward spiral of resentment. Nothing good will come of that.
If you have really young kids, you'll need to wait until they are in school. Then, do the day-off trick.
Between work, wife, kids, friends, family, and various drains on my time, squeezing in some quality alone time has become increasingly difficult.
Therefore, I have had to turn my stoicism onto detaching from my former desire for alone-ness (not the same as loneliness, I know).
If anyone knows how to make more time for being alone when you have young kids, let me know! :) I suspect I will mostly have to look forward to that some time in the future.