AIBU to challenge my partner's Sunday football commitment and family time?

Everyone is entitled to a hobby and playing sports is good for your physical and mental health.

I would make sure that you also get time for yourself to do something beyond work and childcare while your partner looks after the kids.

Teacher here OP 🙋🏼‍♀️

Why on Earth is your OH getting back past 6pm every day?! I leave school at 3.30pm every day as I have to collect my children, the exceptions being the Twilights, of which there are 6 per year and parents evenings.

I also have 1 department meeting per week which I join via teams and have on through the car speaker.

Any work I need to do I do after my children have gone to bed/I work through my break and lunch regularly to minimise/eliminate this.

Sounds to me like your OH is ducking out of parenting responsibilities, using work as a cover.

Who has the children in the school holidays? I do 95% of this!

Even so, when you're in a marriage with kids and shared resources, you can't unilaterally decide to take yourself off out every week (and I really doubt it will only be a few hours on Sunday - I suspect there will be additional training, drinks after the game etc) and assume your children's other parent will just take care of everything. Or don't ever want the use of the car!
Or that they'll be happy to have every Sunday curtailed by this new hobby. It limits the whole day. It's worth a conversation and it's selfish and entitled to just do it, with no discussion.

It's a few hours on a Sunday evening!

Maybe they can't afford to just buy another car!
So he wants to use your shared car and leave you with the kids every weekend. Fuck that! He hasn't even asked - I honestly don't get why people put up with this shit.

Buy another car as you obviously need one. How many evening did you say he's training? One or 2. How about the other 5? If you made food for 7.30 eat then

Don't you do anything yourself?

Yes, but those are issues to do with you living so remotely and only having one car, rather than anyone having a hobby, or doing some volunteering.

Plus, of course the weird allocating most of Sunday to ironing . I mean, THAT seems to be a bigger issue than the supporting the community through managing the boys' football team, to me.

I guarantee when the weather gets bad again, he'll be finding excuses to stay at home.

I do sometimes start without him but if it’s on the wall planner as “football 5.45-7.15” and I make food for 7.30 and he just doesn’t update me and then isn’t home
til almost 8pm then yes I am justifiably annoyed as he is meant to message and says he forgot to. I want us to eat together as that’s when we mostly talk.
As for where we live it’s over an hour to get to any sort of activity except a walk, restaurant or cinema as even getting to the motorway is an hour. If my daughter wanted to go to a big shopping centre for example by the time he is back and sorted we wouldn’t get there til after 3pm (we share a car and he takes it so it also effects if one of the kids needs to be somewhere like a party etc)
So I do feel he was a bit thoughtless when he agreed to it as he didn’t really explain his involvement but like I say I was glad he finally had a hobby but he has said he isn’t really enjoying it any more anyway

I can’t even imagine living a life like this, and certainly wouldn’t like it. You don’t appear to take any time to just do your own thing or exercise at all. I would think that’s important. You are both home from 6pm every evening, what are you doing with that time? I’d be out 1 or 2 evenings a week for an hour or two exercising. Half a day each for hobby/exercise time is a perfectly normal thing to do of a weekend. Our health is important, exercise is important.

but also, it sounds like you have in the past spent the entire weekend as a 4. I would say your children actually NEED some time to do their own thing too.

Sorry but people need hobbies, do family stuff on Saturdays?!
it will likely only be part of the year surely as football is seasonal

Half of that is your own doimg. Why wait for him to eat during the week if your hungry? Why does where you live stop you doing anything on a Sat?

This thread is bonkers. So many people think it's okay for a parent to make a commitment that requires the other parent to look after the kids alone/not book anything themselves during that time, without so much as a conversation beforehand!

When you have kids you need to not take your dp for granted and just assume they'll pick up any parenting slack. Asking goes a long way!

I also wonder what will happen when the kids start having parties to go to and if OP ever wants to go away at the weekend? A hobby that you can't dip in and out of, that requires his presence every Sunday is a huge commitment.

My husband has never had a hobby for years apart from playing Xbox 😂 and so when recently he said he had been asked to train as a football coach for my sons under 12’s team as someone had left I was happy for him and didn’t mind but as a person who hates football I didn’t understand the commitment and I was very annoyed/mad when I realised. Especially as initially they were training twice as week AND playing every Saturday. It settled down to training once a week and he would be out 5.30-7.30 and then a game on Saturday where he was out 3 hours in the
morning. We live kind of in the middle of nowhere so that means Saturdays are “out” for doing much and also Sundays he does the ironing- he is pretty obsessive about it and we very rarely have Sunday plans as he then stresses about the ironing…
Best of it was after 2 weeks our son quit the team 🤦‍♀️ but he had already committed so he carried on. I had initially been pleased that they would have a joint hobby
Its caused arguments a few times but mostly the weeknight training as I will have started cooking for what time he is due back and he will be late without telling me as they have had a debrief at the end or he has had to take one of the boys home so I am usually at home hangry
I feel bad as yesterday he said it’s the last game next week and he is unsure whether to carry on as the boys keep losing so all they do is complain and he is sick of it 😂 I said “I am happy you have got a hobby now but also from a selfish point of view I would be happy if you quit”
But will leave it up to him to decide- he knows after a talk we had recently that I want us to do more together now the kids are getting older and can be left for a few hours
In terms of if I get time for hobbies- I go for lunch most weeks with a friend and a night out maybe 3/4 times a year but other than that I don’t really have a hobby or social life but I am a home body

Plan your longer days out on Saturdays.We used to aim for a half day at the weekend of family time. The rest would be taken up by kids activities . Soon enough they will have sport or clubs at the weekend too.

DP needs to get up on Sunday am to do something , and shouldn’t expect a big meal every week when they get back ( if you are a Sunday roast family)

Just have enough people to cover?

Don’t be daft. There are at least 25 people involved plus subs and managers. They’re not going to change kick off to appease 1 blokes morning wife.

She hasn't said that.

Well, not all teams have enough people to have subs.
Those that do have a couple of subs, tend to use them on match days too - so more than the 11 (or 5? Not sure if this is a full game or a 5-a-side) are needed.
If you are the goalie, then most teams don't have 'reserve goalies' available like a professional club do.
But clearly people do have times where they can't play. Non-negotiable in this scenario means 'a commitment' which clearly is needed if you sign up to any team sport, just the same as if you are a drummer in a band or an actor in a theatre production. Others will 'cope' if there is a off off time you can't come, but the commitment to being there every week is important in any team scenario. It means it isn't a 'casual, drop in when you feel like it' thing like it might be if you were doing a solo sport. The manager has a right to expect that people that sign up are agreeing to make that a priority each week and that they aren't starting from scratch trying to get a team together week in week out.

Teams have subs-
When I was in a netball team there was no question of it being non negotiable. You have to have subs.
Surely it's better to operate with the possibility of swapping people in and out? That way more get to play.
Sorry but there's an element of an almost religious taboo here around the football. At a purely practical level the family is a team and you can't swap in another father so the football team is telling the family when they can and can't be together every single week. And that's not strange to anyone. What happens if he misses a week? They must have mechanisms? Why can't he role share?
Just don't think most hobbies or even most teams of adults with families can operate like that.

The time is non- negotiable...it's a team sport!

Well I'd agree there's a lack of awareness of mental health but What do you think of a football team telling a member the time is non negotiable when they are perfectly aware members are fathers?

Do you know that single women are amongst the most mentally healthy people in the population- marriage works better for men? You can see how can't you?

I agree - I don’t think this is a big deal, as long as OP also gets time to themself (sexes really unclear here).

Fwiw my DH works on Saturdays - it’s his choice to do it as we do not need the money, and it’s been an issue between us for years as it means that Sunday is our only family day together, and I feel restricted in doing things alone on that day as it means we have very little time as a family of 4 - so I do understand where you’re coming from but equally, a few hours on Sunday is not the whole day, and it‘s not even in an annoying window of the day (ie the middle) - you can still have a day out all day Saturday and Sunday morning if you want.

The replies are very disappointing, is nobody aware of the crisis in men’s MH, a few hours on a Sunday isn’t a big ask. I can see why so many relationships fail, women demanding every spare minute is ‘family time’ can be controlling and overwhelming. We all need some time to enjoy ourselves, OPs kids are 6/9, not babies.

I can’t see a problem with this. It’s a few hours out of the weekend.