I wish weekends were different (big rant!)

[confusedofengland]

I have posted about this before, so if you think it sounds familiar, it probably does, but I need to vent.

More & more, our weekends (our life!) are being taken over by football & I hate it so so much. There is training every Saturday, matches every Sunday, watching it on TV most weekends & watching it in person on the other weekends. This weekend, there was training 8.30-11.20 yesterday, then matches 9-2 today. Last weekend there was training 8.30-11, Premier league match 1-10pm Saturday, then matches 10.40-1 on Sunday. Then when they get back from training/playing there is another 1 hour on unpacking the car, showering & messages before they are really with us. On our recent holiday, DH spent approx 2 hours of each day on his phone (messages) sorting out a problem at the club

All of the above is DH & DS1 (10). DH is chairman of DS1'S club & coaches 2 teams. They support a Premier league side 2.5 hours' drive away. DH also spends many hours a week at the club, sorting out bins/draining/signage/whatever else plus 2-3 evening meetings a month.

When they are off at football of either sort, I am left with DS2 (8, ASC) & DS3 (5). They take our only car. We live in a village, don't have much money so getting buses is out of the question. We arrange to do things with friends/family when they are around, but most people want to do things with their own families at weekends.

DH doesn't get why I am so so fed up with it all. Doesn't acknowledge that he won't really be with us until 3pm today & by then it's nearly dark & he & DS1 are shattered & don't want to do anything except watch TV. He says that I am in the wrong for 'making the time we do have miserable by being annoyed'.

He has been talking about doing training 1 midweek evening instead of Saturdays, which would be amazing, but that won't happen until next season at the earliest. By that time, DS1 will be at senior school & less likely to want to spend time with us anyway!

That was such a long rant & maybe this is just what family life is like & IABU, but I'm so fed up with it all. It feels worse atm because of the wet days & dark nights, so I feel a bit trapped with the little 2

I wouldn't expect DS1 to stop going if DH stopped, but maybe we could take turns. Also, DS1 could be like other DC & have the odd week where he didn't go, rather than having bigger obligations through dad/coach/chairman.

If my work & football clash, I can't work. Fortunately it's zero hours, so I'm not penalised if I can't work. On one occasion, my parents had the boys for 1.5 hours when a clash happened, but they can't do it often.

confusedofengland my kids never don't go unless actually ill, children who do don't get picked for the team and eventually get asked to leave the team - it's unfair on the rest of them. Mine have been playing for 8 years. Team loyalty is a big part of it - DS 1 was invited to a birthday party at Legoland when he was 7 which clashed with a match and we did give him the choice then, but he chose the match. They've only ever missed if ill, injured (signed off school sport by a doctor) or actually away on holiday/ school trip.

If my work & football clash, I can't work.

To me, this is a problem when his bloody football is more important than you working and bringing money into the household.

I feel sorry for you OP. I couldn't tolerate this football obsession when it excludes more than half of the family unit. But to be frank, I have always hated men who are obsessed with football and have avoided ever getting involved with men who are into football for this very reason. It does seem to become an obession for some reason. Fine if the whole family are similarly obsessed (but how boring would that be?!) but it isn't acceptable to be spending so much of the family's disposable income on only 2/5ths of the family.

You can't work if it clashes with football....that is utter lunacy. I'd be stopping that straight away - go to work regardless and he will have to sort the home out.

I can't believe how many people on here feel OP should enable this dinosaur anymore than she already does. What decade are you living in?

This has got nothing to do with football and 100% about the lack of respect your husband has for you, your family and your home. Honestly, I'd leave if this were me.

Out of curiosity - if you said you HAD to go to work / event / weekend away or whatever - non negotiable....what would he do/say?

HundredMilesAnHour it's not his football though is it? It's their son's sporting activity for which the DH is a volunteer coach.

It's exactly the same as DD going to brownies and her mother being brown owl and running the group.

I'd 200% agree with you if it was the adult's Sunday league.

It isn't though.

The premier League matches need scaling back or taking all the kids, but the DS1 probably needs the time seperate from his brother, being a sibling of a child with special needs is usually hard and usually means always having to be understanding and put yourself second during whole family time.

The coaching is not self indulgent any more than running a brownie pack, it just needs better boundaries and car pooling.

@notnowmaybelater but why does the dad to get all the lovely 1:1 time with DS1 at everyone else expense? Why doesn't OP get to spend all the hours out rather than being at home. Why does he get the monopoly on that?

There's a lot of scapegoatery going on here for DS2 and his SEN. I highly doubt if the DH was doing scout leading for 'the benefit of DS1' he wouldn't be spending hours and hours per week at the expense of everyone else because he'd recognise that wasn't fair on everyone else (like normal people). This is a happy coincidence that his hobby is the same as DS1.

I can't believe how many people on here feel OP should enable this dinosaur anymore than she already does. What decade are you living in?

Agreed. The son doesn't need to quit playing football but the dad needs to stop being chair and coach and season ticket holder.

I'd be getting up earlier than the DH and taking the car to Costa this Saturday to send him a message that things are changing NOW - not at the end of the season.

I bet all the other parents think he's a Great Guy. He's actually a lousy husband and father.

I'm very sympathetic about the difficult parents. My DH was a volunteer youth cricket coach for many years. We usually pretended to agree with the difficult parents and asked if they would do an assistant coaching course so they could influence how the team was managed. They either stepped up and were helpful (v rare) or backed off sharpish.
I also told many parents very bluntly that we needed a set number of parents to help set up, do the teas, score or umpire and that if they were able to do this their child would be picked to play A Lot. However unfair it might seem, a match can't be run without enough parent helpers and they only come if you pick their child to play.
Only a couple of kids left over the years, but they also left their next club and the one after that. It's a particularly type of parent and it's nice to get shot of them tbh. It massively reduced the hours my DH spent on the phone.

Oh, I also had an agreement with my DH that he would not have a management role and coach a team. He was asked frequently but I made it very clear to the club that he would not be able to.

I think it's time for you to say, I've had enough. Your fun stops me having fun, or our two youngest getting even a small bit of your time.

And if he doesn't listen, I'd be getting up at 5 one Saturday morning, driving off into the sunrise with the car, and texting him that you fancied one fucking day where you're not stuck in a house childminding to facilitate his hobby. See those two younger kids, they're yours by the way, happy Saturday doing what I do every fucking weekend just for once.

rainywinterday compromise needs to be reached - as I said the premier League matches need to be scaled back or he takes all 3 kids, the car hogging needs replacing with car pooling.

Communities need volunteers though. It's really crap when everyone drops out. I volunteered to do traffic safety outside the primary school for so many years, until eventually the service was withdrawn as from the rota of 24 volunteers (80 children at the school, obviously some siblings) when dc1 was there we had only 4 volunteers total last year. And yes I work and have 3 children, only 1 at the primary. Half the "too busy" people now drop their children off by car 1 minute before the bell - not too busy to volunteer once per week before school to keep all the children safe just too important inside their own heads, or too selfish.

People are getting so crap and selfish and children suffer when all the volunteers drop out.

Does the OP want lovely 1:1 time with dc1?

She wants family days, but if DS1 is playing football he'll be unavailable for family days.

I think once your children are in double figures they get to have their own hobbies, compulsory family time with a spread of ages leads to all the MN posts about ungrateful 13 year olds not appreciating the trip to Peppa Pig Land with their little siblings and "having a face on" because they'd have preferred an activity with their friends which they were made to turn down.

but why does the dad to get all the lovely 1:1 time with DS1 at everyone else expense?

If you are coaching a kids football team and your own child plays for the team, you get absolutely no 1:1 time with your own child, believe me!

Yes lots of posters seem to be forgetting he's a coach and a volunteer

On top of his 12 hour days all week l he doesn't go straight to the bar after he comes home

Poor sod must be knackered

If he worried about him taking on too much tbh not annoyed, the footie messaging sounds like he can't let the responsibility go, when does the poor man relax ?? ( waits for what the fuck when does op relax )

When I was a teen I was at the stables all day
My brother volunteered at the footie club all day , my dad did diy, worked or was at the golf club
My other sister saw friends or was at home, she was 10, she helped my dad in the garden, don't remember anyone complaining no trips to the park as a family
I made lifelong friends and got tonnes of fresh air, so much better than the YouTube kids we know today !

Yes lots of posters seem to be forgetting he's a coach and a volunteer

By his choice. He is making an active decision to do this. He's putting his desire to coach football over spending time with his wife and all 3 of his children. He seems to think he just has 1 child and no wife at all.

Yanbu, it sounds shit. He needs to share his time with his other kids and you. And you need a break.

I agree you should have the car every other weekend or at least every other Saturday. And your DH needs to manage the parents better, why was he engaging so much with them and why isn’t he getting them to do more.

I think being involved with the youth team is great. And will really benefit ds1 to have such a positive role model.
But I’d insist the premiership team supporting is binned. He can watch motd at 10pm like most fathers do.

All this community blah blah and how wonderful for ds etc....what about his other 2 children? The burden of the 'community' responsibility doesn't have to fall to him. He's clearly done his share, him stepping down will force others to do theirs.

Do people REALLY think he should prioritise this over OP going to work and earning money that they need??

What about his child with ASD having a good relationship with him (which can be difficult to cultivate) so OP doesn't have the full burden of supporting everything that comes with SEN? What about DS3 being left out in the cold completely and realising that unless he likes football, his dad doesn't care.

And what about OP actually having a bit more of a life and not the person left at home picking up all the pieces.

What are your other 2 children's interests and how does he facilitate those?

What if DS2 has a great love of trains and DS3 loves ballet - will he devote the same amount of time and energy into supporting those activities and chairing committees, leading teams, going to shows / events? Clearly not so far? This is about his love of football and everything else is convenience.

You want time together - then you say to your DH and son that as a family you spend one weekend out of 4/5/6 together (your choice) and that is non-negotiable.

If you plan it now then the team(s) will have time to adapt.

It's only fair.

I do get a break, when the DC are all in school & I'm not working or volunteering. He also gets a break, every evening & he goes out on average 1-2 times per week.

Ds1 genuinely enjoys time with the family & sees his friends a lot outside of school/football eg after school.

If DS3 was also a lot older (he is 5) I would agree that we don't need as much family time, but I feel he is too little for that just yet & DS1 is still in primary school.

I would love DH to engage less with the parents, but as he is chairman too he feels that he needs to be involved with everything.

The problem is that everyone else thinks he’s a marvellous chap, so he is getting a lot of positive confirmation that he is doing the right thing.

What are these ‘post match messages’? If parents are being abusive then that is something he can stop right there. He gives kids feedback verbally, keeps a separate PAYG phone for football and doesn’t respond to any messages until 24+ hours afterwards. Tell all the parents that this is a new policy. A lot fewer parents will bother messaging for a rant once a day has passed.

He needs other people to share the load of taking the equipment. Can the club buy a cheap van?

I think he needs to drop one of the roles: coach, chairman or team supporter.

Hope that helps.

You may think he's being selfish, but he's far from it imo. These kids teams don't run themselves. Volunteers are worth their weight in gold and you should be proud of him. You DS who play might not get that chance if it wasn't for your DH, and others like him.

I understand the impact on your family, but many of us have similar weekends. It's just life. I really don't think many families have insta perfect lives. I agree the balance of time out for you needs to be addressed, but your DH isn't an ogre, just because you hate football.