to say to DH that a cricket match every Saturday isn't acceptable now we have a baby?

[HollyBollyBooBoo]

DH and I have been together 8 years, he's passionate about cricket and plays it (not very well, got the duck cup last season) most Saturday's during the season, meaning he's out the house from about midday until 10pm (pitch set up, match, post match drinking) plus goes on 'tour' (a p!ss up in Devon for a few days).

I said to him casually the other day that he won't really be able to do that every Saturday next season, maybe every other would be more appropriate now that we have a DD. I went on to say that I'll be back at work FT, so we need family time together, I'll help round the house and couldn't he play more golf instead which means he's only out of the house for a few hours but is still getting some exercise.

He went mad, literally couldn't believe what I was suggesting and couldn't see the problem with him being out pretty much all day Saturday! Even went onto to say 'don't try and control me, I've dumped girlfriends for less!' I was soooo shocked, we are thick as thieves normally and literally never argue, just work things through if there is a mild difference of opinion, so this really shook me, he was so vehement in his response!

When do we get family time?

When do I get c.10 hours off to do as I please?

Can I join in?

I don't do football - I think that comes of having a father and brother who, no matter what else is going on simply have to go and watch their (sub-standard) team play (mostly badly), every blardy weekend. My mum and SIL have put up with this for years.

I like almost all other sports. Even cricket

Truck
"I became a father in my twenties before first DC was I had no idea at all how life changing it would be"

I became a mother in my 30s and I had no idea either, so I didn't even have relative youth to blame.

Stewie

"You really do have to be beyond stupid not to think that your life might change somehow when having kids. "

guilty! :o

I think it's OK to learn as you go.

Which is why I think demanding that the OP have foreseen this situation before they TTC is unreasonable.

I can see exactly where Unlikelyamazonian is coming from. I am a 'cricket-war orphan' ( good phrase for it) too and it sums things up for me too. It's a very hard issue to sort out in any relationship where there are children in the equation I think. I don't know what the answer is either because there was so much resentment on both sides for my parents. Only now does my father say he wished he hadn not played so much sport but that has come too late for us and I dont even think he means it. He is just an old man. I have barerly any contact with either of them now because cricket and football made our lives miserabl;e all the time. My mum hated him for doing it and he hated her for stopping him.

Well she's foreseen it 6 months before it has become a problem spidookly.

And can I offer a riposte (get me) to what you said upthread, dear hully, about SAHMs being more tolerant to this. Speaking poisonally, as a SAHM of 10 years standing, when mine were pre-schoolers, I think I'd have found this arrangement even more annoying, because I simply wanted someone to take the children away from me at the weekends. I'd had quite enough time with them.

Now, I think we'd all have a nice time together at a cricket match. But not every weekend

< ponders the oxymoronic quality of the term "passionate golfer >

X post. better!

clam what on earth is that piss-take for? {UA has an 'ex') ??

I am perfectly at liberty to say I dont do dads. ever.

There is no need for you to refer patronisingly back to my whoring thieving ex.

LeQueen, I think most (decent) men would do the same. The real shame is that the OP hasn't given her DH a chance to make that decision himself

I did suggest up thread that the OP drops the subject for now and waits until the season starts. No idea why you would bring it up 6 months before.

I agree with you a bit Candlestick maker. Maybe could have been approached differently.

But I think the very fact that they are discussing this in the middle of Winter and is so quick to jump down her throat suggests he knows deep down he's unreasonable, can't accept it and so is blaming her.

He'll probably tell his mates that he can't play because his wife won't let him. I hate all that "under the thumb" crap that some men come out with

LeQueen, try being invited to a t'ai chi week [shudder]

spidookly "Which is why I think demanding that the OP have foreseen this situation before they TTC is unreasonable."

Where did I do that, then suggested that it would have been a good idea to discuss it. I didn't demand that they forsee anything.

FWIW, I didn't plan my pregnancy and discuss anything in advance, it all happened by accident in a fairly disasterous situation, and I winged it throughout. Still am, in fact. But that doesn't mean I think that's the right way to do it. In an ideal situation, people would discuss such life changing things before they do them, and discuss division of labour/childcare - rather than assuming the other person will have the same hopes, standards and expectations as themselves. Then maybe more children would grow up with parents who love each other as well as them.

Should have been "Where did I do that, then? I suggested...."

So, UA, are you hankering longingly for a DH whose only bad habit is cricket once a week?

I wonder what Holly's DH would say if he knew that his outburst about cricket had spawned nearly 600 posts on here.

hopefully he'd say "I was a twat, I'm sorry. Of course when the baby's born I'll pull my weight. Here's to make up for my twattish outburst." Fingers crossed

That's just what I was thinking Clam having had a quick look at the thread after work. Who would have thought it.