to think dh is a twat?

[thesortingtwat]

My Dad died suddenly, violently and intestate last year. Have been thrashing out probate with his wife since; a really trying and emotive situation. I am due to meet her next week to discuss and will need to be assertive as she's not willing to part with any of Dad's personal effects. Dh won't come as moral support as Liverpool are playing. Am I right I thinking he's a selfish twat?

OP, is your DH generally unsupportive? How has he been in helping you though the last year? I think this is the key.
Is he a massive Liverpool fan or just one jumping on the bandwagon now that a league win is in the offing?
I guess it is hard for people who don't get football to understand how important it is to those who love it.
This is really a big game. If they beat Chelsea they'll more or less have wrapped it up for the first time in 20 years. It is such a momentous occasion that I actually wouldn't want my DH to miss something that important TO HIM. Because that's what a lot of people don't seem to get. It doesn't matter if they don't understand why or how someone loves football. It is a genuine held passion for most fans. To them it is important. In a similar situation if it was essential to me and it was clearly going to effect our relationship if he didn't come, DH would miss it. But honestly I don't think I would want him to. I would want him to be there for something that huge.

Thanks for explaining a bit more, OP, but I'm still not getting it. What is important about your father is your memories of him, not his possessions. You had a choice between risking that your DH couldn't come with you (and he might have had other unbreakable appointments) or putting it off a few weeks, and you chose to take the risk. The simple fact that you don't think the match is more important than waiting a bit longer for some possessions doesn't mean he is being a twat for thinking differently.

I don't think he's being very supportive or thoughtful however I would question your husbands commitment to lfc, if he has always been a fan & passionate then he's probs fit to burst by the fact they are close to winning the tittle. If it were me I'd ask for it to be rearranged but then my DH would understand y.

I really hope that regardless of any external issues you can find a compromise on your dad's belongings...

Sorry for you lost

I'm absolutely livid on your behalf OP.

It's a bloody game. 22 overpaid idiots kicking a ball around a field. I would feel the same if this was England world cup final.

So sorry about your dad OP. Your 'd' h should be there to support you no matter what. I think this would be a deal breaker for me.

"I will never understand the madness engendered by spectator sport. Not even playing, just sitting passively and watching."

If you sit passively while you watch, specialsubject, that will be the clue as to why you don't understand the madness! But, y'know, it would be a dull world if we were all the same!

I am so sorry for your loss. I agree with the others that it all rests on what he is like generally. Was your dad interested in sport? In my case, I know my dad probs would do what your dh is doing, so he wouldn't expect anyone to miss such an important match for him, if that makes any sense! Hope you are ok x

I am very angry on your behalf though that this witch is refusing you any of his possessions - that is dreadful. What a thoughtless woman.

I'm absolutely not a football fan but why does it have to be Saturday afternoon and will it take that long to talk to your step mum?

Have you asked her off the specific items you'd like already? Why assume that it will be difficult.

To those attempting to explain the importance of a football game to us non believers, the bit I don't get is there is no equivalent. It's like if Manolo Blahnik had a once in 20 years sale and £400 shoes were suddenly on sale for £20, or if a boy band was making a come back and had the chance of their first number one in 20 years... can you see how ludicrous it sounds?? Would any of us say we couldn't support our husbands after their father was murdered because we wanted to watch a Take That concert on telly?? How would we sound if we did?? What would men and women be saying to us if this thread was that equivalent? That is what I don't get about football. We wouldn't put anything before our husbands, children, friends or family if they needed us yet we make excuses for med with football? No, sorry, I'm not buying it.

Can't think of any reason why I'd brush off dp and refuse support if he was in your situation. In fact I'm struggling to imagine any excuse a woman could give getting the support your dp's crappy excuse has.
Definitely leave the kids with him while you try and sort things out.
Good luck and sorry for your loss

The point is, Random, that he hasn't said he wouldn't support OP after her father was murdered. It happened last year. You're referring to an entirely different scenario which emphatically is not the issue here.

There is absolutely nothing that says the day of the match is the only possible day OP can make the visit to df's widow. if she had checked with him before committing she could have sorted out a day he could do. I get it that her stepmother (?presumably) is hard to pin down, but nevertheless the OP chose to take this risk.

"Would any of us say we couldn't support our husbands after their father was murdered because we wanted to watch a Take That concert on telly?"
It isn't quite like that, though, RandomInternetStranger. He's being asked to support her for a specific three hours, a year later, that precisely clashes with something really important to him, no matter how unimportant those who don't follow sport have adjudged it to be. I'm actually not really trying to argue either side here, I'm just saying that you're deliberately making a ridiculous comparison that doesn't stack up not really drawing a valid parallel.

Soz, nennypops, x-post.

I'm not trying to make a ridiculous comparison which doesn't stand up, I am trying to understand by making a comparison which is the only thing I can think of tbh. How can a bunch of over paid pretty boys chasing a ball up and down a field be so important to so many men that they are willing to put it before their wives, children, family, friends, jobs, homes... I have seen so many men lose important parts of their lives to a stupid game and I don't get it! There is no equivalent because women, it appears, would never place so much importance on something so petty. I've seen men not go their children's school events because of a match, I saw a wedding practically shut down while the men went to watch a match half way through the day, how many arguments happen round the country on a weekly basis because of men watching a match? I once went to see a BF on Valentines Day, all dressed up on the promise we were going for a special dinner, and we ended up sitting in all night because he wanted to watch a match, instant dumping offence and that was just dinner, this is so much more! Name one single thing, apart from children, that a woman would put before her man in this situation? I am genuinely interested in trying to understand this because I just don't.

OP, so sorry for your loss, I have lost a family member by murder (DF's brother) so understand some of the particular agony you feel. I also think that the complication of the intestacy and his wife taking an entrenched position can only add to the awful time you are having.

Football is a trivial matter compared to your grief and the situation that you have to manage through your grief - but - are you projecting some of your anger at the situation in general on your DH?

I'm from a family of die hard Liverpool football fans, my parents rearranged the date of their wedding to avoid a clash with the FA cup final. Perhaps football is your DH's release in life? I know it is for my DF. It does seem rather a shame that the 2 hours of match time have to be the only 2 hours you can have this meeting. Please don't create a competition between you and your grief and your DH's desire to follow his team.

As others have said could you find a pub for him to watch? Or what about a mobile phone app like Sky Go? Could you agree that if he gets his fix of football you are relying on 110% the rest of the time from him? Is he the sort of guy that would do that?

Started reading yo catch up since last night but I've only got as far as the person who said football is a TV SHOW.

Em.

No it isn't...

Anyway op I am really really sorry for your loss, In the grand scale of things I accept it's more important than your husbands grand passion and probably childhood and life long love, but what I have been trying to gently suggest is that there is a middle ground surely where he can see the game. Does the visit have to be between 12 and 2 next Sunday, and if so is there a possibility the widow is shit stirring because she knows it would cause bad feeling with your DH.

But it's not only men who find a football team in their bones you know. I'm finding it hard to think of a set of circumstances that don't involve urgent injury which will make me miss next weekends game.

Maybe there is no direct comparison with football, although I know a lot of people who feel similarly about other sports. But just because you can't get one that speaks to you random doesn't mean you get to write off other people's feelings on something important to them.
OPs dad has not just died. He is not saying he won't go to the funeral because of a football match. He's saying he can't make this particular meeting as it clashes with a hugely significant event in his life. That event is still significant no matter how many people don't understand why that is.
Maybe you could compare it to a religious thing. A close relative of mine is very religious and has a strong devotion to a particular saint. I am atheist. I don't understand it at all. Not so long ago the relics of this saint came to a church nearby. This was a truly significant event for my relative.it was well flagged and organised. Nothing would have made he miss it. Would I have bee unreasonable to insist she did if I was in need of moral support for a similar meeting? After all its just some possessions of a person who is long dead. How can that be more important? But after years of devotion and a true feeling of connection it was important TO HER. Even if I don't understand this I respect it. As an atheist devotion to some make believe character or dubious historic personages it as mystifying as football fandom is to other people, but i don't get to invalidate how others feel about it.

Random, I don't get footie either, but I accept that there are just some things that are desperately important to some men that I will probably never understand. My dh is mad on cars and there are various events he feels he has to go to that wild horses wouldn't drag me near. However, if that makes him happy, that's fine with me.

If OP's dh were putting his footy ahead of being there for her in the period after her father's death, or were putting it ahead of being there for the funeral, I completely agree that he would be massively unreasonable. But I don't see how it's unreasonable to put a particularly important match against something that does not directly relate to the death and is a year later, that really does not have to clash with the match, that OP didn't check with him before arranging, and where she could arrange it for another date.

Op, can I ask, are you feeling unsupported by him in other ways?

Well said, Random. This "emotional investment" pp have been bringing up? Where's his emotional investment in his marriage, his wife, her pain? Is it all reserved for a bunch of wendyballers chaps playing a game? Seriously? She needs him, he wants to watch football. Not needs, wants.

They're not splitting the atom, whatever tournament he's getting his panties in a twist about, they might well win it next time around, right? And then every time until Armageddon, right? Because football goes on endlessly year after year, right?

OP, I'm so sorry about your poor dad. I hope you manage to sort some mementoes.

"I am genuinely interested in trying to understand this because I just don't."

Be honest, Random - if you take the view that it's about overpaid pretty boys and it's petty, do you honestly think that you are genuinely interested in trying to understand it? Your position seems pretty entrenched in the moral superiority (in this context) of women to me, which is kind of the opposite of being genuinely interested in trying to understand it. You're ABSOLUTELY entitled to take the view that you do, and as you can see ^^, you're far from alone! But I'm not sure you should pretend that you're interested in understanding the POV of those who take the opposite view.

Well OK, each to their own, bit I will never understand it. There is nothing in my life that I would put before my child or husband or family or friends needing me. Maybe it's because I'm not religious, I don't follow sport and the closest thing I have to any of these manic obsessions is a like of shoes and chocolate and it just seems ludicrous to me to put that before the people in my life. I was an obsessive Take That fan back in the day - went to every concert, radio stations, TV stations, their houses, got a TT tattoo when I was 15, but if Robbie Williams himself was at my local but my child or husband needed me, I know where I'd be.

Completely fair, Random, and I wish you a happy Easter

I'm reading again and can I point out to the baying hordes, atthe moment there is no suggestion the DH is not supporting the op, only that he has said that he is unavailable for TWO HOURS because of something which matters hugely to him. That is not an unreasonable request to make.

If it turns out he's been useless in general it's a different story. If it turns out he is asking for two hours for something which matters massively to him, which he has an emotional investment in, and which is a timed thing (unlike a frigging concert being shown on tv ) that has a knock on to other events which he has been following for years, then I don't think two hours is a lot to be asking. Even if you personally don't get the actual activity, that doesn't matter a jot.

Btw we are two nil up ten minutes in today...