To be offended by the lack of support for my hobby from DH?

[brandis]

I am in my 30s and a few years ago took up dancing. We don't get paid but we shoot videos and stage shows in professional theatres with people paying to come and watch us dance. Not to mention that it is incredibly rewarding as dancing has been my long-time ambition and I worked hard to get into that dance group as it's selective. We all are about the same age there.

The problem is my DH doesn't take my hobby seriously at all. He is not happy when we have weekend rehearsals as it means that he has to ferry two DC to different activities. He never asks how I am doing in my classes and never takes pictures when he comes to my shows. When I come out into the foye after the show his words are "Can we go home yet"? It is painful to see my fellow dancers being hugged by their DPs with "You looked so amazing" and "What a great show!"

I guess DH just doesn't believe it's anything special and cannot fake excitement for me when he doesn't feel it. Am I really expecting too much? He makes a bigger deal out of our DD's dancing achievements.

Very odd thread!
I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a partner to say the occasional 'well done' or 'how did it go?' even if they aren't madly interested.
I play football, DH loathes it, the game that is not the fact I play! DH does ask how the training/match went. He also knows better than to suggest I'm too old!
He came to watch a practice once and hasn't been since. On occasion he has been known to mutter about it ruining our Sundays and my retort is that after all these years he could have developed an interest himself the fact he hasn't is his choice.
I spent years encouraging the DC activities, they wouldn't have done anything if he was responsible for it. I don't think he ever went to their interests. He went to some parents evenings at school but that was it.

I think if your DH is going to come to your performances he should at least summon up the tact and kindness to say something nice afterwards. It really doesn't take much effort and the fact that he doesn't say anything except 'Can we go yet?' is really hurtful. Whether you're any good or not is irrelevant IMO - you're his DW and he should care enough to say something kind.

As for one partner having a big hobby commitment, I can imagine that this gets rather tedious. My DH doesn't have a hobby (thank God!), but many of my friends have DHs who play football or golf or run or sing in choirs, and it really puts a strain on family life. The partner with the big hobby often puts that above family time, lumbering the other half with lots of childcare when they'd prefer to be relaxing.

However, given that both you and your DH work FT and he travels a lot for work, which you don't, it sounds like the balance in your family is pretty fair. You hold the fort when he travels, and he does the same while you go out dancing. So it sounds to me like he resents your dancing.

You sound rather needy, demanding and suffocating.

You seem to be making support of your hobby as the basis of your marriage and mesure him against it. That is very unfair when when its not something he enjoys and something that is so frequent.
A partner can be happy you are doing something you enjoy without being your constant cheerleader.
It is not like your hobby is running and you do a marathon each year, this sounds constant.

You mention you don't socialise and dance instead as if he should then put up with it. But if you were out socialising with your friends DH wouldn't have to participate in your hobby. Because demanding he show enthusiasm for you hobby is insisting he participate in it to.

I danced to a high level when younge. Proffesional performances, exams and competitions. You are under playing just how much time a dance hobby can take up in normal daily life its not just the dances classes and performances.
Its the rehearsals formal and informal at home, the choreography and staging, the organising the shows, the costumes either making them or having so one else make them.
If someone isn't passionate about dance it becomes dreadful tiresome.

The petty mention of not taking photographs of your son on his birthday suggests you are unhappy in this marriage and just looking for any excuse to be cross with your DH. Whatever he says or does he's going to fall short.

I don't know LittleBarin, maybe I'm just hard work but I wouldn't consider wanting a hug and a well done at the end of a performance I was in as 'Demanding he show enthusiasm' or being a 'constant cheerleader'.

It's actually quite sad how many people on his thread that have such low expectations when it comes to support and encouragement.

Really littlebairn ? I didn't get any of that from the op at all.

molly I don't have low expectations when it comes to support and encouragement. I just have high enough self esteem that I don't need my DHs approval of my interests to feel good about myself and my hobbies.
We save the support and encouragement for real life shit.

I'm the first to be impatient with needy and demanding women but I don't think the OP comes across as such.

I honestly don't think it's about self-esteem. It's just so joyless not to even say 'well done' after a performance.

OP, do you watch your shows back? I wonder whether your DH is embarrassed by them, if they're not very good. Amateur performing pursuits are often excruciating unless you're one of the performers.

That said, I do think, "Can we go home yet?" is a poor way to behave. It may not be his thing, but he surely must be able to think of something to say, even if it's "well done".

OP, YANBU.
Doesn't strike me as needy to feel hurt about other half's ostentatious lack of support. His behaviour is unpleasant.
My husband has a time consuming hobby that I have no interest in, but I still cheer him on when I go (admittedly rarely) and he supports me with mine, even though I know he thinks it is pointless. That's what couples do: support each other. There is nothing wrong with having separate interests, pursued outside the home. In fact, I think it is actively a good thing.

I agree that this thread has gone weird, and LittleBairn has continued the weirdness. OP doesn't sound in the least needy, demanding or suffocating. Wanting her husband to show a degree of support is hardly suffocating. I do a fairly abstruse activity which my DH does not do. When I reach certain milestones in it, it would mean virtually nothing to anyone who doesn't do the same, but when I was pleased about having done so my DH made it clear that he was pleased for me.

I think also that people may be focussing too much on the issue of showing enthusiasm. In many ways the nub of this seems to me to be in this quote from one of OP's posts: All he says is that I should better stay at home with and do something with the children rather than go to my class which at 8 pm and 1-2 times a week. I really don't see why OP's DH suggests that she is in some way depriving 13 year old children by being out for a short time in the evenings at the time when they are winding down and going to bed - it's not as if that would normally be a time for heavy duty parenting, and no doubt if either child specifically needed OP on any given evening (say, due to some crisis at school) then the child would come first.

And if OP's husband is so keen on parents doing things with their children, how come he's disappearing off abroad when he doesn't have to, and why isn't he going to his son's football matches and his daughter's open ballet classes?

Fuck it I'm happy to be weird. I think anyone who demands support for a bloody hobby from their partners and whines about it on MN is the weird one.
And that those who imply that those of us in marriages where we don't give a fuck about our partners hobbies must be unsupportive and lack encouragement are the weird ones.
But I'm always happy to be the lone voice in the wind.

I agree with LittleBairn tbh. My hobby is my thing that I am interested in, DH doesn't care about it and I am happy to have something that is mine alone. All I ask of him is that he be home for childcare so that I can go do my thing. He doesn't really ask me about it when I get home other than "OK?" as I come in the door, which is not specifically related to the hobby, it also includes "have you smashed up the car on the way home?"!

I find the people who think it is undesirable for a partner to have a hobby very, very odd.

I can't think of anything less attractive than a man without a hobby or two. Except maybe a man who resents being responsible for his own children a couple of times per week.

That seems like a very reasonable level of hobby activity to me, especially considering the age of the children. Seems to me that the DH could do with a hobby of his own rather than expecting his wife to be on hand to entertain him.

Sorry OP but I do find your need for praise a bit needy though. And slightly odd - to me, "well done for passing your grade x test", "well done for getting x part in the show", "well done for perfecting that tricky move" are all reasonable things to expect. "Well done for looking hot in a leotard" is less so - to me that seems weird.

seaweed123 could you be any more dismissive and patronising there? OP says "I worked hard to get into that dance group as it's selective." I'm guessing she got in on skill and talent rather than her ability to look hot in a leotard.

Exactly my point Hollycopter - it was the OP who has said multiple times that she is looking for praise on her appearance from her DH. It stuck out as very odd to me to select that as an example rather than wanting her to praise her for other things involved in her dancing.

He supports you in the practicals of you doing the rehearsals. He clearly isn't a big dance fan so perhaps give him a pass from having to go to the shows unless he is taking the children. Amateur dancing isn't everyone's thing, no doubt you are fabulous on stage but it's clearly a bit tedious for him. Have it as ' your thing'. Keep dancing! As Bruce would say.....

I've read back seaweed, but I'm reading the OP's desire for praise as 'looking good on stage performing' rather than just her looks iyswim?

This is one where I suspect if it was asked with the genders reversed then it would get a totally constant reply of "it's too much".

If I'd said "Dh has got himself a hobby which involves him going out 2 evenings a week, and a couple of away weekends with it, and three or four all day (weekend) events in the weeks leading up to the away weekends" I'm sure they'd be a long stream of people saying "tell him to pull his weight".

The thing is I've been vaguely involved in am dram, which sounds similar. Mostly through the dc, but this is roughly how it goes:
4 months of hour rehearsals twice a week. 6 weeks of all Sunday afternoon rehearsals. 1 week of performances, including get in, technical rehearsals, dress rehearsals etc. Sunday after last rehearsal so exhausted nothing gets done. 1 week off to recover. Start again at the beginning.
Then you add into that costume fitting, altering the costumes, after show party, discussions smoothing over someone's ruffled feathers...
I've only ever been involved with 2 back to back performances but it does dominate the family life for everyone. It gets like Christmas-you date everything by it "Before Sound of Music" or "after Sound of music" 2 back to back was enough for us as a family.
The thing is once you've committed you want to be there for you, but also others are reliant on you. So you can't say "oh actually we've got visitors tomorrow, I'll stay in and get prepared." You don't feel you can skip a rehearsal because it's not convenient (like if you were going to the gym, or just doing a class).

Dh for a time did something that had a regular commitment. Not saying exactly what, but it was important he was there. It did pretty much stop me going out in the evenings. You could absolutely guarentee that if I was invited out with a group, or there was a meeting I wanted to go to, film I wanted to see, it would clash with one of his meetings. Eventually we came to a compromise that once a term I would take priority and even if mine was a one off etc. I would do it. But actually after 2 years dh stopped doing it out of his choice because it was effecting the rest of us. He does other things now, which aren't so reliant on him being there, and he does make 95%+ of them, but it isn't set in stone that he must be there.

Maybe I misunderstood what she was getting at. Just jarred when I read it as a bit of a funny thing to say.

I gave to say I'm at some those answers.
When a similar thread go around about a man sown ding weekends away fir his hobbies (was it cricket??) the OP is told, it's just a few weekends, leave him alone even if she us actually pg and looking after a toddler. He hada hop by that takes him away fur day mire it less every week end? That's ok to because he us working so hard c
But his furnished that a woman is having her own hobby that takes her out of the house a few hours in the week or means that her DH has to ferry the dcs to two (!!) different activities.

OP I'm really sorry but to me it reads like your DH is very ressentful of you having a hobby (even if it makes you happy and doesn't, in the skim of things takes that much time). And that he is trying his hardest to make you feel bad about it. :(

Are you sure he didnt say 'are we going home' because he was turn on?

I was with a joy killer who didnt have hobbies himself and i feel your pain.
How boring can be being in a theatre and watching your wife dancing?? Really?? It is not like you forced him to come ti trainspotting.
He could turn it to a lovely evening with drinks afterwards etc .

Op next time send me the ticket and i will do this horrible, boring, chore of watching a free perfomance. I will cheer you too!

oops, just realised my nc fail, that was replying to you there seaweed, sorry!

"...but you danced very well and looked hot"

Well maybe - just maybe - neither of those applied and he didn't want to lie?