Need perspective...DH hobby related

[FindingMemo]

Married 16 years. Two DC. DH has always gone to football every Saturday and often a week night too (home and way games) , + every European championship and every World Cup since we have been together.

Over the years I have pretty much accepted it. He is a pretty great husband and father. He is self employed and works mostly from home during the day (I work full time) and he does an equal share of childcare, ferrying kids around etc.

If I want to go out with friends, he happily has the kids (although this is not often - I had a weekend away last week for a friends 40th and before that hadn't been out since mid December).

Housework - he will put on a wash, do the dishwasher, swish around the kitchen with a cloth and happily cooks 2 or 3 nights a week, but the heavy duty housework is left to me as he has low standards and doesn't notice it.

We get on well most of the time. He is kind, caring, funny and respectful. But suddenly, this football hobby/obsession is really starting to hack me off...and I don't know if I am being a mardy arse or not?

I just feel trapped by it. I can NEVER go out on a Saturday unless its booked in months in advance. It feels like he goes out on the piss all day and night every Saturday while I basically shop, cook, clean and mind our DC. He also has to work 2-3 weekday evenings out of the house (not set days) so its tricky to socialise or have a hobby outside the house/gym etc during the week.

Am I being a princess? I don't know. He is a lovely bloke in other respects. I was ill this week and he waited on me hand and foot, for example. But its this regime of every Saturday off he goes...most weeks he is off to footie one night too...and I am dictated to by his regime. Arghhhh. AIBU?

I could never put up with this. Before kids my dh played footie every sat. It was leaving at 10am and getting back 6.30pm. He knocked it on the head as soon as ds was born. He plays on Monday nights and I'm fully supportive of that!

I think it's extremely fair to ask him to cut back to once or twice a month op. He has to see how unfair it is!

Sorry, just catching up with thread!

Some answers...

He works from home during the day. But hi schedule is very much his own. He can not do much during the day and catch up at night or vice versa.

I like the idea of suddenly getting hobby that involves one full day a week (minimum) out of the house. But it would have to be a Sunday. Which is shit. Because I have to be up at the crack of dawn on Monday for school run and work . Thats the crux of it really...we have two days a week to be together as a couple/family - Sat/Sun and he is always away for one of them.

notYoda - you've hit the nail on the head. It mattered less when i was working part-time, caring for the DC much more, in the 'kiddy' bubble. Now I feel like we have a chance at more couple/family time and more individual freedom..but it isn't happening.

Re: the 'not much you can do now' thing...hmmm...I'm 40...we are a long time dead and its not the 1950s....so I'm sure I have choices

So what are you going to do ? < fist bump >

We have a bit of a joke in this house that when we had dc I gave up my career, financial independence, body, and personal freedom and all my husband gave up was his season ticket. Nonetheless, he gave it up

Same here!! No bloody chance of that every week, and it was always more about the piss up than the footie anyway. Is he a hungover mess on Sundays? If you took Sundays it's yet another weekend day you're not spending as a family. YANBU but good luck with that!!

AF

I've texted him an ominous 'we need to talk' text...and we do.

I dont envisage the rest o my fortes and into my fifties being like this. Thats for sure.

Good for you. It's never too late to stand up for yourself.

My DH is a season ticket holder so I get how frustrating it can be having to plan everything around fixtures.

However, mine will miss games if they clash with various other social events and, since we've been parents, he doesn't go to any away games.

What my DH doesn't do is use his hobby as an excuse to go out on an all day bender. He goes to the game, watches the football, comes home. Pisses me off a bit that I find myself checking fixtures before arranging stuff but not worth losing sleep over. I would be massively fucked off if this was an all day drinking thing every weekend and I think that's the part that you need to address. Whether or not he'll change now if it's always been like this remains to be seen.

FuckingSausageFingers I think that's a really good point: going out for two hours to watch a match is different from the all dayers.

Another obsessive husband putting himself before his family

Good for you OP , hope you get the outcome you want .

Super moon I am not sure he is. When she met him it sounds like he was a football fan. He has carried on being so with her blessing. My issue would be the all day and drinking etc..... my ex husband was like this with rugby. I think you need to sort the boundaries out- for example no more big booze sessions if he wants to do all games or two a month if he does.

Problem with the big booze sessions is that he literally never has a hangover. He will still be up at a reasonable time and takes DD to a class at 10am on Sundays. So its not like he is a complete piss-taker and I am a hard done by housewife, iyswim.

Bt it still jars. This is why I don't know f I a being unreasonable...

Good for you, OP - you do need to talk.

He's not going to take it well, though.

This is one of those awkward situations where you're currently feeling deeply resentful of him - but if he reins back his Saturday routine, he's going to end up feeling deeply resentful of you. Lose-lose.

I think you do need to stress the above to him - that this does make you feel very resentful, that it's unfair, and it's damaging to your ongoing relationship. Maybe even tell him to think about, and come up with some solutions, so it's not you 'dictating' to him.

Put the onus on him to really consider what this has meant for you over the years, whether he would have been as accomodating if the situation were reversed, and what he thinks should happen going forward.

Agree with Pretty

One night during the week DH goes to football and the following week I go swimming. You are both working and doing an equal (ish) share of housework and childcare so hobbies should also be split. The Saturday thing is tricky but could you do something on a Sunday morning and agree to do a family thing in the afternoon. Or even better you go out Friday nights after work

If he works a few evenings then some of the daytime, when you're at work and the dc are at school is free time too.

Every Saturday is excessive. You wouldn't be unreasonable to expect him to half the number of games he attends. How do you think he'll take that suggestion though?

I think he sounds like a decent bloke, but all Sat day time and evening would piss me off too. I'm very surprised it's not bothered you before, is have gone mad if he's done this when the kids were very small.

Have you talked to him and asked if he could do once a fortnight instead?

Your thread sound s a bit like one I started , except my DH does (al ot!) less housework than yours but my DH's hobby isn't as all consuming as yours (it involves making a Homer Simpson like indent in the sofa watching football on telly. I sympathise... but I don't think you can change him now. I think these things get more irritating with age.

Going out drinking for 12 hours every Saturday sounds more like a drinking problem than a sporting hobby to me.

A possible suggestion is that he could either carry on going to a match every week but just the match - none of this "12 hour jolly" stuff - the last time I checked, a football match only takes 90 minutes or 105 including half time.

Or he could have two "12 hour jollys" a month.

(Or, I guess, one 12 hour jolly and two matches.)

So you are not asking him to give up football - just hours of drinking.

Be interesting to see which he chooses.

My view is that a marriage is an endlessly changing things. Lots of things that I was happy with in our early marriage no longer happen. (I'm not supple enough any more for starters. ) Other things that I wouldn't have been happy with 16 years ago I don't care about any more.

Oh - and a good test for whether someone is being unreasonable is:- if I did the same as them, what would that mean? In your case it would mean that you would have no family time and your children would effectively be raised by two single parents with 50 :50 care who happen to live in the same house.

Out of interest, have you never been to a match with him? Some of the happiest days of my life were spent watching DH play cricket and then getting trollied afterwards...

I'd talk to him first, and if he won't compromise then you will have to think again.

I think Ewearehere has absolutely nailed it, OP. Go out and do something - anything - for 12 hours every Sunday for at least 5 weeks. He will soon get your point.

Have you ever had interests or hobbies of your own or a friendship group you want to reestablish? If he limits his activities what do you want to do with the time?

You are really not being unreasonable here.

He is not single.

What about, from the last game of the season, you are child free every single Saturday, you go out and do your own thing and leave him to it, then come the start of the season his routine continues. Sunday you all do something together.I know it's not exactly equal, but it's something.

Every sat does seem excessive. Though my DH's hobby does take a morning or two each weekend that somehow seems much less of an imposition. I head into town for window shopping/coffee, garden if I can get DD to nap and generally lazy. I can't help feeling you are compounding the 'woe is me' by using your sat to shop, cook and clean. Unless you love doing these things they should definately be shared more evenly. If he works from home then why not shop online and he can take in during the day.

If it is football he loves, rather than binge drinking then I don't see the problem in not going out for 12h each sat. For home games he'd presumably only need to be gone 2-3h. Though you'd have to make plans together for the rest of the time or you risk just sitting resentfully at home.