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AIBU?

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Original poster

DH and reading for pleasure

369 replies

jalexander · 05/10/2018 22:57

AIBU to not understand DH's opinion and TOTALLY disagree with it?

He hates reading. He can't take it in. Doesn't enjoy it. Never reads for pleasure.

Fair enough.

We were just discussing reading for pleasure as I love it and think it's actually really important.

It came to light that DP never encouraged his children to read. He would read their compulsory school set books with them and that was it. Neither him or his ExW encouraged reading for pleasure and none of his children ever read. I find this really sad.

DH doesn't understand why I think it's sad. He said he'd never force them to read for pleasure. He hates it and doesn't see the point.

He says he's a realist and far more grounded than me, stuck in my little fantasy worlds with a romanticised idea of the world. Ugh. He's being totally flippant and dismissive.

What do you think?

OP posts:
TatianaLarina · 06/10/2018 00:53

To Italiangreyhound. ^

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 00:55

TatianaLarina I don't know what you mean? You've pointed at my recommending a book to a poster?

TatianaLarina · 06/10/2018 00:55

He is interested in reading when he wants to know facts and figures (does well on school for example) but the idea of reading something to relax for him doesnt work.

There’s a a difference between reading to relax and reading for pleasure. Your son likes reading well enough when he’s learning things he wants to know. That gives him some kind of pleasure or he wouldn’t do it.

ReanimatedSGB · 06/10/2018 00:56

I'm aware that there are people who don't read for pleasure. My DS' dad is one of them. He is dyslexic, and more interested in visuals than text. However, he knows that being able to read is essential (and will actually read books that I couldn't be arsed with at all: pompous bollocks about culture and society etc) - he reads for self-improvement rather than pleasure.

The problem with OP's H, by the sound of it, is that not only does he not read for pleasure, but he wants to stop other people from doing so - he seems to have actively discouraged his DC from regarding books as anything other than a tedious chore, and harasses the OP for enjoying books. I wouldn't even be friends with someone like this, let alone marry them. (I haven't got much time for non-readers, especially if all they want to talk about is fucking television programmes).

CaptainCabinets · 06/10/2018 00:56

Basically, you’re married to Harry Wormwood.

TatianaLarina · 06/10/2018 00:57

My post. Confused

Purpleartichoke · 06/10/2018 00:57

I’m guessing he felt attacked a bit.

I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of not reading. I know these people exist, but I don’t understand them. I certainly don’t understand partnering with one. For me it is right near the top of the shares personal values checklist when considering a partner. Seeking a Non-smoking, light drinking, liberal atheist who likes science fiction movies and spending long lazy weekends reading.

BakedBeans47 · 06/10/2018 00:59

He’s nearly 10, greyhound but he also has ASD and I wonder if it’s his issues with imagination that are the problem. I’ll maybe try those books, thanks x

ReanimatedSGB · 06/10/2018 00:59

Oh, and I do think people who like reading are 'better' than people who don't. People who sneer at books, especially fiction, are generally thick as shit, unimaginative, tedious company and the sort of people I just don't spend any more time with than I absolutely have to.

TatianaLarina · 06/10/2018 01:00

The problem with OP's H, by the sound of it, is that not only does he not read for pleasure, but he wants to stop other people from doing so - he seems to have actively discouraged his DC from regarding books as anything other than a tedious chore, and harasses the OP for enjoying books. I wouldn't even be friends with someone like this, let alone marry them. (I haven't got much time for non-readers, especially if all they want to talk about is fucking television programmes).

Agreed.

BlueberryPud · 06/10/2018 01:01

My dh is a Cambridge graduate and very clever. So he thinks.
I don't think he's read a whole book in his life, that wasn't to do with his studies.

I left school at 15 because there wasn't much else to do in the culture I was raised in. I had little in the way of education, but I hope that does not indicate a lack of intelligence.

However, I could read basic Janet and John books before I started school. My mother was an avid reader. We had no telly.
I had two brothers eight and ten years older than me, who read to me.
When I was about 5 they read 'The War of the Worlds' and 'The Time Machine' (Their choice, obvs, who would read that to a 5 year old girl child?) My mother read to me, Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace.
When I was old enough, at 7, to get a library ticket, I read through the whole library of P.G. Wodehouse and the Just William series.
And the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. Voraciously.
Then Jane Eyre, and the rest of the Brontes. Then Oscar Wilde took my fancy, so that was a few months reading.
And needless to say, I did read with my children every day.

Unsurprisingly, my daughter has inherited my love of books and novels and storytelling, just as I inherited it from my own mother.
She reads a book a week, and so do I. Sometimes we read the same book, (not the same copy, she lives 200 miles away) and that's something we can talk about and serves as 'additional' Mam and daughter bonding. Yes. We both love reading books, and it's something we share, together. We understand how important it is.

But it doesn't just happen. You have to be introduced to it. If you are not introduced to books and reading, and your parents and peers don't bother with it, then you are never going to discover the joy of reading.

My dear husband just does not read. His loss.

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 01:04

TatianaLarina I think you are extrapolating pleasure from purpose.

People who read for pleasure enjoy reading but people who read to get facts or pass exams etc are not doing it for pleasure. I can't see how these two things can be reconciled.

Even when one finds some pleasure in reading for facts etc one is not doing it for pleasure, because if one didn't have the exam to pass or whatever then they may well be doing something else.

Both my parents read like mad, I just never got the bug.

BakedBeans47 · 06/10/2018 01:04

Surely there are people though who are non readers but don’t sneer at books/readers reanimated? Or do you consider yourself better than these people too?

TatianaLarina · 06/10/2018 01:09

You haven’t understood my point greyhound and I can’t be arsed explain it at one in the morning, sorry. I’m off to bed.

BlueberryPud · 06/10/2018 01:10

But she loves films and can talk very intelligently about them

But she needs to be able to write it down. And for that. she needs to be well read. And have a template.

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 01:11

Purpleartichoke that's the thing I cannot understand, I cannot understand how anyone ever reads for pleasure. But it would not put me off a person. I would not a avoid a person who reads for pleasure.

BakedBeans47 it may be so, my dd is 13 and is on the spectrum, and dyslexic, but she has got into Anime and Cos play and through that into books. Fantasy is not for everyone, I've had to face the fact that reading fiction isn't for me anymore, I had a bit more time for it when younger and I traveled by public transport and read on the bus.

ReanimatedSGB that's a really unpleasant characterization.

OP maybe you can see why some non-readers can find the reading for pleasure brigade a bit snobby and smug. I don't mind whether people want to read for pleasure or not, I don't look down n people who do or do not. But the superior air is really off putting.As if the only way one can enter any kind of imaginary world is by reading about it. Yet children have very avid imaginations long before they can read.

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 01:11

TatianaLarina that's a 100% fine for you not to explain your point to me. Good night.

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 01:13

OP night night. I hope you got something from this thread. I mostly got that people who read for pleasure look down on those of us who do not. I think that is very sad.

Italiangreyhound · 06/10/2018 01:15

(I didn't mean you did that OP!)

FastWindow · 06/10/2018 01:15

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.

ALittleBitofVitriol · 06/10/2018 01:17

I do think it's sad. It makes a difference when fathers encourage reading in their children.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11895432/Bedtime-stories-its-better-if-dad-reads-them.html

My dh reads a lot. So do I. So do our kids. Some of them currently like it better than others but we definitely do force them to read for pleasure. Because it's like any skill, if you practice it, it gets easier. Once it's easier, you enjoy it more. Once it's easier, you can access more complicated written work. Developing a written language is uniquely human, our history and the sum of all our imaginations is captured in those squiggly lines.
Of course you can be smart and educated without loving reading - and you can be unintelligent and binge on crap books. Odds are pretty good though, if you spend time engaging with ideas through good books you'll be more intelligent than you were before.

basquiat · 06/10/2018 01:17

It's quite belittling to say you find it "really sad" and can't possibly understand it.

TheStoic · 06/10/2018 01:20

Oh, and I do think people who like reading are 'better' than people who don't.

Why on earth would you think that? It’s like saying people who exercise for pleasure are better than those who don’t. That is a very odd hierarchy to believe in.

basquiat · 06/10/2018 01:20

I didn't say I wasn't narrow minded. I'm obviously bias toward the benefits and pleasure gained from reading as I love it so much just as DH is but at the opposite end of the spectrum

Just so you know, bias is a noun. You can't be bias. The adjective is biased.

basquiat · 06/10/2018 01:22

I don't get what's not to understand. People have different interests. How is that hard to understand?

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