About DHs hobby?

[flamingwok]

I need opinions, please and thanks.

DH has played football for as long as I've known him (in fact since he was a small boy). We've been together 15 years and married for eight. We have a three, nearly four year old and a baby. I'm a sahm, he works Mon- Fri and is out of the house 7-7 each day.

He trains two evenings a week and is gone playing from lunchtime on a Saturday until 5/6pm. We take turns at a weekend to have a lie in one day each (as we're up at 5am each day with the children) and he has his on a Saturday so he's rested for his game so basically he's around for about 2/3 hours on a Saturday morning when the children are awake. He's club captain, the most experienced player at 36 years old. He always said when they children were a bit bigger he'd reassess how much he plays.

Our DD is getting to an age now where she's really starting to get really quite upset missing her Dad on a Saturday, especially bearing in mind she only sees him for a quick breakfast in the week each day she's in bed when he gets home. Also, we're looking to get her into some kids club type things at a weekend most of which run on an afternoon and most I can't take her to with a baby too.

I've spoken to DH and asked if he can maybe look at cutting down the Saturdays. The only family time we really have is on a Sunday, and I barely have any time to do anything actually myself if I want to. I've no problem with the weeknight evenings training, or him going running whenever he wants in the evenings as the children are in bed anyway so no hassle to me or them.

He has basically just said no. That I can just bring the children along if they miss him and that that's not how team sports work, he can't just do every second week for example (which I'd be happy with). That lots of his team mates (who are mostly in their mid to late twenties) have young families and that they just go to watch.

I was a child whose brother played football and I got dragged along to watch every Saturday. I was bored as hell. I also used to have to watch my Dad play rugby constantly as a young child - again, did not enjoy at all. His sister was also made to do this while they were growing up and always says how much she hated it. Plus I've taken my eldest before the baby came and it's really not that child friendly - lots of smoking on the edge of the pitch. Adults yelling and swearing while the kids hang around at knees or are stuck in buggies. His team mates might be happy with that for their children but I'm not. I also don't want to go myself I can't imagine anything more boring!

So I've asked if his club won't allow a fortnightly commitment could he look at a veterans team, which he's well old enough to join and who play less regularly and with less commitment. Again, it's a no for now. He's still apparently young and fit enough to play at this level so that's what he wants to do.

Also worth mentioning that he has another non sports related interest that he does probably once every two/three months that takes him away overnight or for a weekend. I have no problem with this.

I think he's being a selfish, uncompromising sod. He disagrees.

AIBU?

Yanbu, at 36 he's not going to go pro so it's not like cutting back has any big impact other than him actually parenting his offspring. Children are a bigger commitment than some blokes he runs around with a few times a week.

You've been very accommodating op, but perfectly reasonable to expect him to step up and parent/be present in family life. Working 7-7, training 2 nights a week and then out Saturdays he can't be doing much at all!

Hobbies are fine, as long you both get time to do them and there isn't a negative impact on family life and it's roughly equal.

As I said. He gives up the Saturday lie in.

He absolutely could @Lindormilk and he could do it worth my blessing if she was interested. However - at the moment and of course this could change - she's not. She wants to do swimming and dancing. So that's what we will do, if we can find a club that works with our (his!) schedule!!

Yabu.

Don't worry, OP. Your reasons for not wanting to take the children to the matches are perfectly reasonable. Of course a four-year-old (never mind the baby!) isn't going to be happy sitting still for hours, even if the environment were perfectly child-friendly and you loved watching football. The suggestion that your young daughter would find watching her father play football enjoyable for more than a few minutes or even remotely similar to playing with him on a one-to-one basis is laughable.

Taking the children to the matches would only make more work for you (as well as being boring). Your husband might like it, but tough luck on that one!

I think YABU, he is setting a great example for your children, sport, sticking at something, having a hobby, being a team leader, friendship etc

Time for your DH to prioritise his daughter's hobbies.

I'm not sure how many people have noticed that the man in this scenario comes home from work every night after the dc are in bed. They could be divorced and they'd see just about as much of their dad as this.

But, he will reap what he sows in terms of closer to his children.

closeness

A four-year-old who never sees her father except at weekends (not his fault, since that's the hours he works, but still relevant!), only for him to absent himself yet again for a huge chunk of each weekend, is not going to be thinking, "Gosh, Daddy sure is setting a great example. I'm learning so much from him!"

(Sure, teamwork, sticking with things, etc. are great lessons, but she'll have ample opportunity to learn those later (and could still learn them if he switched to the veterans' team).)

All she really knows right now is that Daddy is gone almost all the time, and she misses him. She might also be picking up that Daddy doesn't have to leave on Saturday, but he does so anyway.

He's being selfish. There's really no sense in sugar-coating it.

Maybe taking your Dd to activity she loves like swimming or dance may help - so she has something to occupy her on sat?

Exercise is good but he should alter the type to fit with his family - eg playing for the veterans team or a week day 5 a side league. You should also make sure he gives you time to do exercise or hobbies you like. You are working too looking after 3 young kids!!!

Sounds like the long hours at work or work+commute make his days very long. Is there any way he could do anything about that? Work from home one day a week, reduce hours slightly, change job, move nearer work etc. I don’t know your situation, perhaps there isn’t any leeway with this.
The hobbies are fine but I get what you mean, he’s missing out on his children and you.

@ILearnedItFromABook You've not the nail on the head. She doesn't like him going to work either, but I've explained to her that Daddy has to go to work to earn the money to buy things while Mummy stays at home to look after her and her sister.

Come Saturdays, she's starting to get now that she cries and says she doesn't want him to go and play with his friends that she wants to play with him. He does feel bad when she does that I know he does. But not bad enough to change things evidently.

As I've said I distract her and she's normally ok after a bit. We play, go out etc. But she knows he's going to play with his friends and it seems unfair and shitty to me that the message she's getting is he's choosing playing with his friends over playing with her. She's not a little baby anymore, she's switched on.

The baby meanwhile gives not two hoots where he is, as long as I'm in her line of sight she's happy Got to love a bit of separation anxiety at eleven months. I do remember it passes..... eventually!

YANBU op . It’s a hobby, plain and simple, and he’s doing that instead of helping at the weekends. Being a SAHM to a toddler and a baby is EXHAUSTING and you need help at the weekends.

@Allli Not much we can do about his hours. He has an hour and a bit commute each way, he loves his job, is good at it and is getting promotion after promotion. It's a great company and he's been there twelve years. The money is good enough that we can afford for me to be at home full time until the children are at school. DD has also had to have a lot of hospital appointments in her three years and they've been so accommodating in giving him time off to attend them paid even though they're not required to. He even got two full weeks paid paternity leave each time with the option of two weeks guaranteed annual leave on top if he wanted or needed it. They're very family friendly we just live an hour and a bit away!

They are happy for him to work from home sometimes - which he does occasionally - but the nature of the job usually requires him to be in the office.

As the children get older they will start going to bed a bit later I'm sure, and he will catch them at night. Currently, by 6pm they're totally wiped and keeping them up later wouldn't actually benefit anyone. All he'd come home to is two overtired children who are whingy and cross and who would then be difficult to get to bed. As it is, they have their dinner, baths, stories and I can 99%of the time get them to bed around 6pm with no issues at all. We're fortunate that are good sleepers, we rarely get woken more than once at night though they are both early risers. But then you can't moan at that when they give you 11-12 hours a night.

ld. He always said when they children were a bit bigger he'd reassess how much he plays.

If this was talked about and agreed before or when you became parents, it is only reasonable that he listens and considers a compromise now. Things have changed and the children are bigger now.

@MostlyHappyMummy exactly this

One of my questions when asking about this kind of thing is would it be possible for you to do the same or do you? You haven't mentioned your line dancing / hockey / netball commitments which he arranges his week around. So yeah he's being unreasonable and selfish. His life should have changed with children, why should only yours changes?

You don't need to justify how boring you find watching it, it sounds very dull l think

Oh and lm amused as the assumption she spends her week doing what she wants, with such young children. I don't think it's all shopping, lunch with the girls, daytime TV and / or the tennis club!

I can't believe anyone would accept this. Really quite surprised by responses. It's too much

YANBU and it's a sad state of affairs that some are suggesting that you are. If they are happy to be second best to a hobby then great for them but you're entitled to feel you (and your kids) deserve more. He can still keep the hobby ticking along to a level suitable for parenting. Like any parent does! My DH enjoys cricket but has only now started to play again as before well he couldnt just leave me with all the kids for most of the Saturday (and that's only during the spring/summer as well). He has now joined at a low /easy level, and plays whenever he can. Certainly not every Saturday! He goes to train once a week and that works well. In the future if we have more time he will probably get back to doing more archery but right now it is not possible and he knows that. I have a few hobbies too but nothing that takes me out of the house for half the day every weekend!
Your DH needs to grow up.

I think you need to sit down and tell him that the amount of football and the current set up no longer works for the family. It doesnt matter what works for others his only priority and concern is his family and the current arrangement just isnt working. At the moment he is putting his needs ahead of the family and that cant go on.

So he needs to figure out how to make it work - either he gives up his lie in and spends time with her in the morning and takes her somewhere or he does one of the suggestions you have but he needs to do something

@CottonSock you make it sound like all men should stop hobbies once kids are born. When you become a parent you're still the person you were.

If he's not going to give up the football I think you need to insist that you swap lie-ins, so he gets up and plays with the kids in the morning on Saturday before he buggers off. Then it's not like he's gone for the whole of Saturday. I get he wants to be match fresh but there has to be some compromise here and if he's not willing to give up the match itself then maybe he can be talked into this? He can just make sure he has an early night on Fridays if he's that dedicated to performing well.
YANBU by the way.

Lindermilk - why men? Would the set up described by the OP work if she had similar commitments? I don't think so. So why should her life adjust but not his?

She can adjust her life. No one has said differently.