Cricket

[satsumaddict]

Please advise me - My husband wants to play cricket from this weekend every Sunday (unless I had previously booked it off) until September - he would ideally like to take the car we share. We have a two year old so this limits my weekends massively. This is a bit of a trigger for me too as a few years ago before we got married he played every weekend (both days) and I got extremely lonely at weekends, in culminated in us arguing a lot and almost breaking up and due to us having a baby, the pandemic and an injury he hasn’t played for the last 3 years. I feel like I was so excited about the summer ahead and being able to have weekends as a family and have been in tears over the whole thing. He sees it as me trying to limit his life, and stopping him “having a hobby” but I just feel so sad about it and don’t know what to do.

No . He basically maroons you with no car, & his cild every Sunday.
Wouldn't happen in my life. He can organise other transport or he can organise a whole new life

I completely feel your pain. My DH plays cricket and started playing every weekend before we had children. Once the children came along he still played every Saturday and I did feel resentful at times as I was left looking after 2 small DCs pretty much every Saturday all day. The only saving grace was he played for the team in our village so I often would take the DCs down there for home matches as there was a park nearby and my mum lived nearby so I ended up doing stuff with her and the DCs every Saturday. If I hadn’t got a car though I would have felt a lot more isolated. Now the DCs are teenagers, he still plays every Saturday but it isn’t as all consuming now and now I bloody love the fact he’s out of the house for the day and I can do my own thing, he’s been working from home for a year so I can’t wait to get him out of the house! . We still go on holiday in the summer and if there was an event we wanted to go to on a Saturday he wouldn’t play. He was a lot more obsessed with it when the DCs were young and I did find it hard to deal with although I also could see how much he loved it too. I think in your scenario it’s much harder to be left with no transport and the fact the club he’s playing for is so far away.

Thank you, I know - it’s hard as naturally I’m really easy going, have lots of friends and the idea of him having a hobby is great! I want to be generous and happy for him so this all comes from a difficult place for me naturally. Like many of you have said it is such a club! They talk to each other about how to manage the women as lots get upset! We spoke again this morning about it and we are going to look at the fixtures and decide perhaps a reduced schedule. He says he thought I would be proud he was asked to be captain.... urghh. He says he can’t explain how happy it makes him! I mean...?! Even if he did agree not to play (or as much) the resentment from him would not he worth it!

That’s how I felt in the end that he would be so bloody miserable if he didn’t play that it wouldn’t be worth it. I know a lot of my friends thought I was mad to put up with it but it became all consuming for him and he was the captain for a couple of years too! It’s not easy and it ends up being a compromise and I can’t pretend that it didn’t massively piss me off sometimes! Before we had DCs I was bridesmaid for my best friend and he didn’t even come to the wedding as he was playing cricket (something which now he regrets and realised how selfish that was!). Fortunately his obsession with it has mellowed with age!

In my younger days I had a boyfriend who played cricket - always showing up late - I used to hope for rain. Eventually I realised I would never win so gave up with him.
When I met DH I was pleased that he wasn't involved in either cricket or football but after DC's arrived he started getting involved in other things which meant he was out at meetings and events (nothing dodgy think charity type stuff) and would be out in the evenings and often straight from work with the car.
Eventually it got better he didn't stop this caper but DC's now old enough to leave plus we got another car.
Put your foot down now OP as you can end up resenting him and his selfish behaviour

@satsumaddict, your comment about managing the women is fairly typical in this sport. I felt quite mobbed by the people at the cricket club when my ex husband played, I now realise how manipulative it was. Usually the following:

Your DH is club captain so has responsibilities to the club ie can't miss a match, can't go on summer holidays, participatein any non cricket social life- er no it's an amateur hobby that benefits no one but the players. It's not even that interesting to watch most of the time.

You knew he played cricket when you met him - er he was a single man without a small child. You don't stay fourteen forever.

Why don't you go off and do something exciting yourself - because I have a small child with me, no childcare at the weekends and can't do exciting things.

Bring your daughter down to the club - she's bored after half an hour and there are thumping great cricket balls whizzing past her face

Come down and have a day out - same boring thing week after week in drizzly grey weather with small child. Other spectators thin on the ground so obviously they feel the same.

As you can probably tell cricket boil my piss!!!

And I bought into the he will be resentful if he doesn't play line - isn't that the same as the sulking manipulation that some OH use to control their partners? You want them to be happy but they don't give a monkeys if it makes you unhappy.