My husband wants a football season ticket, but I feel like this will put the burden of childcare even further on me.

[Rosebell100]

When I met my husband he was a committed long-term season ticket holder, and although it often meant arranging social plans around football fixtures this didn’t bother me too much. We then moved to London and he gave up his season ticket as it was just too far way to be able to go regularly. 7 years on, we’re now moving back and he desperately wants a season ticket. The reality is 23 matches where he will be out of the house mostly on a Saturday for approx 5.5 hours when you factor in travel there and back. We have a two-year son with suspected autism, and this will mean I spend most of Saturdays looking after DS alone. This comes on top of being the main caregiver all week with my DH regularly having to commute to London.
He says I could have the same amount of time to myself on the Sundays, but the reality is I won’t or, my child free time will default to cleaning the house. And if I did do that, we’d never spend time as a family, and that feels unfair on my son too.
I am all for DH going to matches occasionally, as and when he can, but a season ticket is too much of commitment while life is this hard. Am I being unreasonable?

Incredibly selfish of your DH to even suggest it. If you had the same amount of time to yourself then your DS would spend 46 of 104 weekend days each year with only one parent. A 44% reduction in proper family time together. Not to mention that football season means many consecutive weekends taken up by sport.

No to the season ticket but yes to going to a lower, specified number of matches, on condition that you get the same number of Saturdays off while he does sole care of your toddler, and that the Sundays are family time.

Why would you spend your weekend cleaning the house? Do that during the week and free your weekends! Football or not football actually, what a waste of your time otherwise.

YABU

Your DH wish is perfectly fine, he's not talking about going away for the entire weekend? Do things as a family when he's around if you are free, and organise things for yourself too.

Personally I love having my dc alone!!
Why don't you op?

Your husband is being a selfish twat.

@Aprilwasverywet

Personally I love having my dc alone!! Why don't you op?

Well aren't you just a better mother than OP?

I think yanbu

Tbh if you had the same amount of child free time on the Sunday you might as well get divorced for all the time you’d have together. And for how much your Ds will get to spend with both parents together.

It’s just not reasonable for a parent to want that much time child free on the weekends. And that’s just the football matches, it would mean him never doing anything else on his own all year.

Presumably kick off times will vary and won't always be on a Saturday at the same time. Is it a Premier league club where accessing entry without a season ticket might be problematic?
Do some posters think that despite offering the OP equivalent time for herself parents should never be season ticket holders?

Also, he shouldn’t ask and put it on you to say no. He should weigh it up himself and realise it’s not reasonable.

@Rosebell100

I am torn on this, because on the one hand, I get fucked off with how SO many men seem to have hobbies/pastimes, that not only get them away from family/childcare commitments and so on, but also, quite often cost a lot of family money.

On the other hand, you KNEW what he was/what he loved when you met him, and that it was not a cheap hobby. If my DH asked me to give up something I enjoy (that I took part in when we met,) he could jog on!

Then again, weirdly MOST women don't have hobbies and interests that cost fuck-tons of family money (like men do!)

So I guess.... YANBU.. Yeah YANBU wins.. just! He chose to get married and have kids with you, he should have known that he would need to sacrifice stuff.

I wouldn't be bothered personally, however, if I did DP would definitely compromise. So no, you're not being being unreasonable to expect your partner to compromise if you're not happy with him going to ALL home games.

@Aquamarine1029

Your husband is being a selfish twat.

god forbids a parent fancies carrying on a hobby taking up a few hours a few Saturdays (23) a year

Parents of very young children, especially those with additional needs, probably shouldn’t be season ticket holders. Especially if there’s travel involved.

Parents of older children - say 10+ (depending on additional needs in the particular case) can probably fill their boots.
10 years isn’t that long!

Then again, weirdly MOST women don't have hobbies and interests that cost fuck-tons of family money (like men do!)

you are right

what fucks me up is the amount of women who martyr themselves and decide to spend their weekends, or half weekends CLEANING (or batch cooking or any other shit like that...)

If cleaning is your hobby or relaxing you, go for it, but creating more chores and burden that are needed are ridiculous.

Same for men who would waste every Sunday morning cleaning a car and whinging about it. (I don't know any who do that, but for the sake of the argument...)

Why is a two hour football match draining 5.5 hours of time?! I spend 3 hrs at the game including travel. If the travel is over an hour each way, I'd argue you're really not near enough to justify the season ticket. (and if he's including pre/post game beers in the time then that's a whole other question...).

And I say this as a lover of football and someone with a season ticket.

I think YABU. Your child will get funding soon won't he? So you can have some child free time in the week. Then have a Sunday family day. Even with matches on a Saturday you could split the day and have the morning to yourself or something.

My dad was a season ticket holder for rugby and I loved going to games with him as I got older.

@Skiptheheartsandflowers

No to the season ticket but yes to going to a lower, specified number of matches, on condition that you get the same number of Saturdays off while he does sole care of your toddler, and that the Sundays are family time.

I think this would be a reasonable compromise for now.

(Do season ticket holders get entry to cup matches etc as well as the standard league? That could be a lot of matches!)

Yanbu! My husband has a season ticket and we have 2 young dcs (3&1) I have loved that there has been no matches for him to attend this year and Im absolutely dreading the return to football.

@TeenMinusTests not normally, would just be the 23 home games.

So just because you don’t have something to enjoying doing every Sundays, you want to punish him? There will be time to enjoy together, just not for 6 hours every other Saturdays or so.

I’d be looking at activities you can do on a Sunday’s and make the most of it, not clean or whatever other chore.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Parents of very young children, especially those with additional needs, probably shouldn’t be season ticket holders. Especially if there’s travel involved.

Parents of older children - say 10+ (depending on additional needs in the particular case) can probably fill their boots.
10 years isn’t that long!

He's already given up being a season ticket holder for 7 years due to where they moved to.

I have a friend with two young children whose husband bought her a season ticket for her last birthday. She goes by train to every home game and is out of the house for the length of time the OP mentions.

Most games are not easily accessible unless you are a season ticket holder, likely to be even more the case from now on.

... get DC a season ticket!

'selfish twat' - how completely ludicrous - this is a family discussion where one person wants to continue a hobby - it's a normal part of life to talk about these things. The lanugage on this site is so unhelpful sometimes.

OP I really get this because my husband plays football and when we had our first baby I was so stressed at the thought of him vanishing every Sunday morning for hours (plus a pint in pub after) - when I'd been with the baby all week.

BUT - I think in modern life, with hard work all week it's really really healthy for all of us to maintain something that just brings us pleasure etc and if going to the football gives him pleasure You should look at how it could work - ie. comprimise.

It's true that as the kid gets older you will want family time at weekends = I would say to him that he can't go every week.

You say 23 weeks -that seems a lot - do you mean all home games or every game? Even so, football won't be every week and he won't go to every game.

Could he share the season ticket and agree he only goes twice a month for example? And on other weeks gives the ticket to a friend?

I think it's so easy in life to just lose everything we enjoy - as long as you get both a break and also family time - I think it's important to try and let both partners have a hobby they enjoy.

What I would say is you need ground rules so if you are feeling really put under pressure he pulls back from the footy.

Sorry, I meant the birthday before last.
Yes vivainsomnia has a point there.