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?

So 23 matches at 5.5 hours a match - give or take that averages out at about 3 hours a week he wants to go out. If a man posted here complaining because his wife wanted to go out for 3 hours a week you can imagine the absolute outrage that would be directed at him. Why not find yourself something to do for three hours on the other 29 Saturdays a year that he won’t be at a match?

And yes when I do eventually go back I’ll be taking DS with me!

Normally id say everyone needs a life/hobby but if you're doing all the childcare mon-fri (assuming partner is home late/doing overnights if he's travelling into London?) with a young, additional needs child then that's a lot for you. Need to compromise somewhere- not going to every match, prioritising downtime for you, getting a cleaner/dog walker/additional childcare hours, whatever.

And OMG the poster who's all "I like having my kids to myself". Way to announce yourself as a total fucking bell end 😂

I think it’s not an unreasonable thing for him to want.

At most it’s every other Saturday but there will be weekday or Sunday matches and matches where he really isn’t interested in going. Surely it’s possible to reach agreement on how many times he goes?

I don’t get why he needs 5 hours? Is this travel time?

Don’t clean when you have child free time - how much cleaning can there be to do!

Yanbu. He’s a dad now, he has to accept he doesn’t have the same freedoms he had before. He can still go to some matches but it’s just not reasonable for him to think he can be out of the house for more than half of the Saturdays in the year when he has a child.

YABU - you knew he was football mad when you married him. Let him have his season ticket - it will bew good for his happiness and mental health. Plan things for you that are similarly enriching - and have him take the toddler out for the morning on match days as well s you get a bit of quiet time.

Parenting doesn't have to mean giving up all the fun stuff. There can be a balance.

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

Why would your childfree time default to cleaning? If it does, that is your choice.
If he does get a season ticket, then it is up to you to do something you enjoy on your time off.
You spend all week with your child, it would be great for your DH to spend quality 1 on 1 time with your son.

Why are you spending your free time cleaning? If you are at home full time in the week, you just clean then. If you both work then you share the big clean at weekends?
I think you also need an interest away from the home that you could enjoy, then he would be allowed 5 hours every other Saturday for his.

Yabu

@Aprilwasverywet

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

Personally I love having my DH on hand to help with childcare!!

Why don't you?

@Abouttimemum

DH has your DS on a Saturday morning so you can do what you want. Sunday is a family day. Don’t do the housework or blitz it together for an hour on a Sunday.

I used to have a season ticket pre-covid and I was at Saturday games maybe once a month august-April. Some get moved to Sunday pm and some are midweek. I probably won’t get one for a while now just due to money.

So no time for the op then? Just family time and dh footy time.

I’d list out the weekend cleaning that gets done , tell him it was his responsibility for the next few weeks and we could talk about a season ticket after that if he had demonstrated he understands the contribution I make weekends as well as parenting.

For me it would depend on the cost of the season ticket - if you can afford it and if it would be ok to maybe miss a home game if necessary (obvs this more reasonable when it’s not £100s).

I think Saturday afternoons every other week is fine and you should have the same. You still have the morning, he’s back for bedtime, there can’t be a huge amount of travel, it’s not every week.

We have two small children and yes I’d prefer my partner never did anything as looking after babies/toddlers is exhausting but obviously that’s not reasonable! And if I want to see my friends/have children free time obviously needs to work both ways.

Don’t you have time ‘off’ a couple of times a month?

But again to reiterate I wouldn’t want to organise our whole life eg. Holidays, important events around the football season

It's not just a season ticket though, is it. My ex had one and went to almost all games PLUS a load of non-season-ticket games. No, he wasn't at a game every other Saturday. He was sitting at home watching all of the away games though (and any others of interest) and as unavailable as if he had been out. During the season, I think there was at least one game a week on tv that he 'had' to watch, on top of the weekend games, and on top of the uncertainty - 'oh the match next week has changed time/day so I'll be out x-y time instead' - no compromise and if that affected any plans I had made, tough luck...

One of many reasons for us separating was that he got extremely fed up with me having 'equal' time off in form of a hobby on a weeknight for 2-3hrs a time. If you're being petty (and he was!), then I 'deserved' at least two nights out doing my class for every one football match he attended (minimum 6hrs out of the house). But apparently I 'went out too much' and it was 'unfair', despite having to miss my class every time there was a match that clashed with it...

When we were together, I made very sure that DS and I also went out or did fun stuff while he was at football - no way was I cleaning the house for him to come home to!

Appreciate your comment about not wanting to miss family time on the Sundays, so, trying to be positive, is there any chance of you getting 'your time' on a different day - e.g. a Friday night, or a weekend when there isn't football on - and thus you won't be around to do housework at least...

I wouldn't be happy with dh or I taking up a hobby that took up pretty much all of on weekend day half the year. It means that the other weekend day becomes either the forced day off for the other parent as it's the only time football dad can be available or it becomes the only chance for family time. Dh and I have things we enjoy doing and we both go away for whole weekends or even whole weeks to do things we enjoy doing.

But I think the issue here is the assumption that every Saturday for half the year is taken up with a commitment he has already paid for, with no flexibility. Now if it's fine missing those whenever necessary because of family commitments, birthdays, holidays, etc then maybe that's not such a big deal. But then it seems a bit silly to pay for a season ticket. Why not just go to the matches you want to go to when you have a free day to yourself?

It's not his fault that you would choose to spend your free time cleaning.

23 matches, 52 Saturdays in a year. He gets 23 Saturdays to himself, you get the remaining 29.

Then every Sunday is a family day.

Extremely selfish of him.

EXACTLY how much time does he spend with his son?

He sounds as if he has very little interest in family time.

Think long and hard about having a second child with him.

I get where you are coming from but there is middle ground.

1. DP gets a season ticket and you resent him. You end up taking on even more parenting of which you already have the lions share.

2. DP doesn't get a season ticket and he resents you and misses out on a thing he loves.

3. You both support each other to do the things you want. There is surely something you would love to do? I would make it part of the routine so something every week for 2-3 hours ( the equivalent of his matches). I would probably do swimming / long distance running or gym. But you could write a book or climb mountains! You need a break - this is a win / win. I promise you will be a happier couple if you both know that you will support each other something you love.

Having kids stops you doing stuff, regardless of special needs. He should have thought of that before removing the condom.

It's not a hobby, it is standing and watching rather than doing.

I think you're being incredibly selfish tbh. Your husband is still entitled to a life and his own hobbies

Exactly! How dare you expect a man’s life to be impacted even remotely by his choice to have children?! That’s for women, not men, their life should continue exactly the same as it was before, and you should dedicate your life to your child and making sure your husband is happy. 🙄

If I was you I would use that time to meet other mums and their children it's important to build a social life while their young esp with a child with autism join peanut app meet some mums in your area

This thread is quite sad. Why do so many posters want to basically "punish" a father, think all parent should give up on life entirely, and make every relationship sound like a war?

It's not a punishment to spend time with your child, and you don't have to abandon everything until they are 18 either.

A parent wanting to spend a few hours on his hobby, good grief, it's not such a big deal is it.

I really mean the contribution he will have to make if he wants to spend half of saturday out and me to spend half of Sunday out to be fair, then he can work out when to do the cleaning and demonstrate his mastery of this.

@timeisnotaline

I really mean the contribution he will have to make if he wants to spend half of saturday out and me to spend half of Sunday out to be fair, then he can work out when to do the cleaning and demonstrate his mastery of this.

If dh suggested this to me, in response to me wanting (eg) trip away with friends or space to regularly attend a hobby, I'd think he was fucking mental.

@motherloaded

This thread is quite sad. Why do so many posters want to basically "punish" a father, think all parent should give up on life entirely, and make every relationship sound like a war?

It's not a punishment to spend time with your child, and you don't have to abandon everything until they are 18 either.

A parent wanting to spend a few hours on his hobby, good grief, it's not such a big deal is it.

It’s not punishing them. It’s wanting a balanced relationship with some family time. My dh plays football on a weeknight. We both work full time and dc are 5 & 2. So he skips a game if I have evening meetings and he can’t get his parents to look after them and all the other dads on the team are similarly flexible because they have families. And Saturday mornings he takes our oldest to play football, which is just the starter for the weekend children based schedule. there isn’t the time with a family to have a weekend day to yourself most weeks unless you have a very selfish man who doesn’t think he needs to put time into his family or a martyr wife (or vice versa very occasionally) or both.

I also had a OH in a similar position. Except he moved out of London - I couldn't imaging if he had wanted to keep it on - as it would have been hours of travel on top of the matches.

I actually wouldn't mind him doing it locally though. 23 weeks out of 52 isn't that bad - I would use the time to see family and friends. I would want some agreed ground rules - for me it would be that drinks before/after the match are less often (once a month), and agree to how many additional matches he goes too....if they start doing well in a competition there can be extra matches, semi-finals, finals etc. Pre-agree the budget for trips away - because when they end up in a final in Germany for example....he will want to go. You probably can't imaging it now, but as your child gets older he may well want to join Dad in the football hobby........and go to matches with him. Also - if he gets a season ticket this year you can see how it works for you all. There is no commitment he has to have it for ever.....