To be annoyed when my husband puts sport on during the day

[MammaEvz3]

My husband likes to watch all kinds of sports. Football, rugby, America Football, golf, cricket, athletics, anything really. I find them all immensely boring but not really my point. I get annoyed on a weekend or school holiday when I'm busy with the children (2, 4 & 6) and he just takes himself away to put the telly on and watch whatever sport it is that is on with his feet up. The main reason I think it bothers me is because I would never do this. I never watch any telly I like during the daytime. The children wouldn't give me the peace to and I don't really think it's appropriate. (Like what I'm watching might not be suitable for their ages). I wouldn't expect him to solo parent as I wanted to watch a show. That's what our evenings are for in my opinion. Sometimes he watches sport in the evening but mostly we watch something together although he will often stay up later than me and watch American football after I've gone to bed. I work 3 days a week so on Monday and Friday I have our youngest all day, our middle for most of the day as he in only in morning nursery and all 3 of them come end of the school day. Not complaining about this just giving some background and I guess I just feel like it would be nice if he helped out more on weekends and when he is home over school holidays but he makes me feel like I am really unfair if I say anything about him watching his sports.
He took himself off to watch something earlier when all the children were still at the dinner table and went in a major strop when I asked him to come back to help.(He's still in a strop now really).
Just looking for some perspective I guess of which is reasonable/unreasonable. No nasty comments. Thanks.

Fair enough - didn't realise it was a repeat offender @HaddawayAndShite

You have my sympathies. It's the same in our house. It's not so much of an issue now that the kids are pretty much grown up but it's very anti-social. The response is that this is a one off special sporting event that only happens every x number of years. In reality there is a special sporting event somewhere in the world for some sport pretty much every day, so it's endless.

This.

You sound lovely. Why are you so bitter and twisted that you would not be nice to a stranger?

I feel sorry for you.

Yes, a pity that MN can't ban the likes of @JenniferJuniper80

I split up with my exh many years ago now for a lot of reasons. Genuinely one of those that immediately comes to the fore is the fact he had to have TV on all the time. Usually sport or sky sports news on a loop, it was constant. It drove me insane.

The issue isn't he loves watching sport, it is he doesn't appear to have learned to love actively spending time with his family/children once they arrived and have grown, or feel it is his responsibility. dh loves sport and if ds wasn't there would have spent more of his free time watching it. What he does now is work out the few sporting events that are important to him/unmissable and where possible we plan our weekends taking them into account.

When you are at home does/has he ever done activities with them such as painting/crafts, done role play, put them down for naps, taken them to the park for a few hours alone the weekend?

If he has always chilled out to watch sports while you got on with it and you see this as a problem you were a fool to have 3 kids with him as inherently people don't change.

You need to have a very adult, preferably calm, talk (maybe over a few nights to give you both time to reflect in-between) when the kids are all in bed, instead of venting frustrations at the time. I would be looking for him to proactively look at reducing the sport habit down, working out what his priorities are and learning to actively enjoy spending time with his dc. If he isn't interested, then you chose him and chose to have 3 kids with him, now you need to choose if that is a deal breaker for you.

He can oversee the kids whilst watching sport though surely. Some of my earliest and most favourite moments were watching football with my dad. When he moved abroad we would still chat weekly about football matches we had watched and the week's results.

I think you just need to set your expectations that he takes the kids on with him and they can draw play or watch the sport too. Earlier today was a LIVE FA Cup match so I assume it was that. Sports is much better watched live.

So I would say it not unreasonable for him tk want to watch it. It is unreasonable to moan about it if you haven't asked that he at least oversee kids sometimes whilst he does if need be.

This much sport watching is my DH dream but we have two kids so it's not possible. When specific matches/events are on that he genuinely loves and involve teams he supports then he'll sit and watch them but will also make sure I have time to myself or he'll plan around it and the kids needs.
He just can't watch everything anymore.

Perfectly fine and normal to watch sport during the day if that’s something he enjoys. The issue isn’t that he watches sport, it’s that he doesn’t pull his weight with the childcare. If he didn’t watch sport, I’m guessing he still wouldn’t do anything with the kids.

I think you need to separate the fact that you don’t like sport and don’t think it’s ’appropriate’ for the television to be on during the day, and the entirely separate fact that your husband doesn’t bother with his children at the weekend. YABU to think he shouldn’t watch sport just because you don’t like it, but YANBU to think he needs to do his share of looking after the house and the kids.

To be honest the 4 and 6 year old kids could probably play in the room while he’s got sport on in the background. Pretty sure that when I was in that age bracket I used to play with my toys or draw in the living room while my dad watched Grandstand or test cricket! At that age they don’t/shouldn’t need an adult to be playing ‘with’ them every minute of the day. But clearly the two-year-old will need a lot of attention, and there are obviously activities and games that it would be nice for your husband to do with the kids sometimes, in addition to just keeping half an eye on them.

Who pissed on your chips?

I think it's fine he puts sport on in the day, what isn't fine is that he opt out of parenting because he's watching sport.

Ok so this has taken off a bit..

I didn't see the deleted comment so a bit confused about that. I felt the need to say "no nasty comments please" because I've learnt in the past some people can be absolutely brutal and there's just no need for it so thank you to those who have supported me there.

In answer to some of the questions raised, yes he does help out with the kids. But they're are all still pretty small so it's very full on and I definitely take the brunt of it. As most mothers do I suppose. The thing with the sport bothers me because I would never get the opportunity to do the same so in that respect the leisure time is not equal. The younger two are very much mammy's boys and often won't go to him (4 year old is better now) so I become default parent for the youngest. I couldn't go into a different room in the daytime when we're all at home and have a bit of a break as they would follow me/I'd hear them crying for me. The fact that there's 3 little ones does mean we sometimes need to divide and conquer so to speak but there are far fewer times that he has all 3 compared to when I do.

He's making me feel like a bit of a cow with the regards to the sport and I just wanted some perspective. Thanks for the replies.

@Knowivedonewrong

"I see someone's left the gate open on the cunt farm again!"

One if the best comments about a hate filled bitch I've ever seen on Mumsnet. Made my afternoon that.

The nature of live sport is that it's on when it's on, and it's often inconvenient even when you're the sports fan. If you don't want your life to take it into account that's reasonable but this is what we assess partners for before we marry them.

(I am the fan of a particular sport that's been on since 5am every day this week, and I wouldn't be changing that for any partner. Luckily DP also likes it.)

He needs to have them all alone together more
You need to stop calling him parenting his own children ''helping''.

Then you're only solution is to go out op.

Go to a friends, the gym, a walk, a cafe for a coffee, whatever.

A nice cheery 'no problem Bob, you watch the football match 1-3pm and then I'll pop to yoga 3-5pm.'

Oh and no he doesn't spend the entire weekend watching sports. I didn't mean for it to come across like that but I see how it might have from me listing all the different sports he likes. My mistake. He doesn't watch them all every weekend. That's why I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable being put out when he watches a game or too. I feel like it's a bitof resentment because I can't do similar. I don't always want to have to leave the house to get a wee break.

@JenniferJuniper80 get out of bed the wrong side did we? No need to be a bitch! It's because of snide people like you that op's ask for no nasty comments in the first place. What value has your comment added to the thread? None whatsoever, so crawl back under your stone

YANBU it was incredibly rude to leave the table and fuck off to watch something without helping you clear up first or mentioning it before hand.
You are the default parent because he isn't doing his share.
You need to start sending the children to him for certain things if you are busy, even if he is watching sport.

My husband and eldest son have season tickets for the local football team and mainly have games on Saturdays and Tuesday nights, they are put on the family calendar months beforehand and he does dinner and bath for the youngest on evening games or takes him out to the park and brings lunch home for afternoon games.

I'm a SAHM and carer, I had to explain to my DH a long time ago that just because I was here at home most of the time didn't mean I was always on the clock and that if he wanted to do overtime or go to a game or social event he needed to talk to me because agreeing to it before asking me was essentially making me work overtime I hadn't agreed to.

I would never say no to the things he wants to do btw, it was more a way to have him acknowledge the imbalance which meant it was much easier and fair for me to say, " well you did XYZ this week so I'm pencilling in ABC next week" or even him suggesting things I might want to do to make our free time more equal.

You might not want to leave the house to get a break, but often as the main caregiver of a toddler, it's your only option; as you've discovered they'll follow you around if you don't.

First of all, looking after his own children isn't "helping". It's parenting.

It's one thing to follow a particular team or sport, but to want to watch them all when you're a parent of three children 6 and under is comepletely unreasonable. It means he relaxes while you parents single-handedly.

A more equitable split might be to discuss before the weekend starts which matches are one that he wants to watch and divide the time appropriately. 3 hours of sports telly means 3 hours of taking the children out or looking after them while you go out for an afternoon.

He can clean up the dishes at half time.

I think you need more overt planning of your weekends on a Friday night. Eg. Hey (wife) I'd like to watch xxx match on Saturday pm so shall we take the kids to xxx together on Saturday morning and then on Sunday you do (leisure activity of your choice) in the morning etc.

I suspect you resent the imbalance and he resents not being able to do anything for himself. Neither is unreasonable but really explicit communication between the two of you will help you both avoiding the need to sneak off or feeling abandoned when the other has done that.

Plus it does get easier as the children get older and more able to entertain themselves. Lastly, here we try to work on evening out the default parent by saying to DC, daddy can also make your drink /play with you. We try not to let them only ask the default parent.