DH playing football on birthday

[sadtired2]

Please help me get my head straight here, it’s our DC’s first birthday tomorrow.

We are just going to take them and their older sibling to softplay and get lunch then go to my mum’s for cake.

Whilst I was bathing our eldest, he asked what time we are going to softplay, I said I hadn’t thought of it yet and he said I need to be back by 1 to leave to play football.

I was actually in shock, who goes and plays football on their child’s birthday?

I’ll keep it short, it’s not been an easy year for us, I’ve had PPD and I’m now pregnant again following contraception failure, I have a termination booked this week and I am spiralling with guilt over that.

I put the children to bed and just felt so angry that I left without saying a word, I went to my parents and I calmed down, had some dinner, sat with them for the evening and came back and he’s still up.

He doesn’t see a problem with us going to soft play, then us going to watch him play football, I’ve got a 3 year old who wouldn’t be able to run around and a 1 year old who’d have to sit in his pram for almost 2 hours. He said it’s unfair because the 1 year old doesn’t know it’s his birthday and he now can’t play football because it’s me who doesn’t want to go and watch “like many of the wives and kids do”. We have been a few times, the women are older and their kids are older so enjoy it (I’d say the youngest there is 9) they don’t have to keep a 3 year old entertained.

He has the opportunity to go to football 3 times a week, he plays for one team on a Monday night, has training Thursday night then matches on Sundays.

I am in such a bad, tired, emotionally done mood with the PPD that I genuinely question if I am being unfair here?

If we went to football, we’d be at my parents for 5pm, by the time we’d had cake and left it would be 6. 3 year old is back at nursery Monday so I wanted her bathed and in bed for half 6.

I need to hear others thoughts on this.

YABU - go and watch the football
YANBU - he should have not agreed to play football on his childs birthday

Big hug and hope your termination goes smoothly. xxx

Tell him to stop playing foot ball and that he has responsibilities as a married man and father.

I don’t think it’s a big deal sorry. I understand you’re tired and emotional but a one year old won’t realise it’s his birthday and won’t remember it.
I don’t think you should go and watch the football though, that would be a nightmare with two young children to look after.
I’d either come home after soft play for a couple of hours then go to your parents, or go to your parents alone after soft play and then you can come home earlier with the DC and he will be back from football to help with baths and bedtime.

Yes, and the husband will be left scratching his head as to why the marriage is dying. Why are there so many like him? What are we doing wrong?!

Get him to drop you at your mums before football.
I probably wouldn't be pleased - but we would have chatted about it before the day before (in an ideal world...in the real world i would have expected him to know not to play and he would have expected that I would know he is playing....I guess I would ask has the other child's birthday ever fallen on a Sunday? Or is this the first time? In which case chalk it up to crossed wires. And make sure he knows for next time.

Your DH is a crap husband and father

No, but his wife will remember it, and how little the child's first birthday meant to him or her, as a family unit.
That's the important bit, his family being low in the pecking order.

Non issue regarding the actual football

Unless it’s a match and him not being there would ruin it for the entire team - he’s being incredibly selfish.

There’s literally a couple days of the year when you don’t think about yourself and need to put someone else above yourself.

If this was some sort of one off/once in a lifetime thing then I’d get it but it’s what he does every week.

Please don’t feel guilty about the termination - you are doing the right thing.
Its not an easy decision and if you need to talk to someone then do (even ChatGPT can sometimes help).

He needs to not only be there for his child but he needs to be there for you right now.
A little bit of extra love and attention is not going to cost him anything but it will help you so much.

Sounds like a fair compromise.

Are you expected to watch all through the winter as the season has only just started.

It’s not about the football it’s that you need support.

Indeed. It seems very self-absorbed to not only expect to do his hobby on his child's birthday, but also for everybody to come along and watch him - as though their hobby as assigned by default is to watch him doing his hobby. It often happens that parents go along to watch and support their young children playing sports (and probably needing to transport them anyway); but the other way around is really odd, unless maybe your parent is a professional footballer and you're choosing to join the tens of thousands of other fans in the stadium for the full atmosphere of the match.

Even with the timing, he's showing his selfishness. If, say, he needed to leave for his hobby at 6pm and he was wanting to check that the baby's special day would have finished and been wound down ready for bedtime by then, it may be fair enough; but saying that you have to have it all over with and cleared up by 1pm is just clearly relegating somebody's special day for celebration to a mundane appointment or task to slot into an otherwise much more exciting day - as though it was getting the Tesco shop in or picking up your dry cleaning.

It’s not about the bloody football people! Read the opening post in detail.

Does he have any good points?
He lives his life . Has you for sex and child rearing. Goes to work and football.
What do you get?
Talk thru with your mh team and get some ongoing counselling. Consider your life going forward. He does not seem to want to be involved. (When do you go out and leave him with the kids?)

For now go to your parents on the day 3 and 1 are not going to sit and watch daddy play football unless there are separate kid activities put on .

People may say the baby won't remember but I think the first birthday is such a big deal. It's the one year anniversary of you giving birth and the whole year marker for this crazy time period you've been through together.

For both my children we did something big on their first birthday (family trip to beach for one and party for the other).

It wouldn't even have crossed my husband's mind to do his hobby on our kids' birthdays.

To be honest, given the broader context of the upcoming termination I'd be pretty fucking devastated if my husband prioritised volunteering to play in a football match over spending a child's birthday together as a family. It's really shitty, selfish, thoughtless behaviour.

My husband wouldn’t dream of doing this because, believe it or not, even tho the kid doesn’t know it’s his birthday, the Dad does, and it’s weird he doesn’t want to spend it with him, and the person he made the child with! It’s not like he’s chained to the house all the time so this dramatic “not doing anything that doesn’t revolve around kids” is a pointless comment when he clearly DOES

I don’t think it’s ‘intense’ to celebrate a first birthday. But then I would assume it was as much for the parents & family to celebrate as the child. Skipping a single match doesn’t seem like much of a hardship for your kids birthday.

I’d probably go further and say that if my wife was going to have a termination in the following days after her child’s first birthday, she might benefit from some extra support and ask her what she needs from me.

So this is really about him not pulling his weight in the household, not the birthday as such. If he was making a fair contribution and you didn’t have all the background difficulties of the termination etc, I’d say YABU. As it is, you’re not.

Time for a reset I think. I always find having clear areas of responsibility work best, rather than “sharing” everything. Make a list of things that need doing which you can cope with being done badly (he will try to wriggle out of it by being crap at it). And make sure you never, ever do those jobs. Then get yourself a hobby that takes you out of the house one evening a week - tell, don’t ask. Normally I’d say discuss it, but he’ll find a way of making it impossible for you if you do that. Then hold firm. If he says “But what about the kids/my TV time/whatever?” just tell him you have every confidence in his ability to manage.

That is real shit behaviour from your husband.

Will he at least be supervising the children at soft play?

As others have said, go to your parents after the soft play.

Hope all goes well this week.

For the birthday itself: go to soft play then to your mum's- your DH can go to football but why on earth everyone needs to watch him is beyond me .

Going forwards: it isn't fair that your DH gets so much time to himself when you get none. The fact he made a decision re the football without consulting you is quite telling, as I doubt you would do the same. When babies are little they meed need their mum more, particularly if bf, but your youngest is 1 now and parenting/free time should be equal

Your problem isn't the football. Your problem is that you don't get equal time to yourself.

The football on the baby's birthday is no big deal, although there's no reason you have to watch - go home and put a film on for the older one. The soft play will probably wear the baby out.

Pour yourself a glass of wine and toast your achievement of another parenting year.

Even if it was a match, the date of his child’s first birthday isn’t a suprise that was sprung on him. He could have pulled out a long time ago.

Plus his wife had PPD and had a termination booked next week - boo fucking hoo it would ruin an armature football game (it wouldn’t).

Why do people keep making excuses for this idiot?

ETA - sorry @Contain4 that sounded overly aggressive towards you, it wasn’t at all. It just does my head in the level of pandering to men when OP is going through a really tough time and just wanted some family time for her child’s birthday.

Fucking hell, thank god younger women are now realising they don’t have to put up with relationships at all. It makes me so happy that younger women are refusing to put up with men’s shit.

You need to start resuming your own interests and hobbies OP while the kids are with their dad. That is where the problem lies here
@sadtired2

We realise that, but it's a symptom of the bigger picture - and the one that OP chose to introduce the issue with.