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so what are you supposed to do when your middle-aged DH starts an obsessive interest in a hobbie?

54 replies

Roundnroundnround · 25/10/2016 00:10

DH eats, sleeps and breathes a sport. He cannot seem to talk or think about anything else. If he's ever texting, it's about the sport, ruminating over a game he has played or watched, or even scenarios his fellow sport fans send to him about their own games or games they watched. If he can't play it himself, he watches it on television. If he has to sleep, he watches it on his phone in bed with earphones in, in the early hours of the morning, the phone lighting up the room while I'm trying to sleep.

It's all he texts me about when he is out of the house. That he played the game, he won or he lost. How he feels about it. What everyone else who is there thinks. That he watched a game, somebody won and somebody lost. He's happy or he's sad depending on who he likes and whether he thinks it was fair.

When he's in the house, he talks AT me about the sport. Philosophical conversations we have as a couple get shunted on to an example involving the sport, then once we are safely back on sport territory, he continues on it.

When we're out with friends, he drags conversations - kicking and screaming - on to his sport. People indulge him for a while, but when it seems he wants to carry on, they make excuses to leave or start a new conversation (actually talk over him.)

I have tried to take a small bit of interest, hoping that will encourage him to feel his interests are appreciated and will solicit return questions about things I'm interested in. No. It makes him speak for longer and longer about the sport, in a "let's start from the beginning" kind of way. Then he gets overwhelmed with how much he wants to say and ends up giving me the complete history/backstory, right up to the answer to my question and beyond.

When he's finished (answering my polite question,) he will sit back and say that he really feels we've bonded tonight. That it reminds him what a great partnership we are.

Is this selfish behaviour or obsessive behaviour or both?

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WindPowerRanger · 27/10/2016 19:31

I do wish people would stop throwing the word 'spectrum' at any reference to less than conventional behaviour.

OP, I think your DH is imposing his hobby onto your life to a completely unreasonable degree. The watching in bed really sprang out at me-I would ask him to stop doing that as an immediate first step.

DH is very involved in a sport, as a fan/spectator. We had a very frank discussion about it in which I said I was fine about that, and often liked to watch it too, but it did not have any special status in our family life. By which I meant the kind of old-fashioned arrangement where men had enthusiasms and women had to lump it while the men got on with them was not going to happen. So leaving me to deal with kids and chores while he got to follow his interest as a fait accompli had to come to an end. As a result we negotiate and there is give and take. In truth I am usually happy to see him off to the pub with mates to see a game, or watch it at home (but the kids have to be allowed to watch it with him).

I think you probably need to have the same kind of discussion. He appears to be assuming that what he wants in relation to this goes, and never considers what you want.

As for his behaviour in social situations, can he see what you mean if you raise it with him? Not much you can do if he doesn't.

Do you think that (if this is a relatively recent development), the interest in sport might be functioning as escapism from some kind of concern or even depression?