Husband married to his hobbies not me

[SadKeiko]

Trying to work out if I am being unreasonable by considering divorcing my husband of 13 years over his excessive hobbies. I am 40 he is 44. He is very obsessed over his PS5 gaming , playing/ watching footy, music end so on. The list of his hobbies is ever expanding. Recently he created his little repair cave man where he fixes play stations etc.
He games most of the nights ( 2 hours ish after 10 pm) watches all football games he can and plays football every week. All this on top of his full time job with shifts pattern.
We have 12 years old daughter together but I constantly feel like a single mum.
He never really joins any activities together and our time as a couple is non existing, sex life terrible…you get the picture.
I caused massive scenes over the years trying to make him realise what the problem is but he just ignores me and when frustrated just tells me “I wont be telling him what to do”. Pleading, reasoning etc. never helped as he is stubborn and doesn’t seem to care. So now I am just so fed up I told him we are over. My unmet relationship needs caused me to get angry and explosive around him. He claims he loves me but no actions attached to this..
We havent spoken for weeks now …and he never came to me to talk. In the past it was always me patching things up and moving on.
He still keeps gaming as normal and wont accept any wrong doing.
He is a good dad. The problem is purely in our marriage as a couple. He wont agree to therapy.
Any opinions?

You role model life for your dd. So you can role model being treated like shit and just accepting it or you can role model getting yourself out of a situation where you are treated like shit.

Your choice.

If you want to stay and be treated like shit then stay. If you want to leave to protect your dd then make plans to leave. It's hard, yes. But not impossible. You just have to decide whether it's worth the effort.

I appreciate it's much easier for you to stay but surely your dd is worth the effort?

This ⬆️. Nobody is pretending it's not going to be tough to leave, but you really can't live like this.

OP

re your comments in quote marks:
"We own our house together and after selling I have no chance to get my own property and that is the major factor why I havent just left. My daughter needs to have a roof over her head so I appreciate all the ” dump him now” advice but it is easier said than done".

The current home may well end up being sold or you may be able to live there with your child until she is 18. Until you yourself seek legal advice do not rely on mere supposition. Your daughter I feel would much rather live in accommodation where she and you can live happily together rather than she seeing you stressed out and otherwise preoccupied all the time. For all you know she may well be blaming herself for her parents' marital troubles.

It's not easier for you or she to stay with such a man either. He is a terrible role model to her and a crap example of a husband to you.

How would you feel if she went on to marry or partner up with someone just like her dad?. You are currently showing her that this is still acceptable to you on some level.

"I do consider having an affair for the first time in my life to just feel nice at least in short term".

As if an affair is going to solve anything. Give your head a wobble and stop thinking such nonsense right not. If you are thinking this then end your marriage first before potentially blowing up another marriage for your own self based reasons. And then you will be found out and your H will use that as a further stick to beat you with. Your own relations then with your daughter could further decline and she may well not want to know you. You need to remain whiter than white here in her eyes as well as being a consistent parent (unlike her dad).

"As to him being a dad…well he does homework with our daughter, drops her off /picks her up from activities so I suppose it is not all that bad! It’s him treating me like s..t/ second best is the major issue here".

He is doing the barest of bare minimums here and you know this. Again he is no example of a father to his child. Again look at what both you and he are modelling here to your impressionable 12 year old daughter. You are both laying the foundations here for how she is going to get on in her own adult relationships.

"Thank you for all your responses … and private messages. Glad I am not the only one in a terrible scenario like this".

You have a choice re him and your child does not. Make better choices with both you and she kin mind going forward. Not him. She is relying on you to make good choices with both you and she in mind.

Oh OP this sounds awful for you and DD! Is shared ownership an option for housing?

Put up with it , or don’t. Those are your options. There is not an option called “change him”; that’s a myth.

I doubt he loves you as a person, more like what you do for him. I assume you do most of the cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping etc.
I get what you’re saying about it being hard to leave. In the meantime, stop doing things for him, there is no reason to make his life easier when he does nothing for you. Do not wash his clothes, do not buy any particular food he likes, cook only for you and your DD. Move into a spare room if possible.

Get to a solicitor to find out your options. You don't have to act on it. Just have that knowledge. e.g. do YOU have to leave the house @SadKeiko ?
Avoid him. If he is ignoring you, well, he won't notice will he?

Get to a point where you shop and cook for you and dc and clear away without him.
Make a new bedroom somewhere else. Kids room, spare room, office, attic, curtained off sitting room.
Get out of the house more alone.
Look on Right Move and check out Entitled2, work out Child Maintenance and Universal Credit. Get your facts and figures.

Give some thought to maybe splitting the house internally,You build up a bed sit,(kettle, microwave, tv) make a rota for kitchen etc and staying in the house until dd leaves University/6th form. Then you and her get a place together.

My dad was like this (different hobbies but stubborn and just basically didn’t want to be involved in family life). My parents divorced in the end but I wish they’d done it sooner, for my mum’s sake mainly.

I think the issue isn't just the hobby time. It's the amount of immersion he has in them, like he has blinkers on and his family is outside of them.

There's nothing you can do I'm afraid OP. This is who he really is, and it's deeply ingrained.

If he wanted to spend time you, if he really enjoyed it, he's be doing it a lot more often, but his actions and how he chooses to spend his time is louder than his words.

He may say he loves you, but you have no way of knowing what that feels like for him on the inside.

Some men like him marry a friendly, warm, nurturing woman that they find entertaining occasionally, but you won't ever really feel deeply connected to them. They don't need that depth & level of interaction with a woman. They married because they wanted emotional support, a bit of companionship, sex, children, and someone to organise holidays for them occasionally.

Otherwise these men are on their own planet, and they're quite happy that way.

I say this all the time to women - there's a difference between loving a woman deeply for who she is as a person, and loving / enjoying the various the service she provides. Sort of like really valuing a therapist, but you're not in love with them.

Some people don't know the difference between the two .

Show him this thread??
(Good luck, he may need a reality check to realise how his behaviour impacts HIS family....I am not making excuses for him). 🌷

Perhaps your 12 year old daughter ‘isn’t the easiest to handle’ cause she’s got a shit dad.

If you can't leave for now, try developing your own life and hobbies outside the marriage, take a FWB if needed, build up your support network, build up your career, with the aim to be in a good position to leave if you need to. Feeling trapped is the worst thing. Nothing worse than that. BTW, I know how you feel my husband games too. Often from 3:30pm in the afternoon sporadically until dinner and then some time with the kids and back on until often midnight, so I would say up to five hours a day. Used to be more. I am leaving when I can.

It’s sounds like he isn’t even doing the bare minimum yet you are still classing that as being a “good dad”

He isn’t, he is a bad dad.

He also sounds like he doesn’t care about you any more. Tell him it is over and start looking into legally what you need to do. Tell him to move out.

If you can afford the house on your own ask him to move out if this isn’t possible live like you do but make your own life happier get out more sleep in separate rooms etc. don’t have an affair and ruin someone else’s life but tell him the marriage is over and your both free to see other people as this is no longer a relationship. He mustn’t really care about you tbh as a man who loves his wife would compromise to keep everybody happy he’s acting like a teenager so stop doing anything for him tell him your going out more so he will need to step on these nights then go out date whatever but not a married man.

Never have anything to do with ‘gamers’. They are invariably losers and bad partners.

I divorced mine 8 years ago and am now happily married to a wonderful man who is present and attentive. He spends time with me with the kids (blended family) and also takes a reasonable amount of time for himself . We all have a much happier family life because of it. Life is too short to exist in an unhappy relationship.

@NewGirlInTown I have to strongly disagree, I have been with my husband 21 years and he is a “gamer guy”.
He is home with me by my side playing his Xbox, while always offering to make me a drink. He never goes drinking, football with the guys, he’s a lovely attentive partner, works very hard, a very good dad, who plays games with his kids. Lots of other hobbies and interests and yeh basically you’re wrong.
Mr brother is a gamer and is a great guy. I know loads of great men who are gamers and you are misinformed.