When to Discuss Contentious Issues With Your Spouse

[Patavium]

As always happens when someone allows their own personal complexes, insecurities or other projected issues to trump what the OP was actually asking about.

I thought we only saw this sort of stuff on the politics threads (which is why I avoid them.)

Best wishes and prayers to the OP and her husband. I’m out before we hear more helpful tips about electronic surveillance and the marital version of the PATRIOT Act.

and that someone is?

It is a reasonable problem to expect of a husband going to bed every day until very late at night doing something else besides work. In fact, it is common problem. Right now, a filer that he has access to is useless and wouldn’t offer objective evidence that this is not the problem.

 

[pensmama87]

and that someone is?

It is a reasonable problem to expect of a husband going to bed every day until very late at night doing something else besides work. In fact, it is common problem. Right now, a filer that he has access to is useless and wouldn’t offer objective evidence that this is not the problem.

I know my husband’s temperament, and after six years of marriage I have a pretty good idea of his temptations, weaknesses, and habitual sins. It may be unusual in this day and age, but sexual sin is not one of his vices.

I think bringing it up once in the thread was useful. Perhaps it was an possibility I had not considered. Now I would like you to let it drop, because I don’t think it applies in this case. For lurkers or other readers in the future, they will see your suggestion and be able to apply to their own situations. But the subject of this thread is not pornography, it’s family and marital quality time. Thank you.

 

[Patavium]

I know my husband’s temperament, and after six years of marriage I have a pretty good idea of his temptations, weaknesses, and habitual sins. It may be unusual in this day and age, but sexual sin is not one of his vices.

I think bringing it up once in the thread was useful. Perhaps it was an possibility I had not considered. Now I would like you to let it drop, because I don’t think it applies in this case. For lurkers or other readers in the future, they will see your suggestion and be able to apply to their own situations. But the subject of this thread is not pornography, it’s family and marital quality time. Thank you.

I let it drop. I simply did not appreciate the passive aggressiveness of some posters. It does show where the immaturity lies in this thread.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I’m looking for advice mostly from the longer-married couples here. I really want this discussion to go well and for my husband to hear me.

My husband is a huge sports fan. He loves the whole idea of competitive sport, the narrative of it, the manly macho sweat, blood, and tears of it, the achieving hard goals, he loves seeing nations play each other, the whole shebang. There isn’t a sport he doesn’t like, and with the media the way it is now, he has a lot of opportunity to watch things that weren’t available to see 10, 20 years ago. When we began dating, he was the same way, but most of his attention was focused on (American) football and the Olympics, with passing interest in his “home” teams for the other major sports (we’re in the US). That’s now expanded to include a lot of other things and (no exaggeration, I actually checked) he now spends an average of about 25 hours every week watching sports or engaging with other fans on social media about sports (he has a blog that he receives a little bit of ad revenue from every year, but it’s not significant).

I am going to state this clearly right here, because I don’t want it to be missed:** I think it is fine that he enjoys sports, and I have learned to appreciate them myself over the course of our relationship and marriage. ** However, I think the degree to which he immerses himself in this hobby is just not compatible long-term with our family life. I think he needs to pick a few priorities and stick with them, and then spend more time with us. I don’t expect him to fulfill all of my social needs, I just get tired of every evening all evening being sports and Twitter and blog writing, so long into the night that he has trouble…
So, I want to ask him to scale back. In terms of when during the day, I know not to discuss when we’re hungry, tired, or distracted. But the Olympics start tonight, which has always been a big love of his, and then training camp has started for the NFL, so that’s his other big thing too. I definitely think I should wait until after the Olympics are over. Watching that will be a family activity this year anyway. But then we have football season, which I always dread even though I like watching our home team. I think he thinks my expressed dislike for how long he’s away (he attends home games) and the increased time he spends on that is a running joke in our relationship (“haha, my wife says she’s a football widow”) but it actually really bugs me. Though, if he wasn’t so into all of the other stuff all the time, I suspect his love of football wouldn’t bother me so much.
.

Wow, this thread facinates me! Thanks for posting it.

I have several thoughts.
1). It’s gutsy to approach this right before football season. Like your husband I love sports. I love playing them and watching them. I love sports talk radio. I also love my family. In our house there are three things of upmost importance. (In order) faith, family, football.
2). Since I stay at home with the kids I am afforded more flexibility in my sports hobby. I can dvr stuff, I can watch a tennis tournament during the day etc. your husband is probably bound to “live” events which are usually prime time or weekends.
So, knowing that the Olympics and then football is coming up here are some things to think about.
3) is this a year round thing? Honestly, for the last 2-3 months the sporting world has been quiet. Talk show hosts local and national all take thier vacations now.

If this is a problem now, it might be an indicator that he is involved too much.
4). Pick something, (football) and show an interest and an encouragement as a family. Our family tv is tuned to hgtv in the offseason but my wife gratuitously knows that the tv will be all football all the time for a while. She kinda likes it and the kids get into it as well. It becomes a family event. We take the kids to a fall practice or the local high school game, then my wife and I have season tickets to our favorite team. It’s 6 nights a year and it includes tailgating with friends. For the away games we get our kids together with our friends kids 11 total. And we watch the game at thier house. It’s a family event not just a “me” event. We pause the game to say the rosary or plan a youth night… So while I don’t expect you to be involved and a full on face painter. You could involve the family more.
5. There is nothing and I mean nothing wrong with you taking to him about this and asking him to scale back. You may want to make sure you communicate that you are not “shutting it down” but rather need some family attention.
Date nights. (Tues or Wednesdays). . Also make sure Sunday really is centered of God and the family. That does not mean “no NFL” but it should not be the focal point of the day. DVR. Is your friend!
6). Its a new thing that fantasy leagues are the ultimate time suck with sports. Not only are they interactive but it encourages you to watch things you normally would not even care about. If he is into that too much you could ask that he limit it to one leage. That isvwhT I usually do.

This is probably the worst time to talk about it! But if you feel this way now, you probably need to address it. For everything you ask of him offer something else. “Hey can we have Friday nights be family night, that can clear up your Saturday for CFB.” Etc.

Sports can be a diversion fro work stress or even family stress and that can be healthy in small amounts.

However some of our best family moments happened with sports. Traveling to bowl games etc. I’m pretty sure the conception of my kids follows a big win…

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. If all else fails by a sexy cheerleading outfit and when the kids go to bed…

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Ps
Is love a link to your husbands blog!

 

[pensmama87]

Wow, this thread facinates me! Thanks for posting it.

I have several thoughts.
1). It’s gutsy to approach this right before football season. Like your husband I love sports. I love playing them and watching them. I love sports talk radio. I also love my family. In our house there are three things of upmost importance. (In order) faith, family, football.
2). Since I stay at home with the kids I am afforded more flexibility in my sports hobby. I can dvr stuff, I can watch a tennis tournament during the day etc. your husband is probably bound to “live” events which are usually prime time or weekends.
So, knowing that the Olympics and then football is coming up here are some things to think about.
3) is this a year round thing? Honestly, for the last 2-3 months the sporting world has been quiet. Talk show hosts local and national all take thier vacations now.

If this is a problem now, it might be an indicator that he is involved too much.

Baseball and Olympic qualifiers. Oh, and golf.

4). Pick something, (football) and show an interest and an encouragement as a family. Our family tv is tuned to hgtv in the offseason but my wife gratuitously knows that the tv will be all football all the time for a while. She kinda likes it and the kids get into it as well. It becomes a family event. We take the kids to a fall practice or the local high school game, then my wife and I have season tickets to our favorite team. It’s 6 nights a year and it includes tailgating with friends. For the away games we get our kids together with our friends kids 11 total. And we watch the game at thier house. It’s a family event not just a “me” event. We pause the game to say the rosary or plan a youth night… So while I don’t expect you to be involved and a full on face painter. You could involve the family more.

This is kind of what we do now. He goes to most/all of the home games with his dad. Away games are usually watched with his parents at their house. We have hosted a big Super Bowl party every year regardless of who’s in it. He took our oldest to a high school game last year and will take the two bigger boys this year again.

1. There is nothing and I mean nothing wrong with you taking to him about this and asking him to scale back. You may want to make sure you communicate that you are not “shutting it down” but rather need some family attention.
   Date nights. (Tues or Wednesdays). . Also make sure Sunday really is centered of God and the family. That does not mean “no NFL” but it should not be the focal point of the day. DVR. Is your friend!

I have tried to get him to DVR. For stuff he doesn’t care as much about (soccer, for instance), that’s fine, but for football, no way. Which of course is the time-suckiest sport with the most commercials and the least wholesome commercials (IMO).

6). Its a new thing that fantasy leagues are the ultimate time suck with sports. Not only are they interactive but it encourages you to watch things you normally would not even care about. If he is into that too much you could ask that he limit it to one leage. That isvwhT I usually do.

Oh, I loathe fantasy. Last year he did three leagues. None for money, thankfully, but he still spent a LOT of time on it. I think this year he’s only doing one (with some old college buddies) because even he thought it was too much.

This is probably the worst time to talk about it! But if you feel this way now, you probably need to address it. For everything you ask of him offer something else. “Hey can we have Friday nights be family night, that can clear up your Saturday for CFB.” Etc.

Sports can be a diversion fro work stress or even family stress and that can be healthy in small amounts.

However some of our best family moments happened with sports. Traveling to bowl games etc. I’m pretty sure the conception of my kids follows a big win…

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. If all else fails by a sexy cheerleading outfit and when the kids go to bed…

Haha! Yeah, I think it’s a fine recreational activity in small amounts. I never watched sports at all growing up (my dad is big into them, but he’s an angry sports fan and my mom cleared us out of the house whenever he was watching). DH is much more into a fun, crowd aspect of it when that’s there, but he also doesn’t need it. But it’s just too much, I think.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I’ve had this issue w/ my husband. Sundays were spent in front of the TV all day long and into the night watching sports.

Although it got so (with his competitiveness) that I didn’t want to watch a game with him.

If he team lost, he got very angry and his mood showed it.

We did discuss it and when HE NOTICED how his behavior changed, he changed.

Also,
We’re blessed to be a part of a marriage ministry, RETROUVAILLE. It has helped us in many ways - we can DIALOGUE with each other and by doing so, let each other know our FEELINGS … works great for us.

You don’t need to be in dire straits to attend a RETROUVAILLE weekend.

Check it out.

Do you mean Marriage Encounter? That’s the one that teaches the couples how to dialogue and listen with their hearts and minds.

Retrovaille is more for serious healing for marriages that have had difficult issues.

At least in my area that’s the way it is.

 

[Xantippe]

Right. I don’t need to invent additional issues. I have a feeling that I can bring this up gently and we can slowly rock to a place that is better for all of us and hopefully with DH getting more sleep. If he were to be inexplicably resistant, then maybe I would have reason to be concerned about that. But at present, I don’t think so.

I haven’t caught up with the thread, but yeah.

Sometimes a sports nut is just a sports nut.

 

[chevalier]

When to Discuss Contentious Issues With Your Spouse

Preferably after she puts the pan down, not before.

 

[Allegra]

I have a hard time understanding how anyone can have that much time on his hands. I presume he must be watching the sports while he’s doing other stuff, unless he’s discovered the secret to adding hours to the day. (And if he has, forget the blog and market that!) I can relate in that my husband is obsessed with his hobby too. It’s coins. You may ask, how could coins possibly take up a significant amount of a man’s time? It’s crazy, but I tell you the man spends HOURS every blessed day looking at coins either in real life or online. He watches videos about coins. Yes, they have those. Someone has made hours of videos on line about coins. Coins. You know how they say that it’s always suspicious when a toddler get’s quiet? When my husband get’s quiet, you can bet he’s got coins out. He takes up to ten minutes in the morning deciding which coins to carry around with him that day. If I look away from him for a minute, he’s either got a coin out or is looking at coins on his phone. He talks about the coins…CONSTANTLY! He hides them under the table at meal time. He sneaks peaks at them at work. He works at a bank, so it’s easy to hide. He actually forgoes sleep to stay up late and look at his coins. I don’t get it, but I’m just glad they don’t have coin TV shows or entire cable networks devoted to coins or I’d essentially be a widow. We’ve had multiple conversations about how rude it is in a social situation to ignore people in favor of staring at small metal disks. He admits this is true, but the coins are like his porn or his cocaine. As it stands, I just keep reminding him to respect our time together and trying to lure him back to our world with promises of good food and sex.

 

[PPeterson]

this is pretty common for people from Pittsburgh though right?

 

[Xantippe]

I** have a hard time understanding how anyone can have that much time on his hands. **I presume he must be watching the sports while he’s doing other stuff, unless he’s discovered the secret to adding hours to the day. (And if he has, forget the blog and market that!) I can relate in that my husband is obsessed with his hobby too. It’s coins. You may ask, how could coins possibly take up a significant amount of a man’s time? It’s crazy, but I tell you the man spends HOURS every blessed day looking at coins either in real life or online. He watches videos about coins. Yes, they have those. Someone has made hours of videos on line about coins. Coins. You know how they say that it’s always suspicious when a toddler get’s quiet? When my husband get’s quiet, you can bet he’s got coins out. He takes up to ten minutes in the morning deciding which coins to carry around with him that day. If I look away from him for a minute, he’s either got a coin out or is looking at coins on his phone. He talks about the coins…CONSTANTLY! He hides them under the table at meal time. He sneaks peaks at them at work. He works at a bank, so it’s easy to hide. He actually forgoes sleep to stay up late and look at his coins. I don’t get it, but I’m just glad they don’t have coin TV shows or entire cable networks devoted to coins or I’d essentially be a widow. We’ve had multiple conversations about how rude it is in a social situation to ignore people in favor of staring at small metal disks. He admits this is true, but the coins are like his porn or his cocaine. As it stands, I just keep reminding him to respect our time together and trying to lure him back to our world with promises of good food and sex.

If you totally deprioritize sleep, there are sooo many more hours available in the day!

 

[mommy_k]

I would ask your dh to start thinking about what sport your oldest little one can join, so he can have a little sports buddy.

He will transfer his love of sports to watching or perhaps coaching his little ones.

My dh is a huge huge sports fan, and started with the kids at a young age. It’s better then screen time and the kids learn so much.

He also has taken the kids beginning at a very young age to pro stadium games too. He still does this and it is good and healthy dad time.

 

[Xantippe]

I would ask your dh to start thinking about what sport your oldest little one can join, so he can have a little sports buddy.

He will transfer his love of sports to watching or perhaps coaching his little ones.

My dh is a huge huge sports fan, and started with the kids at a young age. It’s better then screen time and the kids learn so much.

He also has taken the kids beginning at a very young age to pro stadium games too. He still does this and it is good and healthy dad time.

Very nice!

 

[pensmama87]

this is pretty common for people from Pittsburgh though right?

Seriously, to some degree, yes. But even so, most Pittsburgh sports fans are “casual” fans. They root hard for their teams and they’ll talk football a lot especially among their friends and family, or when another topic doesn’t present itself. Most don’t spend hours crafting playoff scenarios and calculating stats for this or that, especially not for multiple sports including those which are played very little in the US at all (at least not at a high level with lots of media coverage).

After a few days of the Olympics, I know I’m going to have to say something. We had friends over yesterday for dinner. DH stayed up Saturday night until around 3am, then was in bed until 8:30 or so (having to read at Mass at 9). I spent all morning cooking and cleaning in prep for our visitors. I was able to go to Mass while the kids napped in the early afternoon, and DH had a couple things he was supposed to do. I came home and he was sleeping (which on any other Sunday would have been fine.) About then is when I got really, really mad. But I held it together and we got everything ready for our guests, and we had a nice time, and he did apologize after they left.

I didn’t bring anything up then except to tell him I appreciated that he noticed I had done almost all of the prep myself, and that he needs to ensure he goes to bed earlier. I had hinted earlier that while the Olympics are fun I’ll be glad when they are over and things calm down a little bit, and he was just so sad at the thought.

 

[PhiloMed]

Seriously, to some degree, yes. But even so, most Pittsburgh sports fans are “casual” fans. They root hard for their teams and they’ll talk football a lot especially among their friends and family, or when another topic doesn’t present itself. Most don’t spend hours crafting playoff scenarios and calculating stats for this or that, especially not for multiple sports including those which are played very little in the US at all (at least not at a high level with lots of media coverage).

After a few days of the Olympics, I know I’m going to have to say something. We had friends over yesterday for dinner. DH stayed up Saturday night until around 3am, then was in bed until 8:30 or so (having to read at Mass at 9). I spent all morning cooking and cleaning in prep for our visitors. I was able to go to Mass while the kids napped in the early afternoon, and DH had a couple things he was supposed to do. I came home and he was sleeping (which on any other Sunday would have been fine.) About then is when I got really, really mad. But I held it together and we got everything ready for our guests, and we had a nice time, and he did apologize after they left.

I didn’t bring anything up then except to tell him I appreciated that he noticed I had done almost all of the prep myself, and that he needs to ensure he goes to bed earlier. I had hinted earlier that while the Olympics are fun I’ll be glad when they are over and things calm down a little bit, and he was just so sad at the thought.

I think you’ve gotten lots of good advice. Trying to make the sports more of a family thing is always good. We have season football tickets and DH is going to bring our son (almost 4) to the first pre-season game this Friday evening.

We tried to make the opening ceremonies of the Olympics fun for the kids. We had my mom over for dinner and got pizza and wings. My son has recently gotten into recognizing the US flag so that was fun for him. We watch a little bit together in the evenings. We DVR’d most (all) of the olympics and then DH and I watch together. We are able to get through quite a bit of programming because we FF through the commercials and commentary.

Basketball season is the worst. Playoffs seem to go on forever and I really dislike basketball.

You and I have the opposite problem. I desperately want DH to get a real hobby. He enjoys sports, but he often will skip watching a game so that we can do something with the kids. That’s all very nice, but I wish he had his own “thing” to do sometimes.

 

[Aggie414]

With all due respect, is it necessary to go that far? Why harp on this issue when the OP isn’t really preoccupied about it?

A lot of men are “night owls”, especially given the fact that training and shift work sometimes accentuate that tendency. I know that’s what happened to me.

My own “owl time” involves such questionable activities as watching old cricket matches on YouTube (I’m a curmudgeon; the new matches are no good ), catching up on my Catholic self-education (RPR Junior tends to fold, spindle or mutilate book pages, so I have to do it after he sleeps), posting on CAF, and playing Chrono Cross (okay, not so much these days)

Of course, we do try to do other fun things during the evening and on weekends.

I’m really glad you posted this. To just automatically assume that the OP’s husband is doing something horribly wrong – in which the OP has stated several times she highly doubts it – and then to treat him as if he’s a kid – that just blows my mind. He’s an adult and is an equal to the marriage, not someone that the OP has to “monitor.” I just get real tired of people treating and talking about husbands as if they aren’t equally as important and worthy of respect. Okay. Off my soapbox.

 

[pensmama87]

I’m really glad you posted this. To just automatically assume that the OP’s husband is doing something horribly wrong – in which the OP has stated several times she highly doubts it – and then to treat him as if he’s a kid – that just blows my mind. He’s an adult and is an equal to the marriage, not someone that the OP has to “monitor.” I just get real tired of people treating and talking about husbands as if they aren’t equally as important and worthy of respect. Okay. Off my soapbox.

Thank you. My husband is very smart and passionate about his interests, and even so I catch myself every now and then thinking about him like the “sitcom buffoon dad.” He is not, and I need to be his wife and not his mother.

That said, the past four days have been…no bueno. Before I collapsed in exhaustion last night I did ask him to fold some laundry after I went to bed and he did, which was great. Only 12 more days…

(I know without a doubt it would not go well to say something now. He also has some added responsibilities at work this week because his supervisor is on vacation. This is a “grin and bear it” week. I will deal. If the floor doesn’t get swept and I let the kids watch a little extra TV and I don’t get some cuddle time because of DH’s late nights at work…we will still all survive.)

 

[Xantippe]

Thank you. My husband is very smart and passionate about his interests, and even so I catch myself every now and then thinking about him like the “sitcom buffoon dad.” He is not, and I need to be his wife and not his mother.

That said, the past four days have been…no bueno. Before I collapsed in exhaustion last night I did ask him to fold some laundry after I went to bed and he did, which was great. Only 12 more days…

(I know without a doubt it would not go well to say something now. He also has some added responsibilities at work this week because his supervisor is on vacation. This is a “grin and bear it” week. I will deal. If the floor doesn’t get swept and I let the kids watch a little extra TV and I don’t get some cuddle time because of DH’s late nights at work…we will still all survive.)

Yes!

But you won’t live in Olympics mode forever…

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Thank you. My husband is very smart and passionate about his interests, and even so I catch myself every now and then thinking about him like the “sitcom buffoon dad.” He is not, and I need to be his wife and not his mother.

That said, the past four days have been…no bueno. Before I collapsed in exhaustion last night I did ask him to fold some laundry after I went to bed and he did, which was great. Only 12 more days…

(I know without a doubt it would not go well to say something now. He also has some added responsibilities at work this week because his supervisor is on vacation. This is a “grin and bear it” week. I will deal. If the floor doesn’t get swept and I let the kids watch a little extra TV and I don’t get some cuddle time because of DH’s late nights at work…we will still all survive.)

Hang in there. I know our house has been Olympic headquarters for a while now. We watch, the go to the pool or park to try out what we learned. My 9 year old after watching for two days has perfected a nice kick turn in the pool. Not to mention that I almost completed a perfect dismount on the monkey bars.. The plus for you is that the opening preseason NFL game was canceled because, well, the Midwest is third world territory.

Your husband is a Tallented writer and is boardering on professional skills in humorous journalism. ( please don’t show him this post if you don’t want to encourage him)
However I can tell the time it must take him to watch, analyze, and post about all the subjects is not something a working family man could conjure up.
My own first impression without knowing too much is that he is incredibly smart and passionate about this (sports) hobby. It may be a little too much.

I love sports, especially football, but I have to wonder if his passion and skill could not better serve the world in other ways. A blog that well done about our faith or fatherhood or politics would be culture changing.

Sports can be a mirror to life and faith or an escape from the world. Rarely is it both.
Perhaps you can gently start asking some introspective questions of him and guide the conversation that way.

I know that you took a risk posting about your husband on here. I agree with you that this, while annoying, is not a huge issue in your marriage. Too many can jump to conclusions to make this a bigger issue than it is. You just wanted suggestions on how to diplomatically approach the subject.

My wife learns all these negotiating tools at work, then she comes home and try’s them on me. I can see through her like a window. One thing she does recently is compliment me at the beginning and end of a conversation then sandwiches the real issue in the middle…
She also offers something I enjoy.

I smile and tell her her witchcraft she learned at some business symposium doesn’t work on me. And to keep work at work.

But it does work as I find myself doing exactly what she wants like a trained rat.

Perhaps some good negotiating books or business talks might help you…