How can I stop his football obsession ruining our relationship?

[c4clarabell]

Hi,
I really need some advice as I am at my wits end with my boyfriend and his obsession with football.
We have been together 2.5 years and have a 6 month old daughter. I have a 4 year old son from a previous relationship and he has an 11 year old son too who stays with us most weekends.
For the most part he is a lovely guy. He is a brilliant dad and the kids adore him but the minute football season starts my life is a misery.
The minute he steps through the door after work during the week (about 7pm) the football goes on and I'm lucky to get 2 words out of him. while the football is on the telly, he is also playing fantasy football on the laptop and texting his friends about how the match is going, tactics etc.He will watch football or football commentary until it finishes at about 10 then play fifa on his games console until 1.30 in the morning. This is normally about 3 nights a week Monday to Friday.
He will usually pick his son up on Friday night so I go up to bed at 9 to give them some time together (playing fifa). After his son goes to bed at 10 he will continue playing again until the early hours.
His son is football mad too and plays for a team both Saturdays and Sundays which, with travel to and from the games, takes about 4 hours out of each day of our weekend.
When they come back theywill happily watch 3 football matches back to back. It is literally on from the minute i wake up until i go back to bed.
When we first got together he told me he did like football but that it wasnt the be all and end all, which I was glad about because I HATE it!
Since then, he got into fifa and had sports channels added and things have got progressively worse.
I have tried telling him how miserable it is making me. Some weekends I dont even want to go home and have to find things to do away from the house because I cant stand being around it. His attitude to this is that he doesnt drink, smoke, do drugs etc so I should stop giving him a hard time.
I have asked him to comprimise and suggested that i would not complain about it being on throughout the week or a Saturday if we could have a football free day on Sunday (bar his sons training) and keep the rest of the day as family time. He wouldnt agree to this as says Sundays are when most of the games are on and recording it isnt the same. I asked himto suggest a comprimise but his reply to that is that he just wouldnt watch as much, which through countless arguments and past experience ,I know will not happen.
I have gotten to the point now where I am so miserable about it I have removed the sports channels from our tv package. They will be off in 30 days. I do think he may leave if this is the case as he says i am trying to control him and he wont put up with it.
Idont want him to leave but I can not live like this anymore. Am I being unreasonable? I Just don't know what to do :-

[woofgang]

It doesn't matter what we think about reasonable or unreasonable. If you think its a dealbreaker its a dealbreaker. From what you say,I would be worried by his seeming inability to take your concerns seriously but you can't control him, he has to choose to spend more time with you and it sounds like he doesn't want to.........

[sherminator]

Have to say going behind his back is not the way to do things. That is going to lead to proper arguments and not the adult way to do things.
I would confront him head on rather than going behind his back with childish acts to get his attention.

[Graham-W]

Bill Shankly, on being asked if football was, to him, a matter of life or death, said, "No, It's much more important than that".
I'm afraid a lot of football fans feel the same way and you are unlikely to change them.

[starone]

I remember winning £10 once for my answer to just this same question in a magazine. My answer was bounce the television off his thick head, then throw him out and get another man. There are plenty of them out there and even some who do not like football.

[ummmm]

OMG...really? Find something important to be miserable about.

[tonyav]

Bloody hell, your a harsh woman, Star. lol

[Mamyalynne]

You won't change him, it is who he is.

[ummmm]

c4 - wait until your 4 year old is hooked...

[EvianBaby]

If you can't beat them, join them.

[factor-fiction]

I expect there are quite a few of us on AB who are now wondering whether their wife/partner has posted this.

You need to decide whether you are prepared to tell him to put up without the channel or leave or whether you would rather keep the channel and try to agree a compromise

[starone]

I know, tony, but you have to face facts and the fact here is this relationship is not going to work. Accept it and move on.

[ummmm]

//I know, tony, but you have to face facts and the fact here is this relationship is not going to work. Accept it and move on.//

They have a 6 month old baby!!!

[Old_Geezer]

I think you have already tried the most likely solution.

If you have relationship problems the best option is usually to discuss them with your partner. Try to find some compromise (although not to bring the same thing up in the hope of ratcheting someone's behaviour to where you think it should be).

You say you have tried this and it has not been successful from your point of view.

At which point then you have an opportunity to make a decision. Clearly you've made a non-optimal life decision in the past, perhaps assuming you can change someone to how you think they should be, and are now realising that wasn't wise.

So do you decide you have made your bed and need to lie in it, or do you decide to break up and start afresh ?

It seems to me that if he is great in other ways it isn't worth making too much fuss of the fact that you don't get the attention you think you should. But that is a personal decision. Maybe you need to accept things are not perfect and a football obsession is fairly small fry up to what can cause problems.

Maybe not the answer you were looking for but since you say he is fine in other respects tolerating the one part you would rather wasn't so, seems best to me.

[Kiki-frog]

If your man is football-obsessed, then that's the way he is and that isn't going to change.

Your suggestion for a compromise didn't work as he sees Sunday as the main day for football. So why not think of another way of compromising. Why not take your little girl out for the day on Sundays and leave the boys to enjoy their footie and fend for themselves for food. He wants Sunday to do what he wants, so let him take responsibility for it.

And then suggest that you have, say, three week nights and Saturday nights as family time with no football. Even better if you can make one of these evenings a 'date' evening - get a baby sitter, go out together and rekindle romance.

But if he isn't prepared to compromise at all, then you have a choice to make - put up with it or move on.

[cazzz1975]

you will never get what you want, if you ban him from football you will have a unhappy and resentful person who will not be a lot of fun to live with. like mamya says you wont change him, he is who he is.

[ummmm]

And men can still have a conversation and watch football at the same time. Just means they don't look in your eyes ...

[Kiki-frog]

ummmm - mine certainly can't. Our conversations tend to go:

Me: Shall I get you anything from the shops?
OH: What? Oh, er, get in, get in, get in, gnaaarrrgh, you stupid ****!!! What did you say? Oh for god's sake, ref!!!

[lcg]

dump him....he sounds like a completely selfish moron who would rather look at a goggle box than spend time with you. you have let this go on for far too long and he has got firmly into a routine now. time to put up....or put him out (the front door, that is). i wouldn't put up with that in a relationship....and i like football!!!

[tonyav]

Hang on hang on ummmm, are you admitting that men can multi task.

[ummmm]

My convos tend to be 'you bitch, I missed the fecking goal'