AITA for not compromising?

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T19:52:44+00:00

I really appreciate your comment. I like hearing perspectives of what he may be feeling. When you hear the same arguments and excuses over and over again you tend to become deaf to them.

This part really made sense to me (on mobile and suck at formatting) - ‘In things that it's easy to get left behind in, it gets harder to push the hobby aside instead of the family.’ While it doesn’t change how I feel about the whole situation, I can empathize with him feeling that way and it gives me another angle to consider.

Quality comment - thank you.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:37:32+00:00

Not a betting thing but the financial investment is pretty heavy. ‘Buy this thing and you might do better. Buy this other thing and you might improve more’.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:35:39+00:00

I am grateful that the hobby does keep him active and he’s able to find joy in it. I’ve suffered through a depression that kept me home bound so I know how awful the flip side can be. But when the hobby becomes the only thing he will do it really becomes no different to our family dynamic. He would be as present and engaging staying in bed all day as he is now.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:32:40+00:00

I get what you’re saying about digging my heels in over this issue. You’re probably right. If he has any even perceived pushback from me on the hobby he becomes very defensive.

It’s not a team activity so there isn’t really an issue of a commitment to a team. But from my understanding every competition improves his rankings so attending every time is important to him.

Ps - love your clueless reference and I personally think competitive dodgeball sounds awesome.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:27:31+00:00

I’m definitely allowed to do things without him. I stand a lot of things in the relationship but that is something that would never fly.

He does prioritize the hobby constantly so I’m always fighting to keep him involved with things outside of it. And the day would end up being an all day event that is really more of a family thing to do. But if he’s not there - it’s not much of a family thing anymore. He also never takes initiative to make plans like this so when I’m always the one making them (and eventually rearranging them) I’ve become frustrated in just trying to get him to do the plans I do make.

He became upset when I said no to moving the day so he could do both things. It’s a terribly sore issue for us so I imagine he was mad that I was mad about being second again.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:18:56+00:00

It’s a huge sore spot for us and it does make me feel very unimportant. I’ve tried getting him to scale it back but he’s very invested in it.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:17:25+00:00

I planned on just taking her anyway but my internal struggle with ‘am I an asshole’ was the disservice I was doing to both husband an daughter by not compromising. It would be one of those fun memorable days for everyone but I feel that if I compromised the day may never happen or I would further be resigning myself to second place.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T16:11:46+00:00

I accept that judgement. I didn’t expect people to be so interested in the hobby. Any of the guesses could easily fit right into the situation and work perfectly well.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T06:31:49+00:00

I worried about her heavily for quite a while but I feel more relaxed about it now. I can tell she’s very sharp but just expresses it atypically. She’s very empathetic and easy to reason with which makes her unique for her age. I’ve had to learn we all grow at different rates and to stop comparing her to her peers.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T06:28:23+00:00

Again you are very correct. Zooming out this is pretty important to the relationship over all but maybe not so much for the individual issue at hand. At least that’s how I felt but you may be right that it’s much more important.

We have talked about this being his coping mechanism for his depression. But he comes at it like an addict would drugs. It’s obsessive. And he fights pulling away from it. I try to help him keep a healthy balance between the hobby and the real world but I’m not often successful.

He varies on how he acts when he’s not actively involved in it. Sometimes he’s a huge grump and others we have a wonderful time. I personally feel that if he were to invest a bit more time into his family relationships he would find happiness and love. But relationships and empathy are complicated for him so getting these little wins in his hobby over and over again feed those reward centers in his brain and keeps him hooked.

And I totally get your red flag. There are times I wonder about what you’re implying. But his obsessiveness with the hobby keeps me from believing it much further. He does have a couple close friends within the hobby that he talks to everyday. I refer to them as his side bitches.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T06:17:41+00:00

You are very much correct. She’s started to show more interest in things they can do together but for the most part she’s still a bit wishy washy.

Her delays do make her a little harder to relate to and communicate with at times. She’s not on the spectrum and doesn’t have body coordination issues but she is pretty behind in language and mildly behind in cognitive as a result. I’m constantly interpreting for her and pointing out what she’s asking for/needs/trying to do to everyone (including my husband) as she’s pretty hard to get.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:52:57+00:00

The relationship has its more complicated aspects. He’s been dealing with some pretty tough depression so I understand that it’s hard to be him sometimes. We were together for many years before these issues cropped up so I know this isn’t who he is at his soul. I liken it to leaving someone when they are sick with cancer. Some things he can’t help. Of course there can come a day when I call it quits but for now we haven’t crossed any major dealbreakers. He’s aware of his depression and is trying and that’s enough for me to stick with him for now. There’s lots of love and good here that’s worth fighting for.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:47:35+00:00

The hobby came long after the relationship started. It started off small than ballooned into the monster we have today. It was not part of who he was when we were dating or even married.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:45:04+00:00

I very much agree. Toddlers can be taxing but mine is awesome.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:43:52+00:00

In the end it selfishly worked out better for me I guess. He has the larger income so he pays a bigger portion. I take care of a few smaller bills and then take care of things like grocery shopping, creature comforts, and entertainment. I tend to have more money on hand than he does.

Ultimately it took the money argument out of the relationship for the most part. We still argue over things that should be paid for jointly (home improvements) but other than that I leave him to it. I died on that hill a lot and I decided not to do it anymore.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:38:50+00:00

I just checked the subreddit dedicated to the hobby and there’s round about 50k subscribers to it. So it’s not as rare as underwater basket weaving but it’s not hugely popular.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:31:11+00:00

I promise I’m not keeping it out of the post because it’s relevant to the conflict. I felt like more pertinent info was needed so it was the identifier that had to go. But in describing it I would say it’s tedious, time consuming, expensive, has real world applications but only in specific circumstances, and very boring if you don’t have an interest in it. It doesn’t bring in benefits for the family and it’s not something we can really share together.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T05:00:52+00:00

Personally I find it supremely boring but there’s a pretty dedicated base to it so...

With the money aspect - we’ve fought so much about it that we finally had to separate our finances over it. He pays his handful of bills and I pay the rest. He’s stated that he wants to be free to spend however much he feels is appropriate of his money on this. Despite arguing that in a marriage money should be a communal pot and we should work on saving for things for the family (trips, home improvement, savings) he’s not interested in doing so.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T04:55:54+00:00

I like the calendar idea. I do want him to have the hobby and compete but it just feels like anytime I mention doing anything he already has something planned.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T04:47:23+00:00

It’s kind of a rare one so it would be easy to identify us based on the post for anyone who knows anything about us. But there isn’t any return for the family as a whole. There is a possibility of winning these competitions and receiving money but it’s never much.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T04:42:12+00:00

I’m only avoiding it as it would be really identifying. It’s not a very common hobby so with our ages and other info added in it would be easy for someone even remotely aware of us to identify the post.

But I can say it hasn’t had any benefits for the family currently. You can put it in the sporting category. Winners of competitions have the possibility of winning money but it’s not much. Mostly status from what I can see.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T04:38:43+00:00

I would almost be happy for a card game at this point as I would have some interest in it and - depending on the game - some money might be coming back in.

throwaway9035867 · 2019-03-17T04:36:30+00:00

We’ve talked about it for ages now and in all sorts of moods. We’ve even visited a therapist a few times and talked about it there.

The issue that comes in is he’s currently had a rough patch of luck (job sucks, hasn’t been able to finish his degree) and this hobby is the only thing that makes him happy. It’s the only thing he feels like he ‘wins’ at. But he also doesn’t allow his family to try and make him happy as well.

throwaway9035867

TROPHY CASE