Sports Widowhood
Sports Widowhood
Living with a Sports Zombie
Some succumb on golf courses. Others meet their demise at bowling alleys. Many more give up the ghost in front of televisions while Sunday-night football blares over the airwaves.
Suddenly, men we've come to know and love show no signs of life--at least no signs of intelligent life. Transfixed by one sporting event or another, they turn into sports zombies, and, in so doing, turn us into sports widows.
Of course, women sometimes turn men into sports widowers, too. But that's less common, says Shirley Glass, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and marital therapist in the Baltimore area.
"Men get a lot of vicarious enjoyment from watching competitive sports," says Dr. Glass. "Most men are more nostalgic and sentimental about playing and watching sports than women are."
Men are vulnerable to sports zombification for yet another reason. For some, the ball field, or game of the week, is a natural venue for spending time with male friends.
"Watching or playing sports can be one of the few ways men maintain their friendships with other men," explains Dr. Glass. "Men are more activity-oriented in their companionship and tend to relate to each other side by side--sitting side by side watching TV or standing side by side fishing--while women tend to relate to each other face to face."
POUTING WON'T HELP
If your guy's vital signs flat-line on the field or in front of the television set, here's what women doctors advise.
Try it. Striking the right balance between time apart and time with a sports zombie is easier if you like sports. If you can enjoy the occasional baseball game, the World Series is that much easier on your relationship.
Give his consuming passion a try, says Diana Adile Kirschner, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania. When her husband started training for a triathlon, she decided to start exercising more as well. They ran and biked together. Though an injury tempered his interest, hers is still going strong.
Of course, it helps if your zombie gives sports that interest you a try. You're a tennis devotee? He might become one, too.
What Women Doctors Do Tennis, Anyone? Shirley Glass, Ph.D. Like a lot of women married to golf enthusiasts, Shirley Glass, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and marital therapist in the Baltimore area, used to find her husband's twice-weekly golf games galling. And accompanying him to baseball games didn't thrill her. Eventually, she tried a different approach. "I don't enjoy playing golf, but I do enjoy playing tennis, reading or going out with friends," says Dr. Glass. "So while he plays 18 holes, that's what I do. "I even go to Baltimore Orioles games with my husband, as long as I have someone else to talk to," she adds.
If you wish for more shared activities with the man in your life and he resists, or you've talked it out and the situation isn't improving, you may need to see a professional trained in counseling couples, says Dr. Glass.
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Generate interest. If you can't get interested in the complexities of the game he loves, maybe you can get interested in the personalities.
"Read the sports page and get to know who the players are," Dr. Glass says. "Women are more relationally oriented. If you know stories about the players, you're likely to be more interested."
One woman dealt with her husband's die-hard enthusiasm for the New England Patriots by taking an interest in the coaching style of Bill Parcells and how he handled the team's promising star quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, idolized by her mate. As a new manager herself, the woman was interested in finding out more about how Parcells's coaching style translated into results on the football field.
Similarly, if you know he's competitive, pick a rival team and follow its performance. It's worth the effort just to see his reaction when you report on their relative standings.
Enjoy your time alone. Do whatever interests you while your partner indulges his yen for sports, suggest Dr. Glass and Irene Deitch, Ph.D., a psychologist, marriage and family therapist and professor of psychology at the College of Staten Island in New York.
"The notion of a woman being helpless at the hands of the man who has to devote all his time to making her happy is a sexist concept," says Dr. Deitch, who finishes The New York Times while her husband watches sports. "We want to move away from a 'dependency notion' to an empowering concept."
Air your grievances. If his sports appetite is so voracious that there's negligible time left for fun together, you need to talk, says Dr. Kirschner.
"If you feel hurt, the danger is that you'll allow yourself to drift away in a sea of resentment until there's real distance between you," she says.
Negotiate for equal (or nearly equal) time. "The ideal thing is to try to create a contract with your partner," Dr. Kirschner says. "You might say, 'I'm willing to support your watching this or playing that, but in return, I want you to do something for me.'" You could agree to make snacks for him and his buddies while they watch the Sunday night game, if he, in turn, agrees to cook you a special dinner Saturday night. Or, you might decide to spend every other Sunday doing something together and allow him the remaining Sundays with the Dallas Cowboys.