am i overreacting bc my husband basically ignored me during the world cup game?

Question

ok so this is gonna sound petty but i need outside opinions lol. saturday was our anniversary (not a huge one, just 4 years, but still) and i planned this whole little dinner at home, candles the works. game was on in the background which i said was fine bc i know he loves soccer. but then it went into extra time and then penalties and he was literally glued to the tv, phone up recording the screen, yelling at one point, and i swear he answered me in like one word grunts for a solid 40 min while i was just sitting there eating alone basically.

i didnt say anything that night bc i didnt want to be "that" wife who cant let him enjoy a game, but it's been bugging me for days now. when i brought it up he said i was being dramatic bc it was literally the world cup and it only happens every 4 years and i "knew" what i was signing up for marrying a soccer guy. which like... ok fair but it was ALSO our anniversary dinner?

am i wrong for being hurt over this or is this just a normal marriage thing i need to get over. genuinely asking bc my friends are split on it lol

gentle_truths · Answer

you're not wrong for being hurt, and i don't think this is really about soccer. it's about sitting alone at your own anniversary dinner while the person across from you disappears into his phone. that's a lonely feeling no matter what's on the tv.

the question under this one though - did you actually get to tell him what the hurt was about, or did the conversation get stuck on 'was it reasonable to want to watch the game'? because those are two different arguments. he's defending the game. you're not even mad about the game, you're mad about feeling unseen on a night you planned with care.

next time, maybe name it that plainly - not 'you ignored the game rules,' but 'i missed you that night, and i wanted us to have it together.' that's harder to argue with than penalties and extra time.

earnest_jen · Answer

ok no you are not overreacting, and also he's not a monster, both things true at once lol. the world cup thing is real, extra time into penalties is genuinely a once every 4 years fluke of timing, i get why he got sucked in. BUT. you planned a whole anniversary dinner, candles and everything, and got 40 min of grunts in return. that's not about soccer being important, that's about you feeling like an afterthought on a night you tried hard for. those are two separate convos and i think they're getting mushed together when he says 'you knew what you signed up for' bc that's kind of a deflection, it dodges the actual hurt part. i'd go back to him not with 'you shouldnt have watched the game' but with 'i just needed to feel like a priority that night, can we redo it.' honestly a lot of couples just... reschedule the celebration when stuff like this collides. doesnt mean you're dramatic, means the timing sucked.

tired_priya · Answer

you're not wrong, and you're not being dramatic either. those are two different things and he's kind of blending them to get out of the harder conversation lol. two things can be true here: soccer only comes around every 4 years, AND your anniversary only comes around once a year, and you two picked THAT night to combine them. that's not on you, that's on the planning. penalty shootouts are objectively chaos, sure, but 40 minutes of one-word grunts while you're eating alone on your anniversary isn't "letting him enjoy a game," that's just being kind of absent as a partner for a chunk of a night that was supposed to be about you two.

the fix isn't "never watch soccer again," it's just naming it plainly: hey, i wasn't asking you to skip the game, i was hoping for even a little bit of us in there too. next time, plan around the schedule instead of hoping it works out. you're allowed to want both things honored.

am i overreacting bc my husband basically ignored me during the world cup game?

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