Participating in your SOs activities which you don't enjoy

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s the example:

My wife sings in a chorus. Before Christmas, they sang the Messiah. Today they are singing Mozart’s Requiem. I am thrilled that she enjoys participating in this activity, but personally, I DETEST this type of music. In the past, I’ve attended her performances. Doing so, is simply enduring until it is over.

So today, I decided not to attend today’s performance. Suffice it to say, she was not pleased.

So, any others in a similar situation? what do you do?

If I enjoyed a hobby that my wife did not enjoy, and we had competitions or performances, I wouldn’t WANT her to go if she didn’t get enjoyment out of the activity.

2

My only participation in my wife’s crazy animal empire is to occasionally dispose of a carcass.

3

My ex-wife was involved in competition country western dance.

She tried to teach me and failed horribly.

We took a bunch of classes, some to better benefit than others.

The classes taught me I had way more fun dancing with other beginners than with someone expecting semi-pro level precision and adherence to required stylistic components. Needless to say, this didn’t help.

4

I’d distinguish between watching my spouse perform and actually participating.

I’d rather not participate in something I don’t care for (assuming I gave it a shot if it’s important to my spouse), but watching my spouse do something they love? Absolutely, anytime. I don’t care if it’s not my taste, I’d be delighted to be there, cheering them on.

That’s not “participating”, in my opinion.

5

I tried for years to get my wife to participate in outdoor activities which I enjoy, such as skiing, bicycling, etc. She oftentimes was miserable and complaining, which made me miserable. I am fortunate to have her, tho, because I still like to do those things, but I also allow her to pass on them now, and as long as she’s OK with me going alone, or with others (and she is), all is good. I brought those things into the relationship years ago, so that came with the territory.

We are past the point where we feel like we need to do everything together. If she wanted to do something I don’t like, it should not be a problem with me passing on the occasion, and I certainly would encourage her to go. There are other things we both enjoy doing together, so we focus on that now.

6

My husband doesn’t pressure me into being an unwilling spectator for his activities (and I don’t pressure him), but a few considerations would factor into deciding to go or not:

  1. How much time would I be sacrificing and how often? An hour once a month? Or two hours once a week?

  2. How important is it to my spouse? Is it a “would be nice if you came” thing, or is it more like you not refusing to come will be taken as an indication you are not emotionally invested in their feelings.

  3. How much of a pain is the activity, really? There’s a difference between outright hating something and merely being unimpressed by it.

Anecdote time: years ago, I briefly dated a guy who was really,really into bowling. I mean, he took that shit seriously; played in tournaments and stuff.

Bowling bores me to tears. I simply can’t see how it is satisfying game. It’s just the same thing over and over again. How can something so repetitive be anything except boring? Maybe if I were bowling with friends or close family who didn’t take it seriously and were mainly there to hang out and act goofy, it wouldn’t be so bad. But going to a bowling alley just to watch people repeatedly hurl balls across the floor? And watching these people actually giving damn about the score board and everything? I just can’t.

Nothing made this guy happier than me going to the bowling alley to watch him play. Even after I told him that bowling wasn’t really my thing, he still made it obvious he expected my company sometimes when he bowled. This expectation made me resentful. He didn’t seem to care that what he was really asking me to do give up hours of my weekend leisure time, doing something that was not fun for me. In fact, he took pleasure in me hating it and yet puting that aside to be with him. He saw this as a sacrifice done in the name of love.

I broke up with him eventually. Although this was not the primary reason, this issue did make clear to me, that among a great many other things, our love languages was a major difference between us.

7

What a silly question. Of course, my spouse likes to do everything I like to do and he has no interests of his own. Pshaw! What’s the problem? :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously, he’s into photography but doesn’t really involve me other than providing me with pretty artwork to put on the walls and spending an inordinate amount of time on the computer processing his photos. I love backpacking and cycling and over the years, he’s come to love it as well.

He still doesn’t like to run with me, but at least he tries because he knows it’s good for his health. We’ve both come to accept that our paces will never be the same and when I want a better workout, I just run ahead.

8

My wife used to do belly dancing. Not the shakey-shakey Shakira stuff but “tribal” which is much slower and a style that I’ve described as “women slowly walking in a circle” (my wife laughed because I wasn’t really wrong). Now there’s professional dancers who can do a lot with the style but these were not professional dancers in choreography or skill.

When she would actually perform though, I went along and watched. I didn’t begrudge her my presence and legitimately liked the bits she was performing in since it was her and I knew she worked at it and it was important to her. The rest of it I was usually bored senseless and fought the urge to just stare at my phone. It’s like school plays – you suck it up for a few hours because it’s important to them.

9

Yeah, she plays World of Warcraft, and although I’ve played it and tried to get into it, it’s just not for me. I’m very much a single player, go at your own pace kind of guy. She is in a guild and they raid twice a week. When she is not raiding she is leveling up various skills for some of her characters and doing daily quests. Whenever I have a lull in my own gaming (signified by aimlessly browsing the PlayStation store on the PS4 or flittering away small sums of money on the Steam store) she urges me to try WoW again, saying that I didn’t give it enough of a chance to start with. No, I’m not trying again, it just didn’t grab me. From a single player perspective I didn’t like seeing all of the other player characters wandering around the place, in some situations queuing up to do a quest, and from a multiplayer perspective I don’t really like feeling that my performance counts and that other people need me to be good at the game. So WoW is just her thing and I am quite happy with that.

On the flip side we both cycle but I have recently become more into mountain biking than road cycling and would really like her to do more of it with me, but she just doesn’t have the same passion for it that I do, and she has a different sense of risk to me. Because she does it infrequently she never really improves, and in some ways has gone backwards, which means her enjoyment of it is hampered. She does enjoy it, but she needs flowing trails with minimal technical challenge and we just don’t have much of that where we live (well we do, but they are flowing trails with minimal technical challenge for me, not for her). I’ve come to accept that we are wired a bit differently.

10

Back in the day, it was skiing and scuba diving. He loves skiing, which he does with a reckless abandon that I cannot emulate. I improved a lot during our relationship, to the point where I could get down black diamonds, but I am a careful, restrained skier. I do NOT fall down. He careens about, screams down the slope, and falls regularly, hops back up and keeps going. Skiing is ok IMO. I might never go again if he doesn’t take me.

Scuba is awesome. I love it. He does it because I love it. He occasionally has panic attacks and worries about sharks. I find the whole experience wonderful. He might never go again if I don’t take him.

High level, I am glad he has broadened my experiences. I have gotten a little bit more willing to tell him to just go ahead and do that “thing”, whatever it may be, without me.

11

SWMBO is Catholic. I am agnostic. I try to avoid church crap as much as I can, but occasionally she drags me into it. The last time, I said flat out no. She was not happy.

12

Fair’s fair. Would she be willing to watch you when you are circle dancing?

13

I generally don’t, but I make it clear from the beginning that “this isn’t us time, it’s you and me time, go have fun!”

I’ve done things such as attend concerts where I didn’t like the music at all, but I still could take place in the time-honored sport of people-watching, enjoy our friends’ company, babysit the kids if any (some of our friends had toddlers), and cerebrally dissect the show (scenography, technique, etc.). There, the hard part was convincing the boyfriend that I was, in fact, enjoying myself, I just will not be caught dead in a mosh pit.

14

Oh My God. I just realized how wrong I was about this. I fund the entire phony operation, have to do countless runs to the feed yard for hay and chicken scratch, and whenever she says, *“I need this spotted Unicorn for a breeding experiment! He’s in Missouri!”
*
Guess who the asshole is who has to drive out there in a fucking snowstorm (and pony up the cash)?

And they wonder why I drink…

15

Hey! I want a unicorn! (Or a pony - I’ll take a pony…)

16

How about I saw one horn off a Whiltshire Sheep and lie to you like a motherfucker?

No deposits refunded!

17

My wife is very very musical. We used to go to about 50 concerts a year; we are now down to about 30. I can’t say I don’t like classical music, but I like it as background (CBC used to be a good source of it, but they have been dumbed down for most of the day), but I clearly don’t respond to music in the same way she does and, left to myself, would not go to concerts. When I hear her discuss details of concerts with fellow affcianodos, I realize she is hearing something very different from me. Still I accompany her and mostly my mind wanders to other thoughts than the music.

18

I understand where you’re coming from, Dinsdale. My wife has musical interests which I do not share, and performs frequently at church and elsewhere.

But fortunately the Mrs. has come to recognize that I do not share her passion for making music, nor listening to it. So she lets me off the hook 90% of the time. And when she does truly wish for me to be present for a performance, she tells me so, clearly and directly. And I make the sacrifice on those occasions and attend.

We enjoy doing a lot of things together, but we both acknowledge that the other has interests that are definitely not reciprocated. And make sure to give each other space.

Yes, I am a very, VERY lucky man.

19

My husband loves cars and motorcycles. I consider a car a tool to get me where I need to go on my terms. I absolutely hate motorcycles. I used to ride with him, but I was never comfortable, I don’t trust cars when we’re on the bike, I don’t like the noise, I don’t like the smells, I don’t like anything about riding. I really tried because he loves it so much, but I the only thing I liked was when it was over.

So he modified his bike without a passenger seat, and I’d go to his Harley gatherings in the car. Even those got old, with everyone trying to convince me how great riding is. No, it’s not. Not for me. And frankly, far too many of the club members are right-wing plastic patriots and just being around them is unpleasant. It’s probably evil of me, but this last year when he’s been recovering from 3 spinal surgeries and hasn’t ridden, I’ve been so relieved…

Just this weekend, we went to a car show. I can’t blame him for the weather - doggone it was hot!!! I did enjoy seeing some of the cars - never heard of a Ford Vicky, but I saw 3 of them!! And a bunch of Studebakers, too. It was fun walking around with him, despite the heat and humidity, but if I never had to go to a car show again, I wouldn’t cry.

He, on the other hand, hates Doper-related functions. As a result, I don’t participate in nearly as many as I would like, and on the rare occasions that I do, he usually doesn’t accompany me. I also don’t plan to attend arts and crafts shows as much as I might like to, since I know they bore him. I like to go on cruises, and he’s not so thrilled, so when we do go, I make sure we pick activities I know he’ll like and I don’t force him to take ballroom dancing lessons with me.

At least we’re not like one couple in our family who literally take separate vacations.

20

I’ve been playing soccer games bi-weekly for years and years. My wife has attended only 2 of them ever, and walked the dog for most of it.

I’m not in the slightest bit offended and am baffled by people who selfishly expect SOs or friends to endure their own activities.