Not competitive

Rambosmum

Thank you for all your responses.

I've done nothing but think about it since he started it earlier this week.

To answer some questions:

I'm the main wage earner, the main cleaner and general household manager, it has always been this way but our wages are very similar and sometimes he earns more than me, sometimes vice versa.

Last year he put me through a masters, and this year I'm putting him through one.

We are both 31, so not kids and we don't have any children (though we do have 3 cats). We own our own home but don't have any financial difficulties.

He can't see things from other people's point of view, he never could. He finds emotions difficult to comprehend generally. If he wouldn't be upset by something he can't see why others would be, though he is now learning to respect others feelings even if he doesn't agree with them.

Some friends and his family won't play scrabble or monopoly with him (games we don't generally play anyway) as he is too competitive.

I can often be accused of not trying when I am, usually on physical things, just because I am so bad at it. But I always have been, despite years of ballet, gymnastics and cheerleading. I extremely poor coordination. I am also not strategic, so when I play board games, I play my own game, I'm usually not really considering what other players may or may not do to further their game unless it is really obvious, because I just don't think like that. I am however quite intelligent and I also have great general knowledge.

I hate to think that I might be ruining other people's experience of things we do together and it has made me not want to do those things. I really enjoy the things we do as a group but I enjoy them more for the social aspect than for the competition of what ever we do and he's made me feel like that isn't good enough. I like doing things with him, I enjoy trying new things.

As someone else said, there's loads I love doing but would hate to do competitively.

I think he is really stressed with uni and his gran is also really ill and I think it's just hitting him. Maybe I just need to give him some slack and not take it personally and see if he feels the same once he isn't as stressed and take it from there.

Georgiegirl256

Seeing this from your husbands POV, it can be exasperating when people approach things with no get up and go and have a defeatist attitude from he get go. Maybe that is how you are coming across to him?

My feeling on the subject is if you are going to give something a go, then don't go into it with an attitude that you are going to fail before you've even started. My husband can be abit like that sometimes and it can be really annoying sometimes.

Board games for example are competitive by their very nature. What's the point in playing if you are not playing to win? The whole competitive thing only becomes a problem when people take it to extremes and become sore losers. If I'm playing say trivial pursuit (or our latest thing....darts!) then I play to win, otherwise what's the point in even playing? Just my opinion on it.

I would have been annoyed too if you'd have backed out of a planned evening to do "stuff" round the house.

Maybe you come across as defeatist and having abit of a 'meh' attitude and after years of being like that your husband has just snapped because it's starting to drag him down. Obviously I don't know you and how you come across, just an alternative POV to maybe think about?

Errata

If he's taking out his stress about his gran and uni, just treat his whingeing as noise on the line. Or point out to him you can beat him hands down in the running and managing a home department.
Although this is worrying "He can't see things from other people's point of view, he never could. He finds emotions difficult to comprehend generally. If he wouldn't be upset by something he can't see why others would be"

Fen1

I'm just wodering about what motivates your OH. Is he goal-oriented? Does he get a 'high' from winning ( whether it's intellectual from a boardgame or physical from climbing )? Does he crave these endorphin / testosterone feedbacks? Does everything he does have to have a 'reward'? Is it that he likes to feel superior to those around him? Does his lack of empathy have Asperger tendancies?

FBaby

How did this just come to head recently? I find this very odd. I'm with your OH in that I am naturally competitive and I admire people who push their limits so am attracted to similar minded people and find those who are not into challenging themselves frustrating.

However, that doesn't make my ways right and yours wrong in anyway. What I don't understand is why, if your husband is naturally competitive, yours being the exact opposite has never been an issue for him until now.

paddyrg

There may be a gender/hormonal element to this. Men do have a more 'hunt the gazelle' attitude, women a more 'gather the berries and tend the hearth' one (broadly, very broadly speaking).

I'm sure there are things you enjoy that he doesn't understand - do you watch the soaps, for instance? Sew? Find something he doesn't understand or really care about and point out how similar it is for you with being competitive.

penguinlegs

OP -I can totally identify with your situation. It is almost like you are describing my previous boyfriend. He was fiercely competitive and so were his parents and sister, whereas my family are nothing like this. If we went ten pin bowling as a family, it would usually end in a row because one team had not tried hard enough and I would get told off because I had gone into the gutter or been in the loo or talking to my family when it was my turn. A snooker or pool game in the pub on a Friday would mean I had to sit quietly so he could concentrate. If we went on a quiz machine (this was the 90's and these things were the new craze), if one of our group got a question wrong he would sulk for ages. I don't have a competitive bone in my body and games are for fun for me, and would constantly get told to try harder or 'don't let me down'. He was also a chess player that if he lost a game he'd look like he was due a seizure.


After I left, I met my husband who could not be more different, though he is also a chess player, if he loses, his attitude is 'well I tried, didn't work, maybe next time.' He accepts that I and our children are never going to care two hoots if we win or lose and just enjoy the taking part. Oh and I also go to zumba every week. I have two left feet and am always going the wrong way/causing a pile up on the line. My instructor laughs with me and says I am freestyling! Take care x

Mojisola

Rambosmum wrote: »

He brought this up as an issue a few years ago as 'I don't try hard enough'

He then went back to the board games, about how I just give up, I don't even try and win and how it's rubbish for anyone playing with me and I ruin it for everyone.

Rambosmum wrote: »

Some friends and his family won't play scrabble or monopoly with him (games we don't generally play anyway) as he is too competitive.

Pot, kettle, black!:rotfl:

Does it bother him that his competitiveness has spoilt other people's enjoyment of some games?

TBagpuss

He can't see things from other people's point of view, he never could. He finds emotions difficult to comprehend generally. If he wouldn't be upset by something he can't see why others would be, though he is now learning to respect others feelings even if he doesn't agree with them.

based on the new information, and this and the stresses he has at present, it sounds as though it might be helpful to try to find a moment when neither of you is too stressed and talk to him, perhaps reminding him that it's important to you that he works on remembering that you and he can enjoy the same things in different ways, and that you (and your other friends) can have fun without having to win/succeed in the way he does.

His being stressed is not an excuse for him to lash out at you, but it may be the reason why this has happened now - and it may be that putting that together for him might be helpful, as a lead in to talking about what might help him to deal with his stress in a way which doesn't hurt you.

In relation to your question - it would not spoil my enjoyment to have someone playing games who was not going all-out to win, but I think this may depend to some extent both on the nature of the games (tactical games are more fun if the other players present a real challenge) and the nature of the group. If *everyone* else is very focused on winning then having one person who is not trying very hard, or who is not thinking much about the game may be frustrating, on the other hand, if the group as a whole is more relaxed, then you can all still have fun. - is the meet up primarily to meet up, with games as the excuse, or is gaming the main focus, and the fact that you get to spend time together merely a bonus?

LannieDuck

It's only a small part of your post, but I wondered if you might enjoy cooperative board games? (Where you play as a group against the board, or as a group against one person), e.g. Arkham Horror, Fury of Dracula, Battlestar Galactica, Last Night on Earth.

Or just a less traditional game, e.g. Dominion, where you build your hands individually. At the end someone wins, but the fun is in building your deck.