ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy

Updated on August 27, 2018
VVanNess profile image

Victoria is a stay-at-home mom, author, educator, and blogger at Healthy at Home. She currently lives in Colorado with her family.

How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy
How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy | Source

So, it’s a weekend afternoon at the end of summer, and, like so many American women, your significant other is glued to his favorite armchair, transfixed by the spectacle of men in shoulder pads crashing into each other at high speed and throwing a ball.

During every commercial break, he may spend the whole time on his smartphone just to check on his fantasy team. And all you can ask yourself is “Why is this so important to him?”

Well, I may be able to shed a little light on the situation, having a stereotypical football-loving American male at home myself. While he certainly does enjoy football, he’s also sensitive to the feelings of those of us in this country that couldn’t care less about it, or any other sport.

Both male and female individuals across the country, often find spouses, friends, and family members too occupied to do anything with them simply because they must watch an inconsequential event on TV at all costs, and they just can’t understand why.

But fear not, because I have some advice on how to come to more of an understanding during football season.

Quick Poll

Are you a football fan? Is your wife a football fan?

See results

Give It a Try!

I have some bad news. You can’t make your man stop loving football if that’s something he loves. All it’s going to do is put stress on your relationship by making him resent you for being too controlling if you nag and complain.

So, instead of trying to fight back against football season by interfering with his ability to watch, try doing a 360 degree turn and getting behind his passion, too.

If you don’t understand a single thing about football, you might sit down with him and watch one game. Maybe you can ask him to explain some of what is going on as you watch. Odds are he’ll be more than happy to oblige, because there is a break in the action for him to explain after every play.

As crazy as it sounds, if you can come to understand the basic concept of how football works, you might just find that it’s a little fun to watch. Remember that at one time in his life, he didn’t understand how football worked either.

The key to appreciating any sport is watching it until you can understand what is happening. So, to sum it all up, if you can’t lick ‘em, join ’em!

Also, keep in mind that it’s probably a safe bet that at times your man has tried something with you that he may not have otherwise tried, only because he knew it would make you happy. Returning the favor now and again might be a sweet gesture.

How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy
How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy | Source

Okay, So You’ve Tried It

And, unsurprisingly, you found yourself amazed that he would willingly continue to watch this for another two hours and forty-five minutes. Why is a first down so exciting? And what do all the lines on the field mean?

Honestly, how in the world do they all remember where to run on every play? It’s all Greek to you. But that’s okay. There’s no reason you and your partner both can’t enjoy yourself on Saturdays and Sundays during football season.

By all means, find something you love doing just as much as he loves watching his favorite team. Even better, find like-minded friends to do it with, like fellow “football widows.”

He’s not sitting around feeling unhappy. He’s actively engaged in a beloved pastime. So, you certainly can be, too. Besides, it’s healthy in every relationship for the couple to have some time apart from each other to do their own things that they want to do on certain days.

At the end of the day, you should both be fully ready and available to see each other and spend time together once again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder!

But, remember that a day spent with the girls on a weekend during football season shouldn’t be spent at home, because your conversations will definitely be interrupted by outbursts of intense and emotional yelling.

This is especially true if your partner has fanatical friends over. After all, yelling at the TV often serves as a suitable form of retribution on the evil referees for making such bad calls, in lieu of throwing heavy objects at the television.

Unless they’re watching way down in the basement or out at a sports bar, make it a day out on the town.

Communicate

Assuming that the two of you have a healthy relationship filled with communication, and that your man is glued to the TV because he cares about football and not because he doesn’t care about you, you should definitely be able to talk with him and voice your desire to spend some time together on a day when there’s no football.

That way it can be a win-win for the both of you. Agree to designate some downtime during the week to spend quality time or plan a date night, or even on the weekend before or after the games (No, football doesn’t go on for 48 hours straight on the weekend, even though it can feel like it).

There ARE always enough hours in the day if you are willing to look for them.

Then, remember to savor what time you do spend together. Don’t complain or say things like, “It’s nice to finally see you pick me over your fantasy quarterback,” or “You’re always so fixated on the TV, I hardly see you anymore!” lol

Be glad that you ARE spending time together instead of wishing for things that you know won’t happen.

Be appreciative. If all your time spent together is filled with you nagging him, he might just find an excuse to be busy next time. So choose to be happy and savor the moment instead. It will serve to bring you closer together.

How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy
How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy | Source

Be Productive

You know that thing? That thing that was kind of a big thing, so you kept putting it off, even though you really wanted to get it done eventually?

That thing that your significant other would rather watch sports on weekends than tackle? Well, today is the day to get that thing done.

There isn’t anything standing in your way, especially if it’s an inexpensive project that one person can tackle alone. Weren’t you looking to redecorate something, rearrange a troublesome closet, or unorganized chest of drawers?

Feel free to jump right on it. It will keep you occupied, and it was probably something that you wanted or needed to do eventually anyway. Procrastination only hurts you down the road.

Be Knowledgeable

If you find yourself occupied with something else, while in a room with your partner and a number of fanatical friends who are engrossed in the big game, it might be kind of cool to interject now and again with some little-known facts.

Find out ahead of time who is playing in the game and familiarize yourself with the stars of the team. Usually, there will be a cool fact about each of them.

If you can’t find any cool facts about the players or their careers, memorizing a few stats will do nicely so that you can interject during the game with a comment like, “Wasn’t it awesome seeing Peterson break Dickerson’s single-season rushing record?”

That will definitely serve to impress everyone in the room, and your man will be impressed that you know about such things.

Also, if you find yourself in the predicament of wanting to learn a few things about the game but you aren’t willing to suffer through even one quarter of watching a game on TV to do it, go online.

Learn a few things about how the game works, and then you can yell at the TV that the referee is blind, and that was obviously a facemask penalty with everyone else, or tell everyone why you think the Dolphins should try to go for it on the fourth down just from watching one play for a few seconds.

You can learn a lot about the game if you want to, even if you don’t want to watch it for an extended period of time.

How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy
How to Survive Football Season Without Going Crazy | Source

Get Behind Another Sport

I’ll be the first to admit that American Football isn’t the easiest sport to understand for the uninitiated. There’s a whole lot of lingo and strategies that may not make a lot of sense, and the game often revolves around the effective use of trickery and deceptive on-field tactics for a team to win.

Many of these terms aren’t only just confusing to you. They’re supposed to be confusing to the other team as well, so you don’t have to feel left out.

But in any case, if football isn’t your cup of tea, you’re in luck if you do happen to like watching other sports like hockey or basketball, or if you’re a fan of any other sports.

Fear not, however, if you want to get into a fall/winter sport and football just isn’t the one.

In America, three of the four major sports are going on roughly at the same time in fall and winter, and basketball and hockey are two of them. Compared with football, these two sports have very simple rules to follow, and scoring is very straightforward.

These two sports are also much more fast-paced, meaning that there aren’t nearly as many boring breaks in the action. If your partner is consumed by football every weekend, you can get consumed by basketball or hockey nearly every other day of the week!

But above all else, it’s important to remember that football season doesn’t last forever and before long, life will be back to how it was before. Until the fantasy baseball draft, that is!

Quick Poll

How helpful was this article?

See results

© 2014 Victoria Van Ness

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)