Ramblings of an Ashes Widow

Now I’ve been bracing myself for the last year that either my fiance would decide to go to the ashes or somehow shoe horn our holiday down under. But it never came.

Well this can’t be too bad I thought. The cricket’s on in the middle of the night, so I won’t be affected at all. Huh, how wrong I was. Firstly, we didn’t have Sky Sports at home. Mainly because My MOWS (Man Obsessed with Sport) knew if we had it he would watch nothing but sport. But suddenly the first day of the ashes I had a phone call at work, and I suddenly had to order Sky Sports 1 as he’d finally cracked.

Again, I didn’t worry too much as it’s on in the middle of the night. Surely he wouldn’t stay up all night when he had the work next day? Wrong again. For five nights running my fiance stayed up to watch the cricket. Goodbye night time cuddles. And hello being woken up in the middle of the night when he crawls in to bed expecting to steal some of the duvet.

We also have to plan our social plans around it, no staying out after 11.30pm and what do you know, there are unmissable football matches on early evening too on sky sports.

So in the space of a week I’ve gone from the ashes ain’t gonna change my life to becoming an ashes widow.

Who invented the iPhone?

You’ve won part of the battle. You’ve made it out of the house, and away any screen showing sport. You’re patting yourself on the back and thanking the man upstairs for a few sports free hours. And then you’re sat at the pub/restaurant/wedding (delete as applicable) and your man pulls out the iPhone (or generic smart phone). Just to quickly check the scores of let’s face it, every sporting game under the sun. Then there are the live text options on the BBC which ensure that no matter where you are, you get a blow by blow account.

At your side of the table you are trying not to tut or complain or god forbid say you’d might as well stayed at home (at least then you would have been able to be busy). But you don’t complain as you fought so hard to go out, and you worry it will be used against you for future outings. So instead you do what any sane sporting widow would do, pray for the battery runs out.

Life bs (before sports)

Before I met my Man Obsessed With Sport (MOWS) I didn’t really fully appreciate what some women had to go through. If I’m honest I used to think some women were mean not letting their man watch Match of the Day or go to the pub with the boys to watch the rugby. But of course that was all bs (before sports).

To be fair I have a bit more sympathynow for the women sat by herself Saturday afternoons, the one that has to plan their social diary around sporting events and the one stuck at a restaurant table bored whilst their man checks every sporting result under the sun on his iPhone.

I don’t think I ever fully appreciated how dedicated a fan of sport a man could be. I mean if being a sports fan was an Olympic sport I know my MOWS would have a gold medal. I mean the hours he puts in knowing all the rules of all the different sports, the variations of each league, back catalogue of sporting results and an encyclopaedic knowledge of players. Not to mention they remember all the sporting fixtures. No wonder they forget birthdays and anniversaries when their brains are filled up with all that information.

It really is a full time hobby being a MOWS and a little bit of me is a bit jealous that I don’t have anything in life that I am obsessed with or know so much about. But don’t tell him that. I don’t want him to think I am endorsing said behaviour.

So these are my ramblings, note they are not rants, as sometimes I am grateful of the sporting obsession. For starters it means I get to do girly things and exercise my independence, and luckily there is usually always something sports related on TV to fit in with whatever I am doing. Even if it is only Sky Sports News, (but don’t get me started on that channel, that is going to have a rambling session of all it’s very own). Think of these ramblings more of an exploration about men’s obsession and to make you realise that if you too are a sporting widow, you are definitely not alone.