When one partner loves sports, and the other does not

Did she even TRY to learn to love it with him?  From Dear Margo:

Dear Margo: I have been dating a guy for two years, and when we met, everything was perfection. We have had ups and downs, of course, but I feel there’s one thing that is always putting a strain on our life: My boyfriend is totally obsessed with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Everything he does revolves around them, from the clothes he wears each day (always a Penguins hat and/or shirt) to the car he drives (his license plate boasts the name of his favorite player) to his room, which is covered floor to ceiling with 8 by 10 pictures, jerseys in cases, pucks, sticks, game-used skates and hockey cards. He needs to go to all the home games (42-plus over eight months), and he goes alone because he only has one ticket. His hockey mania takes a huge toll on our relationship because it involves a large chunk of time away from “us.” We both work and go to school, so our time is limited, but the Penguin season in the mix makes it much worse. I end up feeling unimportant to him — almost as if he has a second girlfriend and he’s cheating on me with “her.” Please help me find a way to make him understand my feelings and to lessen the strain on our relationship. — Off-Season-Only Girlfriend

Dear Off: You have my sympathies. A former husband was also obsessed with hockey … about which I knew nothing. In fact, I remember watching the first game he took me to for a while and then blurting, “My God! They’re on skates!” I suspect that even if your boyfriend had two tickets it would not solve your problem. Your guy sounds like such a jock and a fanatic that my hunch is the romance cannot last. No offense, but the Penguins seem to have edged you out in terms of where he puts his energy and spends his time.
I suspect he already understands your feelings, and that a relationship is not so important to him. I am guessing the only way you could see more of him is if you ran the Zamboni machine. — Margo, acceptingly

Margo is WAY off base here.  Has this letter-writer, who sounds like a total bimbo if you ask me, even sat with her boyfriend and watched an away Penguins game on TV?  Has she even considered going in on the cost of season tickets for the two of them?  My opinion is, if she wants this guy, she’d better accept the fact that he is a die-hard hockey fan, or hit the road.  She sounds to me like a shallow bimbo who is more interested in finding the best diet pill, than in trying to share her boyfriend’s interests.

When I first met Mike, he HATED sports of all kinds.  But I made it clear frim the get-go that I’m a die-hard baseball fan, and if he wanted to be with me, he’d have to accept it.

What I did was bought tickets to a ball game, and asked that he come with me to the game, just this once.  If he really hated it, I would not make him go to any more games.  But all I asked was that he give it a try, and if he hated it, fine.  But he would also have to accept the fact that baseball is a big part of my life, and he was not to complain if I spent time away from him during baseball season.

He agreed, fair enough.  We went to the game, and he found that he enjoyed it.  And the rest is history.

Margo is not giving the boyfriend here enough credit. I suspect he would LOVE it if the girlfriend suggested going to a game together, getting a second season ticket for next year, or watching a Penguins game together.  I suspect that she hates hockey so much, she won’t be happy until this guy gives it up completely. And then he’d be miserable, and end up cheating on her eventually, with some woman who LOVES hockey.

If she loves this guy, she should make an effort to give hockey a chance.  I really don’t think she has done so.  If she finds that she really hates it, then the relationship won’t work.  But you never know until you try, right?