OT: How understanding is your significant other about watching UM games?

You gotta be able to at least watch our games barring very specific conflicts, e.g., a wedding or god forbid a piano recital. I can accept a partner may not be down with watching noon thru nights games every weekend.

1. 36, Male. 

2. Every. Single. Game. 

3. She's not a fan like me,  but watches every game with me! Understands that Saturdays in the fall are football Saturdays. 

old man

all of them, with the caveat that i will occasionally skip the 2nd half of painful games or be coaching myself and on the road for a game or two during the season and thus unable to watch. 

no grief, will watch, she learned to enjoy it before we were married.  all the kids watch.  the dog watches.  not an issue.  she is a basketball maniac, too.  

41.

Eveey mother effing game.

It took her a few years, but now that we have season tickets, she arranged the family schedules around the games. She hates to miss a minute. I’m fortunate. 

I watch every game and my wife understands Saturdays is for College Football.  We plan our Saturdays around Michigan game and she is good with it. Often we are making plans with friends and she will ask me what time Michigan game is so she can plan around it. This is only for Michigan football as it is the only sport I make a point to watch. She is totally cool with it.  But she knew from day one Michigan football was a passion.

42 year old man 

married 14 years, been together for 19 years

i watch them all

i do what I want ..... but really only because she’s fine with it. 

Births and deaths allowed. 

Otherwise, game on.  What fine women would question Michigan sports?

My name is WW, I'm 26 years old.

I'm married with 2 kids, a cat, and a dog.

And I have a problem. 

My wife deals with it though. She knew from the jump who I was, and who I still am today. She may say something here and there, but she knows it's a losing battle. 

We bought a new house and scheduled our moving day around it. We scheduled our marriage around it. Somehow, her body knew to schedule the births or our children around it.

My motto: If I cant fuck it, fish off of it, or watch Michigan football in it, I ain't fucking going.

I am who I am.

I don't get to watch many of the games.  My kids are in sports, so I am generally watching them play.  I go to church on Saturday at 4:00, so I miss the 1st half of night games.  

I watch the Ohio State game every year because it falls during a break in the kids sports.

just wear this t-shirt from the mgostore:

https://mgoblogstore.com/collections/mgoblog/products/football-religion-navy

“Football is a religion and Saturday is the holy day of obligation.”

— Bob Ufer

Been married 12 years (both 38 with a 9 month difference) and I watch all the games... and most other CFB games on Sat. Stopped watching the NFL which helped tremendously.

She's a physician so she usually just wants to recover from the week on Sat so that helps too.

1. 29, Male

2. All of them unless there's an emergency. Also an avid Green Bay fan and fantasy footballer so Sundays are sacred during fall. I think it's selfish for people to get married during the season.

3. My fiancee wasn't a fan before we were together but she humors me and even gets into the rivalry games. Other times she works or relaxes in bed. (She's a nurse at UM). She even joined one of my fantasy leagues. Anyone worth staying with will find a way to coexist with whatever your passions are.

Married a little less than a year, my wife fully understands Michigan football Saturdays. 

70 year old male

Watch every UM game

Married 48years, season ticket holder since 1980, went to many games before then, wonderful wife who plans everything around the games. Her and my daughter even planned and had we her wedding 4 years ago on the bye week. Doesn't get any better then that.

I'm 50 my wife is 50 and we watch every game together.  She occasionally has to work on Saturdays and when she does I record the game and stay off the grid and watch it with her when she gets home.

56 y.o.  married 29 years.  

Watch every game, unless something MAJOR conflicts.  Will be at PSU Saturday with my daughter (also an alum)

Wife totally fine with my love of the Wolverines.  Life's pretty simple - build equity in your primary relationships, so you can leverage that equity when you need it (like every Fall Saturday).  

It ain't complicated.  Good luck

37YOM. Watch every game. She used to give me grief but now accepts it. 

The key is being clear up front. If she has a Google or Outlook calendar she relies on, go ahead and put shared calendar events blocking out the game times.  Give her lots of advanced notice. Hey, honey, remember there's a game this weekend.  Would you like to do anything Saturday evening after the game? The worst is when she gets her hopes up to do something and then realizes there's a stupid football game.  Avoid that and you should be good. 

Depends on whether there's a better game she'd rather be watching. If Michigan is playing Rutgers and the Cocktail Party is on or something, she'll get pretty annoyed.  

I’m 33 and married. I can’t remember the last time I missed a football game. Luckily my wife is a Wolverine too so she gets it as much as a normal woman can. I gave up a lot in terms of things I used to watch casually...NFL, NHL, etc. but she knows M football games are sacred. I can’t complain. 

I’m 37 my wife is 37 known each other since the 6th grade she fully understands the Michigan game and the importance, but we also have 4 kids now all in activities so I only get to watch a few games live and in their entirety.  I have to pick and choose my games of importance that I watch live.  Like if we are playing western Michigan.  Not a priority, so I usually tape those games and watch them later.  And sometimes like this weekend I have a sport event for a child and will not be able to watch the game until second half, but it’s already know that the game is going on when I walk in the door.  I also from having to do this for years actually prefer to tape the game shut off my phone and start it about an hour in so I can fast forward through commercials and am usually live by end of the 3rd quarter 

1. grown-ass adult

2. all of them

3. the idea that you would allow another person to dictate your free time is weird. ol' girl can come to/watch any game, or not. doesn't really affect me.

1. 42 yr old male

2. Live? About 1 quarter of each game throughout the season. 3 young kids dictate my schedule. On DVR, it’s basically 3x the number of wins. I won’t watch the losses and I’ll watch the wins three times, usually Saturday night, Sunday night, and Monday night after kids go to bed. 

3. Cool isn’t the word I would use. She’s resigned herself to the fact that she married a flawed man who has just enough endearing qualities to keep. 

1. 58 and male.

2. At least 2/3 - 3/4 of the schedule.

3. No grief. She sometimes watches them with me, as she's a UM grad ('85). The only thing she demands is that I have a towel to bite on while we're watching the big games. That way, it muffles the sound of me yelling "You fukn idiut ref, tht wuznt hlding, you blnd mvrfukr!", and her neighbors won't think that something terrible is going on next door.

1. 27 year old male. Married for 13 months. We planned our wedding date to coincide with Michigan’s bye week last year.

2. Our Saturdays are dictated by when Michigan plays. I have season tickets with my brother which is something we’ve had together since I was a sophomore. Most all of the other games on tv that day too. But I’ve given in a bit and won’t not do something so I can watch another game. The Michigan game is protected time though.

3. A little grief but not bad. It’s usually the week of I’ll occasionally get a “if it wasn’t for the Michigan game we could do x, y, and z.” 

Let me put it this way...

Michigan football was there first.

I’m 31 and my wife is 27. She is not s big football fan, but she understands that this is my one indulgence for time. I missed one game last year and that was my choice. I preferred to go on a cruise than see the Ohio State game. I still believe that game didn’t happen.

I do make a lot of compromises and give her most weekends other than Michigan football ones. The bye week is hers and I try to do something special like go away for the weekend or something. 

1. 32 and male.

2. All of them and every year since 2000-ish except when I was in Afghanistan, and even then I know I caught a few regular season games and the bowl game.

3. My significant other is completely cool with it because I made it clear at the beginning of our relationship (10 years now) it was nonnegotiable. I make an effort to do the things she wants to do the rest of the weekend when reasonable and we share the same pro-team fandom, so our Sunday’s revolve around the same team. I’ve taken her to 1 Michigan game in person (@ Purdue - we were traveling) and she enjoyed it.

You made the mistake of not making clear to her at the beginning of the relationship that missing Michigan games wasn’t negotiable (I’m assuming it’s not since you’re posting this), and now you’re paying the price. I have many friends who have gone down that same broken road, when it was so easily avoidable.

I’m not sure you can make it retroactively nonnegotiable but it’s worth a shot if that’s how you feel. If it IS negotiable, negotiate it at your peril.

CAVEATS: I don’t have many other indulgences that women dislike. Don’t smoke, play video games, drink excessively, go out with the “bros” overly frequently, etc. So it’s easier to have the indulgences I enjoy most. 

Great topic. Interested to read the responses.

1 - 32 with 30-year-old girlfriend. Been together 6ish years. 

2 - All, with exception of major events I can’t control (2018 has been rough - her childhood friend’s wedding on ND evening, international trip with/paid for by her parents on Wisconsin weekend [cant really complain]). She loves AA and likes my Detroit-area social circle so we generally fly in for a game or two per year. The tailgates are her highlight.

3 - Generally super cool. She comes from two Buckeye alum parents who aren’t crazy fans (her mom couldn’t care less) so she understands the intensity of my fandom. Went to a small, private college so she can’t relate directly and her friends refer to my cfb Saturdays as “#sportz” to put things in perspective. I am (in my mind) very accommodating throughout the rest of the year to earn this freedom and I think she recognizes this. I’m not a big NFL guy so I can usually push things to Sunday when necessary.

She’s a part-time fitness instructor when not doing her day job so I’ve bribed her fandom with awesome dry fit M workout gear. For a few hundred bucks a year, she’s always repping the good guys.