Recreational companionship is playtime. This is a generally male desire to have a partner who joins his in his recreational activities, or, at the least, supports him. This can be as simple as coming to watch him play his games or bringing snacks and drinks during the football games on television, or as involved as actually doing the activity with him, either playing in the game or watching sports with him. At the very least, men need support for the recreational activities most important to them.
Harley and I disagree on how to resolve recreational companionship issues. His suggestion is that both spouses make a complete list of every recreational activity either of them enjoys or either would consider. Then they each take that list and rate their level of interest from positive four down to negative four. Unless both spouses consider the activity a positive experience, then neither of them may engage in that activity.
I believe there are certain issues with this approach. For one, it makes the most negative person the power in the choice of activities. Also, there are some recreational activities that are fundamental to a person’s identity. A negative impression of an activity may have nothing to do with the activity itself, but with associations or meanings ascribed to the activity in question. It may also be indicative of rules that need to be changed or a desire to change one’s spouse.
If an activity was a normal part of recreation before marriage, it might be improper to demand it be extinguished after the wedding unless this was mutually agreed upon. A scene in the movie City Slickers was quite revealing about how recreation, in this case baseball, plays an important role in male relationships. The woman asked about men’s fascination with sports statistics, and one of the men explained that he and his dad could never talk about much. They didn’t know each other, and neither of them knew how to get through to the other. Despite all this, they could always talk about baseball. It was the one level at which they could really relate.
Demanding a recreational activity that was common before marriage discontinue is indicative of someone trying to change their spouse, something stereotypically done by women. In my case, I have been a martial artist for most of my life. My training helps prepare me to fulfill my role as protector, and the depth and complexity of the particular martial art I study is also packed with metaphors for life and my relationship with Christ. I was a martial artist for years before my wife met me, and I am likely to always be involved in the arts. In my case I married another martial artist, someone for whom the arts have facilitated a similar level of self realization and studies and teaches the same art as I do.
John Gray has a useful insight into recreational activity where the man is interested in someting of little or no interest to the women. Using football as an example, he observes that women often do not like sports because it does not make sense to them. Women, generally being more relationship oriented than men, don’t understand the appeal of watching total strangers charge back and forth across a field in a seemingly random manner to get a ball across a line. They don’t know the people, they don’t know the rules, and all seems meaningless to them.
Grays recommendation is that football fans help explain the game to their partner. This isn’t the kind of condescending “me expert, you stupid” sort of “instruction” one too commonly sees in similar situations, but a sharing of the game so the partner understands the rules and objectives. If this sort of teaching does not work in the relationship, which is common, then a friend can handle the teaching.
The relationship orientation is addressed by sharing something about the players that would interest the women. For instance, a professional football player skipped a game to be with his wife when she was giving birth to their child. This information is important to most women, and if she knows that player is in the game, she will be more interested in watching to see how the devoted family man does in the game. By pinting out who is who, just one or two people at a time, with some piece of information that is important to her, she becomes more interested because she isn’t watching a bunch of strangers in odd uniforms smashing into each other on the field, she’s watching people she feels she knows and she has someone for whom to root.
Harley tells a story of a newly married couple whose marriage was on the rocks. They met running. They ran together during their whole relationship up until marriage. After they got married, she decided she wasn’t going to do it anymore. He still loved running and it was a prime recreation in his life, but she was suddenly disinterested. She even said that she did it to get him, but now that she was married she didn’t want to do it anymore. In short, she changed the rules on him. She gave him something to entice him, and once she had him, she took it away. He thought he was marrying another runner, someone with whom he could share that aspect of his life. She gave him every indication that it was so, but it wasn’t. They eventually divorced.
To some, it may seem frivilous to divorce over something as simple as running. However, the particular activity isn’t the issue. There is a subtle deception involved. She fulfilled one of his primary needs, recreational companionship, just long enough to fulfill her Primary Gender Fantasy. She got her wedding, then she withdrew her recreational companionship. It was a sign of disrepect, a show that his needs were never really important to her. It was never about building a relationship, but about catching a spouse.
Sometimes permission, facilitation and support are enough. My mother does not scuba diver or ski, but she joins her husband on those trips where he does. Her sister, likewise, does not do those activities, but her husband does. They frequently travel together and the men head off to scuba or ski, and the women shop, talk, or relax and read. They site see together, and they dine together. Many of their activities they do together, and some they do not. This arrangement has worked out to a functional and satisfying arrangement.
A woman who brings her husband and his buddies snacks on Super Bowl Sunday does much to boost his status with his friends and her esteem in the eyes of his friends. A wife who is in the stands for important games or competitions or at the finish line at her husband’s first 10k run is showing support for his recreational activity. Adding admiration to the mix It shows respect for what he does and enjoys, and it is a tremendous demonstration of love and commitment to him as a man and an individual.
The sports fan must be reasonable, though. Recreational activity should not be so involved that it takes away from the relationship too frequently for long periods. Doing so indicates that personal needs and desires are more important than the relationship, a show of disrespect to the marriage that denies her needs. If he watches one of the sports channels every day for hours and spends more available time withdrawing from her for sports, he needs to consider how this affects his marriage.
As with all needs, spouses whose needs are being met are more inclined to meet the needs of their spouse with love and enthusiasm. If a need for recreational companionship is displacing fulfilling the needs of the spouse, the spouse will become increasingly resentful, and properly so. If a sports fan always made sure that he did everything necessary to fulfill his wife’s needs, a fulfilled wife is much more willing to allow her husband more time to play.