'Your Marriage Is Dying of Pickleball'

The following is a letter submitted (paywall) to Carolyn Hax, a longtime advice columnist for The Washington Post.

Dear Carolyn: Can pickleball destroy my marriage?

Seems like a silly question — even my therapist chuckled at the idea. But I am truly struggling. We are middle-aged, working full time, and have two elementary school kids. My husband picked up a pickleball hobby about a year ago, and it has now consumed him. His quest for more medals, tournament wins and a higher player rating has overshadowed his other priorities. He plays 20 hours a week or more — no joke, I’ve tracked it — averaging three hours per weekday evening and four or more on weekend days.

I work an intense job, and his pickleball has resulted in my carrying much more of the child care load — pickups, bedtimes, etc. Most significantly, he regularly misses family dinners and skimps on his household duties (piles of laundry sit for weeks), and when I’m busy or traveling, the poor kids are dragged to his pickleball courts until far past bedtime on school nights. We used to have slivers of family time in our busy schedules; now it’s gone. And couple time — forget it.

I have no problem with the hobby itself. He has gotten healthier and made friends, and it’s great for his mental health. But every time I bring up that the pickleball and family time balance is just really off, he takes offense, gets angry and accuses me of trying to tell him to stop doing something he loves.

Help. I don’t want him to stop completely. But the kids need their dad back, and I need to feel like I have a hubby again. I worry if this goes on, we won’t survive it.

— Pickleballed Out

Pickleballed Out: Um. Anything to excess can destroy a marriage, of course. (And a chuckle can destroy trust in a therapist, if a real answer doesn’t ensue.)

Take out “pickle,” and everything about your question is serious. Emotional neglect of spouse and children, defensiveness, gaslighting, plus burnout for you as you pick up 20-plus hours of your husband’s logistical and emotional slack every week.

So, yes, your marriage is dying of pickleball. Next.

The “next,” unfortunately, is to hold your ground calmly against his resistance to seeing it, or admitting it. Anger and accusations are painful things to have to withstand. But you also have the truth to shield you. You have it in writing here to show your husband, in recorded hours of his absences, in piles of his ignored household duties and in expanding lists of chores devolving to you. You have it in anger form at his not doing this math himself.

You can wield it in unflinching repetition of your intent in bringing up balance, until he agrees to speak calmly, too: “No, I don’t want you to stop. I want some family dinners back.” Or however you’d phrase it. Some husband back. Just stay on a message that’s calm, brief, unwavering — and a hard ask for him to say no to. “So you’re saying no to meals with our kids.” Not for their ears, of course. “So if you’re not at pickup, who is?”

The point of this isn’t to coax or logic or shame him back into the family fold. (You want him to want it, or there really is no point.) This is about planting your flag in reality.

You simply cannot communicate until you’re meeting at the facts. Your husband is behaving as if the only problem with subtracting these swaths of time from you, his young kids and his duties without accounting for his absence is that YOU have a problem with it. That is someone living outside the confines of fact. Somewhere near the moon.

People who do this have a reason. Depression, affairs, hyperfocus or time blindness, alienation of affection, selfishness or a basic lack of empathy. Stubbornness, even. I’ll reel off possibilities, but I won’t speculate as to what has hijacked your husband. Getting to some mutual agreement on reality (or discovering you can’t), plus context, will help you identify it.

That, in turn, will show you what’s next. Ideally, it involves his “aha” and cutting back ladder time for family time. (He can hire and supervise coverage for his share of chores, finances permitting.)

If he’s immovable, then you escalate — physician, couples counselor, mediator, attorney (regardless, precautionary). Seems drastic, but these aren’t the perilous spots.

It’s carrying all the weight and having your objections ignored while he plays on — the slow, helpless burn till your feelings are ash. That’s the scariest place. The time to force the issue is while you still want him back.