VEXED IN THE CITY
I can’t take any more of my football-mad partner’s antics
DEAR VEXED: My boyfriend is a massive England fan. That’s all very well, but he’s been on one big bender throughout the World?Cup and now that England is going through I don’t know how I’m going to be able to live with him. He’ll be up all night partying and I’m worried he isn’t working properly. More to the point,?I’m living with someone who reels in off his face every night at 2AM which makes my life difficult. What should I do? Marie, 27, auditor
OH, the highs and lows – or perhaps more accurately the lows – of being an unofficial WAG. You’re certainly not the first woman to be driven to her wits’ end by a football fan boyfriend. They’re good as gold (well, sort of) most of the time but all bets are off (apart from those made at?William Hill) when the team is playing.
The duress of being a WAG goes in waves.?Some waves you can ride by putting your foot down: in the early stages of the?Champions League, for example, it is possible to overturn a boyfriend’s decision to forget you entirely while he watches the football all day long and to do it without fear of being labelled a nag.
But with the World Cup, there is simply no way you can press that argument. It is scientifically proven that trying to limit your boyfriend’s football-related social activity during the tournament is impossible and leads to nothing but extreme frustration for you.
However, just because you can’t argue him out of his behaviour, you can still show him the rules. Go suspiciously quiet and let him do his thing. But get a lock and padlock your bedroom door so that when he comes in, expecting to crawl in next to you breathing his beery breath all over you then promptly ruining your night’s sleep with heavy snoring, he finds that he can’t. In short, that his actions lead to consequences. He’ll soon realise that if he wants to ignore you entirely, he gets to sleep on the sofa, alone.
Another approach, if the padlocking doesn’t appeal, is to remove yourself from the situation.?You can’t take the football away from the fan, but you can take the WAG away from him. Go watch the match yourself with some mates and arrange to spend the night at one of their houses. Or forget the match entirely and go out for cocktails with the girls. Sleep at their place, though, or somewhere even more tranquil like your parents’ if you’re really concerned about sleep and work.
But I want you to think carefully.?How often does he ride roughshod over your sensibilities in the name of the football and his mates??If it is frequently, I’d be inclined to tell you to give him the boot, as it were. The World Cup is one thing: weekly bad behaviour is quite another. [email protected]