Black and Gold….And Purple?

Last week marked one of the most uncomfortable parts of my marriage, the beginning of football season.

For starters, I am a Steelers fan.  I grew up just outside of Pittsburgh, and I bleed black and gold.  My grandmother would disown me if I ever strayed from my roots.  (I also am a Penguins fan, but that is another post.)  I did not grow up watching a lot of Sunday football because neither of my parents did.  However, once I left home and got more exposure to the world, I actually found that football was good entertainment.  The Steelers games are not broadcast in northern Virginia much unless they are one of the evening games, but when I get the chance I like to tune into them.  Getting together with friends and family to cheer on the home team is great fun, regardless of whether they win or not.

My husband is a Baltimore Ravens fan.  For all that he talks about how much he hates Steeler bandwagon fans (I am grudgingly allowed to be a Steelers fan because of where I was born), he is a bandwagon Ravens fan.  He grew up in the Washington Redskins territory.  His father is a Washington Redskins fan.  He was a Washington Redskins fan until just a few years ago.  Then, he became tired of watching the Redskins lose season after season, and he became a Ravens fan.  He says they made the game fun again, but to me that translates into he wants to root for a team that wins consistently.  Therefore, he is a bandwagon fan.  My guess is if the Ravens start playing like the Redskins, he will change his mind again.

Of course, we have known from the start that we were rivalries when it came to football, but it was not an issue for the first year or so we were together.  We enjoyed watching games together in general.  Plus, we had an agreement that as long as we were not playing each other, we would support the other’s team.  We even watched the Steelers/Ravens games together in good spirit and friendly rivalry.  This has slowly changed over the years.  It started with the inability to watch the Steelers/Ravens games together.  My husband would get angry if the Steelers won and rage about how biased the referees were during the game.  If the Ravens won, he would gloat and go into lectures about why the Ravens are so much better than the Steelers.  Now the tension has spread to all of the games.  I can no longer watch any Steelers or Ravens game with him, regardless of who the other team is.  Even when they are not playing each other, I have to hear about how great the Ravens are and what a quality quarterback Flacco is.  (Just for the record, I do not think Flacco is much of a quarterback.  He usually gets the job done, but I do not find his performance that inspiring and do not think he will ever be considered elite.)

This season, I found out that all boundaries on our treaty have been violated.  Thursday was the first game of the regular season, Steelers vs. Patriots.  My husband had some friends over to watch the game together.  At one point, I overheard them, my husband included, talking about how much they hate the Steelers and how much they hate Steelers fans.  I gave them a piece of my mind, and then later when everyone had gone home, I gave my husband another piece.  Not only was he not supporting the Steelers when they were not playing the Ravens (that was our agreement remember), but he was talking trash about Steelers fans.  That means he was talking trash about me, his wife.  It was the final straw, and my husband has officially sucked all the fun out of football season in our house.

Of course, this is only one small piece of our marriage.  Not being able to enjoy football season together is a bummer, but it should not be the end of us as a couple.  It does however make me wonder what other things are in store for me now that the honeymoon stage of marriage is over and we are effectively stuck with each other.  It also adds to a list of growing signs that my husband does not have much respect for where I grew up and the people that come from there, which makes me question our long term happiness together.  For now though, I guess the solution is to stay away from each other during football games and work on the rest of our marriage to hopefully be happy with one another in the big picture.

Also, it might finally be time for me to find a good Steelers bar in the area.  Anyone have any recommendations?

Go Steelers!  See you next week!