Is it wrong that I ask husband to tone back the guitar playing?

[Mapper71]

My husband bought a guitar about 5 years ago. Never knew how to play but wanted to learn. Took a few lessons and played very sporadically and then just seemed to have lost interest for a year. Started taking lessons again early last year but then was involved in two separate accidents about 4 months apart and put his guitar playing on hold. About 6 weeks ago or so he started up lessons again and he is really into them. He has definitely progressed in his technique. However, now every night after he gets home he plugs in the amp and plays for a bit, which is great, but then it starts to consume him. He'll say he's going to start on dinner, but instead go and play his guitar for 20 minutes unplugged. Then start dinner, then go back and play 10 minutes, then check dinner then plug in the amp and play for another 10 minutes. Then we'll eat and then he'll go back and plug in the amp and play for 15 minutes. Then he'll say "Lets watch such and such on tv" and 10 minutes into the hour long show he'll bring out his guitar and sit on the couch and proceed to play throughout the whole show. And not only play, but talk to me about the technique he's doing and want me to watch him. Meanwhile I have no idea what is going on in the show.

 

He went to a concert last Saturday and ever since then has been SUPER consumed with playing. He said he'd get a kitchen track light up this past weekend that he says he's been going to do for 2 weeks now. All he did on Sunday was drink beer and play guitar nonstop because he says he was so amped form the concert. Monday is his day off and he said he'd get the light done no problem. He did absolutely no work on it. Told me it's his day off and he wanted to play guitar and once again drank way too much beer. Actually told me he was going to come home from work early yesterday to work on the light but really took the entire day off of work and did nothing to the light but sat and played his guitar and once again drank a lot of beer.

 

It's like ever since the concert he's been in this 4 day nonstop guitar playing, beer drinking bender. Like it's the most important thing and how can he go to work when he is so amped about the guitar?! He said last night "You are probably tired of the guitar huh"? I said "Yeah a little bit" and he got so offended! Well when we only have a 1000 sq ft house and you are playing in the spare bedroom with the amp turned way up, it is really annoying after a while. Not to mention when you continually go back to it all night long and even plug the amp in at 9:30 at night when I'm sure it annoys the neighbors.

 

Am I asking too much for him to dedicate an hour to playing every night and then have him put it aside and focus on other things or am I hampering his progress?

[Mrs. John Adams]

The secret to everything is moderation.

 

I think if his constant playing is becoming an issue for you... You should certainly bring it lovingly to his attention.

 

If it is not addressed... You will harbor resentment.. And that is never good.

[hotgurl]

My husband took up the guitar a couple years ago. HE takes lessons every other week for 45 minutes. And he practices for and hour to an hour and half every day. He does take a day off every week, usually Friday since that is date night. HE does break up the practice season in 30 minutes increments sometimes, esp when he is doing something tedious, like scales.

 

You do need to practice, every day to get better. His problem is not so much the practicing it is his disregard for you and his irresponsibility.

 

My husband would never skip work to practice. Also we have a spare room with a door that he can close the door. He mostly uses acoustic guitars so it is not loud. HE never practices after 10pm, because I go to bed around then and the music keeps me up.

 

Actually now I take his practice time as an opportunity to watch TV shows I like but he hates.

 

You can buy ear phones that plug into the guitar or the amp(not sure which) that way he can hear the guitar but it won't bother you. It really is about being respectful of the other person in the house.

[Mapper71]

Yes I know. I don't know if it's so much the constant playing or the fact that he's SO focused on it on top of all the beer he drinks that he just gets sort of indifferent to me and everything around him.

[Mapper71]

My husband took up the guitar a couple years ago. HE takes lessons every other week for 45 minutes. And he practices for and hour to an hour and half every day. He does take a day off every week, usually Friday since that is date night. HE does break up the practice season in 30 minutes increments sometimes, esp when he is doing something tedious, like scales.

 

You do need to practice, every day to get better. His problem is not so much the practicing it is his disregard for you and his irresponsibility.

 

My husband would never skip work to practice. Also we have a spare room with a door that he can close the door. He mostly uses acoustic guitars so it is not loud. HE never practices after 10pm, because I go to bed around then and the music keeps me up.

 

Actually now I take his practice time as an opportunity to watch TV shows I like but he hates.

 

You can buy ear phones that plug into the guitar or the amp(not sure which) that way he can hear the guitar but it won't bother you. It really is about being respectful of the other person in the house.

 

Yes my husband has lessons every Thursday for 30 minutes. I do realize the need to practice. The fact of the matter is if he's in the spare bedroom with the amp on I can't hear the tv and if he's out on the couch with me he just can't help himself and he has to sit and play the acoustic guitar throughout nearly every program we watch. Then he proceeds to tell me he doesn't know what's going on and I have to rewind the program once or twice. He has the earphones thing but he doesn't like that.

 

If he would just dedicate an hour every night to practicing and then put it away, I'd be fine with it. It's just this obsessive need to pick it up every 10 minutes throughout the night and play it that bothers me. Like I said, he is damn near getting himself drunk every night and playing and it's just obnoxious and he gets indifferent to me and everything around him.

[jen1447]

Don't mean to be insensitive but this story's funny ....calm Saturday evening, iced tea on the back deck, suddenly hubs plugs in and the opening chords to 'Enter Sandman' shake the building and destroy your equanimity .... (Sorry.)

 

Doesn't seem unreasonable that he should have limits, no. He's a hubs after all, not a BF you can send away.

[carhill]

On the positive side, at least you know where he is and what he's up to.

[Mapper71]

Don't mean to be insensitive but this story's funny ....calm Saturday evening, iced tea on the back deck, suddenly hubs plugs in and the opening chords to 'Enter Sandman' shake the building and destroy your equanimity .... (Sorry.)

 

Doesn't seem unreasonable that he should have limits, no. He's a hubs after all, not a BF you can send away.

 

Actually Enter Sandman is the one song he plays over...and over....and over!

[Minnie09]

The drinking would bother me more than anything, esp given his history. Also, he's skipping work - again?

Didn't he lose his job over drinking and skipping work? Didn't he go to rehab? What happened to that?

[jen1447]

Actually Enter Sandman is the one song he plays over...and over....and over!

 

Figures. Have you tried telling him he sucks at guitar but that his handyman skills are total badass? (j/k don't do that.)

[Mapper71]

The drinking would bother me more than anything, esp given his history. Also, he's skipping work - again?

Didn't he lose his job over drinking and skipping work? Didn't he go to rehab? What happened to that?

 

He didn't lose his job, he quit before they could fire him.... and that was only after weeks off. He started a new job last November which he loves, but still there have been 3 or 4 times since then that he has not gone in but hasn't told me that. Tells me he came home early because he wasn't feeling good, but I know (from looking at texts on his phone) that he didn't go in. Just when he gets to feeling like his partner at the desk isn't doing his job and he's taking on all the work that he should take a day off to "show him" what it's like not to have someone helping.

 

Yeah and the rehab thing did absolutely no good. Was in for 2 weeks almost exactly a year ago, came home seemed renewed and didn't drink for about a month. Then started having a beer every now and then and is now back to full on drinking pretty heavily. Tells me not to buy any alcohol (because it's my fault then if he drinks too much) then a few days later goes and buys some anyways.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Mapper71

[carhill]

If your H is 40's-50's, he could be GTOW and getting off the man-robot track for awhile. It gets old same old same old, day after day, year after year, like a robot. Scary when a man changes up, changes his mind, does unexpected stuff, acts a little weird, irresponsible, stuff like that. You know, like a human. For some of us, that's a beer in the garage with our cars, you know, the sound of revving engines for no reason. For him, it's a guitar and a beer in the bedroom.

 

Turn the volume down would be reasonable. No need to blow down the neighborhood. Find some middle ground. He'll get through it. The beer drinking is self-medication for something, presuming he's not a life-long alcoholic. He feels denied conventional avenues so stuff gets pushed down, he drinks and riffs the guitar. Typical guy stuff.

[Mapper71]

If your H is 40's-50's, he could be GTOW and getting off the man-robot track for awhile. It gets old same old same old, day after day, year after year, like a robot. Scary when a man changes up, changes his mind, does unexpected stuff, acts a little weird, irresponsible, stuff like that. You know, like a human. For some of us, that's a beer in the garage with our cars, you know, the sound of revving engines for no reason. For him, it's a guitar and a beer in the bedroom.

 

Turn the volume down would be reasonable. No need to blow down the neighborhood. Find some middle ground. He'll get through it. The beer drinking is self-medication for something, presuming he's not a life-long alcoholic. He feels denied conventional avenues so stuff gets pushed down, he drinks and riffs the guitar. Typical guy stuff.

 

Yeah, he's a lifelong alcoholic. And when he gets like this, the drinking the guitar playing, he gets indifferent to me and can be quite embarrassing...like yelling out the window for the neighbor's barking dog to "eat ****" and barking back to the dog just as loud. I want to crawl into a hole when he does that.

[carhill]

In that case, if he is an alcoholic, the brain chemistry of the disease is the issue and the stuff you're dealing with are the symptoms. Sadly, I can't really offer anything other than support. Perhaps Al-Anon can offer you some assistance if you're not already using it. We tried everything with a female friend, my exW's best friend, and the disease killed her at 49. Sometimes nothing helps. My sympathies with that. Still, he's at home and mostly peaceful. That's a plus. Hope you can work it out.

[waterwoman]

Tell him to unplug the amp and play quietly. He can still practice.

 

I'd love to have a music playing partner - sadly H doesn't. And even when he tries to sing people throw things and run away screaming

[Mapper71]

So H comes back from his guitar lesson last night and says it was great. He also said he told his instructor that his wife told him to give the guitar a rest. Great. So glad you are making me the bad guy. I then say to him "Well you were so focused on it the other day and then on top of that you had 6, 7, 8 or however many beers and you were acting all weird and indifferent". He's kind of taken aback by that and goes "Well that is how I get when I am really focused on something." Then not once, but twice, last night he finds a way to throw it back in my face. He starts playing and goes "I'm not being too loud am I? Because I don't want to get all WEIRD on you." Then about 30 minutes later he was just singing out of the blue and goes "Oh I'm sorry I'm probably being INDIFFERENT to you, right?"

 

This is why I can never tell him how I feel because he immediately throws it back in my face and makes me feel that I have to apologize for not liking his attitude or something he's doing. God forbid I have an opinion on what I like and what bothers me!

[jen1447]

^ Your takeaway from that shouldn't be that you can't tell him how you feel, it should be that you're not going to tolerate childish behavior like defensiveness and blame-shifting.

[acrosstheuniverse]

At first I thought this was about the guitar, but it's not.

 

It's about the drinking, and skipping work just to play guitar! That's the sign of someone who just doesn't have any work ethic or ability to control himself and act like a mature adult. Here in the UK if you miss work a certain number of times in a time period (for example in my last job it was two absences in six months, my new one three in four months, even if it's just half a day) you get moved onto disciplinary processes. That's why nobody past their teens calls in just for fun like you might with your first weekend job as a kid, it's too easy to be let go.

 

The guitar playing I don't think is a problem, I mean if you wanna get better you do have to practice every day. My partner is a brilliant guitarist and plays as often as possible, I'm a classical pianist and practice every day as well as lessons each fortnight, but it's about moderation. It's important to build that hour practice time into your day but accept you have other responsibilities too. Some musicians do play all day every day, the real famous guitarists you hear about (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, Slash, Petrucci) didn't get that way from a few hours per week, when you hear interviews with them they were playing from dawn til dusk seven days a week. But let's be fair here... their partners got with them knowing the guitar was always going to be there, it's been foisted upon you in your marriage without your permission.

 

If it weren't for the drinking and ignoring other responsibilities I'm sure you'd be pleased that he has this new passion and is getting so much out of it, but the drinking and missing work are the real problems here.

 

The drinking has been going on a while, eventually you have to stop and ask yourself if you're happy being legally saddled with someone who is irresponsible, lies and is unlikely to change. I grew up and lost my Mom to alcoholism when I was in my early twenties and it's something I'd never wish on anyone. I sure as hell wouldn't have tolerated that from a partner I could choose to walk away from.

 

Thing is, if he was truly committed to the guitar, he wouldn't be playing drunk. It's so much more difficult to get your hands to move as fast as they need to and be fluent when you've been drinking, hence why most serious musicians don't have more than one beer before going on stage. It sounds like he's just happy to have an excuse to go into his little cave and get away from his responsibilities.

 

The ignoring you, freezing you out, drinking, missing work, man I'd have left that marriage yesterday. Being alone is preferable to that.

[privategal]

I think you should get a guitar and take lessons. If this was said, Im sorry, but Im thinking this calms him, helps with stress. Music is healing.

Get involved!

He might have alot of depression it seemed a hard year for him.

He could be at bars drinking...hes playing music. It could be positive if you let it? Women have outlets like shopping, fitness classes etc.

This is better than golf where a husband leaves the wife for entire days and trips and most weekends.

You got a hubby who loves to play...at home...Id embrace it actually and let it bring you closer.

Edited March 27, 2016 by privategal

[Rejected Rosebud]

Yeah it's not a guitar problem, it's a drinking and skipping work problem, which is pretty much the same problem you are usually having with him even before he started playing the guitar.

 

Didn't he give up drinking and go to a treatment or something?

[SammySammy]

Yeah it's not a guitar problem, it's a drinking and skipping work problem, which is pretty much the same problem you are usually having with him even before he started playing the guitar.

 

Didn't he give up drinking and go to a treatment or something?

 

True.

 

Also, the codependency and her enabling him don't help.

 

She's been around and around with this guy. His drinking, unwillingness to work, neglecting responsibilities ... and now she's here asking us if it okay to ask him to cut back on more unproductive activities. Guitar playing and more drinking. While refusing to set and uphold any standards - for herself or him.

 

It's a vicious cycle of codependency. That won't end until one of them decides enough is enough.