There is an opinion piece in today’s NyTimes written by the wife of a former NFL player. She describes the changes in him that are attributed to playing 20 years of kid football through NFL.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/opinion/sunday/nfl-cte-brain-damage.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-top-region®ion=opinion-c-col-top-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-top-region
@ChoatieMom When Mr R & I started seriously thinking about kids, we went through a lot of “what if” scenarios… including “What if s/he wants to go to OSU?”
Lots of “disowned” and “not my child!” got thrown around 
Some of this is disturbing.
I was born and raised a Buckeye. Graduated from Ohio State (twice). Wife graduated from there too. I have never been anywhere near as anti-Michigan as many people are (and as anti-Ohio State as some here are). I only root for them to lose if Ohio State needs them to lose (want to beat an undefeated Michigan team every year). Not disappointed if they lose though. Contrast that to Notre Dame: I root for them to lose each and every game/contest they play in each and every sport from here until the end of time.
My son applied and was accepted in honors engineering at Michigan. Wouldn’t have had a problem had he gone there. Was never going to buy a UMich shirt for me to wear though. He opted to go to Ohio State. Wasn’t worth the $150k premium over 4 years.
You could take up skiing maybe. The best time to be on the slopes here in New England is when the Patriots play on Sunday afternoon, Slopes are empty, everyone hits the bar.
Giving up watching football/sports frees up so much time to do other things. I am amazed by how much time adult men spend watching games, it’s mind boggling. My brother sits through every Red Sox game no matter what the outcome is. The horror.
I rarely watch any sports on tv anymore, and if I do, it’s the last few minutes of a game and I happen to be home in front of the tv.
Good luck to you, your husband will survive.
Well, we have that in common.
+1 to Notre Dame.
OP, I’m sorry if I missed it, but would making a date every weekend to watch it at home or a bar or something not work?
Mr R & I had season tickets for a year and realized that it was more fun to watch it inside while it’s warm. He’s a big football fan, I’m not. I’m a big hockey fan, he’s not. We watch both together at home, where it’s warm, and where the beer isn’t $15 a glass.
@wellspring, I fully intend to quilt while watching the Super Bowl!
The NFL is the worst thing about football IMO. I started leaving the game back when they imposed stiff penalties on players who smoked marijuana in the off season but gave a pass, relatively, to the domestic abusers. The CTE issue just tops it all off.
OP, I’m glad you’ve spoken to your H. If you don’t enough time together, why not commit to date night once a week or so? He considers your game time to be time together but it seems like it was more a companioniable co-outing that he enjoyed and you endured.
No the idea is that I will not watch football at all, live or on TV. We are planning to find some other activities to offset the loss of time together - movies, plays, parks, etc. Maybe there will be more to life in the fall than football. H also suggested that I could go to the tailgate and then return home and he could come back with his brother.
Send him this and tell him that you are bowing out: