A woman who has been with her partner for 25 years says his conduct on the sidelines at their sons’ football matches is causing her to fall out of love with him, in a reader letter answered by Guardian columnist Annalisa Barbieri.
The couple have two sons, aged 14 and 16, who have both played football since they were very young. According to the letter, the partner shouts, criticises and swears at teenagers during matches.
The reader said she is embarrassed by his behaviour and that it is also affecting the boys. Their teammates hear their father, she wrote, and it is creating tension. She said she has tried to raise the issue with him but he brushes it off, and that their sons and the coaches have also spoken to him without success.
She described his competitiveness as something she initially found attractive, saying she had wanted a partner with drive, but she now considers this side of him a problem. She questioned how she can stay with someone who shows no respect for his children, their friends and teammates, or for coaches and referees, and said that if he cannot behave decently at matches he should not attend.
Barbieri said she did not think the reaction was extreme and described the behaviour as a genuinely unattractive side of the partner. She wrote that it is not competitiveness but the man behaving badly, and said she hoped he does not act this way in other areas of his life.
Barbieri consulted Lucy Fuller, a UKCP-registered psychotherapist. Both were interested in the question of why the behaviour happens now and in this setting. Barbieri noted the sons have played since they were young and asked whether the shouting has always been present or has recently started or intensified.
Fuller said the partner needs to reflect on whether his behaviour is suitable. She wondered whether his own experience of being supported or encouraged came through being shouted at from the sidelines, and whether that could be his only model of what support looks like. His ego and competitiveness are flooding the situation, Fuller said, and that is not appropriate here.
Fuller also suggested looking beyond the conduct itself. She asked whether the man is a frustrated player and whether a career, perhaps at professional level, was thwarted, adding that all behaviour is communication and that the reasons are worth investigating.
She encouraged the reader to try talking to him away from the sidelines when everyone is calm, and to consider what the subject brings up in him and what his adolescence was like when he was the age his sons are now. Feelings can be triggered when children reach a certain age, Fuller said, and those feelings may take some unearthing.
Fuller further asked what the man is like in other areas of his life and whether the situation reflects his overall attitude to life and his position within it. She said he would benefit from help reflecting on how others perceive him, and questioned whether this way of behaving has worked for him elsewhere.
At the heart of the matter, Fuller said, is frustration, and the key question is what he is frustrated about. She said it is almost as though he is so immersed in the game that he is angry with himself, and that the situation is heavily loaded with emotion. She asked what is so important that he has to behave this way, and whether he believes he can really affect the outcome of a match, saying she would question that because being shouted at does not motivate people.
Barbieri suggested the man could, in a calmer moment, practise putting himself in other people’s shoes, recall how such treatment felt if it was ever directed at him, and imagine how it feels for others. She advised picking the right moment to raise the subject, noting that being truly competitive does not require behaving this way because it is not sportsmanlike, and pointed to her podcast on projection as a possible aid to understanding what is being projected on to the matches.
The column, in which Annalisa Barbieri addresses a reader’s personal problem each week, was published by the Guardian on Sunday 11 October 2026. Readers can send problems to [email protected]. Barbieri does not enter into personal correspondence, and submissions are subject to terms and conditions. Comments on the piece are pre-moderated and may take a short time to appear.
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