Here’s Survival Plan For ‘Hobby Widows’

“My husband is oblivious to me, oblivious to our two kids,” says Ellie, 31, who runs an afterschool recreation program for teenagers. “And the culprit is his computer. Charlie walks in the door, flips it on to check his e-mail and basically tunes the rest of us out for the evening.

“When he’s not logging on to chat rooms, cruising the Internet or doing work-related research on the computer, Charlie has his head buried in computer magazines. God forbid I try to talk to him when he’s logged on,” says Ellie. “He becomes furious that I’m interrupting him.

“He takes his laptop on vacation, too,” Ellie complains. “He says he needs to keep in touch with his office - he’s a salesman for a drug company. I can understand that - but only to a point. Taking a computer to the beach is in my mind absolutely crazy.” That’s when Ellie hit the roof.

“I started screaming and crying and generally making a scene in front of my kids and everyone else at the resort hotel. I feel horrible about what I did, but I can’t stand being a computer widow one more second.” Needless to say, most of the housework and child-care responsibilities fall on Ellie, not Charlie. “I’m tired of waiting on him,” she adds. “He never takes out the garbage, never puts the dishes away, never makes the bed unless I ask him to. Who does he think does all this - the good fairy?”

Charlie, 34, thinks Ellie is being entirely unreasonable, and he admits he tunes her out when she starts complaining about how unhappy she is.

“It’s 1997, and it’s time for Ellie to wake up to the fact that the information age is here - the world has changed,” Charlie lectures. “If I didn’t stay abreast of what’s happening in my field - the status of certain drugs, FDA opinions and which companies are buying out others - I can’t make a decent living.” Of course, he admits, he uses the computer to relax and play games, but he justifies that, too: “I’m not out drinking with the guys, am I? I’m home, and, besides, I’m teaching the kids how to use the Internet, and that puts them one step ahead in their studies.”

Charlie also insists that he has a perfect right to private time - and if he chooses to spend his time logged on to the computer, so be it. “Ellie goes to her ballet class, so why can’t I do this?”

As far as the housework goes, Charlie believes that his wife’s standards have always been much higher than his. “Okay, so I don’t notice the dust balls in the corner, and, if I do, frankly, I don’t care about them as much as she does. I need to veg out and relax at the end of the day.” Maybe if Ellie would stop haranguing him about helping, he’d participate a little more, he says.

Are you a computer, golf or sports widow?

A survival plan for lonely wives: “Ellie isn’t the only lonely wife who feels she’s been replaced by a computer, a golf club or a basketball,” notes Evelyn Firestone Moschetta, DSW, and Paul Moschetta, DSW, a husband-and-wife counseling team in New York City. Legions of women struggle every day with husbands who are unable to balance their love of sports, the Internet or some other hobby with their responsibility to their families.

What makes it particularly hard for Ellie is that she can’t tell herself that her spouse is acting this way for “the good of the family” - as she might be able to if he were simply a workaholic. Rather, he is being totally self-absorbed and indulging his own desires at the expense of others.

The following advice helped Ellie speak to Charlie so he finally heard her - and was motivated to mend his ways.

First, assess honestly the nature of your problem. Ask yourself: Is he immersed in his hobby or sport because he’s angry at you, because you have been fighting about unresolved problems for too long and he wants to get away?

Keeping in mind that each of you needs private time, sit down in a quiet moment, get out your monthly calendar and pencil in your schedules. When can you plan activities for the family? For just the two of you? When can you sign up for that decorative furniture arts course you’ve wanted to take? You may need to spend a couple of hours going over a two-month period in your life to fit everything in, but the time will be well spent if you both find that you are getting your needs met - guilt-free.

Learn to present your requests reasonably and without hysterics. Ask him to reconsider the Saturday morning golf game so he can come to your son’s soccer match. When Ellie learned to bring up this always-touchy subject calmly, and to take the edge out of her voice, Charlie was more willing to hear her out.