Is it game over for my baseball-loving boyfriend?

Q: I met my boyfriend at an opening baseball game. He was sitting behind me and his boisterous support for the home team and hilarious wisecracks about their opponents made me turn around and smile at him. He was gorgeous! He thought the same thing about me, but later said it was because of my love of the game.

We spent a wonderful few months dating through the baseball season (No, our team didn’t make the World Series) and by last November he’d moved in with me.

We were busy settling in through Christmas and getting together with our two families.

But by January, things didn’t feel right. After buying us a new bed, I had no extra money to travel to spring training. I found we had a lot less in common.

I do sales online for a large company, working from home (which is why I could fit in my passion for attending games).

But my boyfriend only gets parttime work and seems to have little ambition.

Now, during the months of pandemic, he’s been mostly unemployed, showed no ambition to find other work and didn’t try to be useful with cleaning up as we lived through social isolation together.

His idea of getting outside to boost his spirits, has been to have three beers on the apartment’s terrace, several times a day.

Adding to the growing gulf between us, as the virus took hold where we live, it became pretty likely there’d be no baseball season until maybe late June. Even if there were to be one, it’d have no place for fans like us.

I saw a photo of a Korean stadium where there were no people in seats, just pictures of people with surgical

masks on to make the point, as the Korean Baseball Organization launched its opening game.

So now, what do I do? Wait for a return to the next “normal” baseball season as the answer to our relationship?

To break up now, I’d have to just insist that he leave (I’m covering the rent, he only contributes a little for food and his beer).

Is it Over?

A: You make a case for the negative, so that’s where you’re already heading in your own mind.

Meanwhile, your still-partner sounds like he’s depressed and hopeless — no income, and drinking to excess. Being hasty by insisting that he leave might cause an angry reaction you’ll both regret.

Talk to him in a positive way about how you both can improve things, especially as stay-home restrictions ease. Ask him if he’d like to talk to someone professional online, privately, about how he’s feeling with so many things changed in his life.

Or, maybe he’d prefer having counselling help together. It’d be a start to both of you recognizing that baseball, alone, is not enough in common for a relationship to last through unusual strains and losses.

Once you start this conversation, you may both find that, while it was a basis for attraction and one shared interest, it takes more mutual effort and support to build a lasting, loving connection.

Try this approach — unless you feel that the breach between you two is escalating and heading in a direction that worries or frightens you.

If that happens, make a safe plan for telling him that it’s over. You both have families, so get help from yours to back you up and make sure he gets help from his to leave.

Ellie’s tip of the day

One shared interest only, to the exclusion of all others, is a shaky foundation for a lasting relationship.