when playing with your spouse or significant other...

[Annika]

I think the Troll is at it again.

[catfish]

I play the same whether with my husband or against him. We've been together for about 10 years now. We met playing 7.0 mixed together when I had just been playing tennis for about 3 months. We played together all the time and he taught me a lot about playing doubles. About 1 1/2 years later, he got bumped up to 4.0, then I did the following year. We still played together most of the time at 8.0 level, but it got tough. I think my expectations were out of line. So we played 8.0 mixed a few seasons with different partners mostly. After a couple of seasons of not playing together at all, we played together again and did well. Then, I got bumped up to 4.5. We can't play 8.0 together anymore, but we can play 8.5 mixed together.

We play together sometimes for fun, and sometimes against each other for fun. We joke around and keep it in perspective. We played against each other in a club doubles tournament about a year ago and he and his partner won. It didn't bother me because if I couldn't win, I'm glad my husband did. There's no reason either of us needs to play any different whether we play against each other or with each other.