Living with someone of the TV generation

[Vraille Darkfang]

1) Confront her. Fight.

Fight is the wrong idea. I'll lose.

The idea is to have her WANT to change. Which she sometimes does. Like when company came over & she ignored them for an hour. She felt bad afterward. Since then she did better, for a while, until she went over to her mom's had the both went zombiefied for a few hours.

Having just spent several days with her mother, her TV habit is about back to 100%. I might try inviting some friends over, that might work.

The idea is not to FORCE her to change, but to make it so she WANTS to change. She does want to chage occasionally, but that lasts until the new seasons begin.

Plus, my wife is, umm, determined. Determined in the same way a dehydrated mule led to water refusing to drink determination. For example, my wife bites her fingernails. Bites them down to nothing. She asked me to help her stop chewing her nails. That lasted 20 minutes before she threatened to kill me if a grabbed her hand 1 more time.

I'll talk with her tonight & see what we can work out.

Our VCR's not working & we just bought a house so the money it costs to buy a TIVO could be spent on a moe lasting improvement.

 

[reveal]

Fight is the wrong idea. I'll lose.

The idea is to have her WANT to change. Which she sometimes does. Like when company came over & she ignored them for an hour. She felt bad afterward. Since then she did better, for a while, until she went over to her mom's had the both went zombiefied for a few hours.

Having just spent several days with her mother, her TV habit is about back to 100%. I might try inviting some friends over, that might work.

The idea is not to FORCE her to change, but to make it so she WANTS to change. She does want to chage occasionally, but that lasts until the new seasons begin.

Plus, my wife is, umm, determined. Determined in the same way a dehydrated mule led to water refusing to drink determination. For example, my wife bites her fingernails. Bites them down to nothing. She asked me to help her stop chewing her nails. That lasted 20 minutes before she threatened to kill me if a grabbed her hand 1 more time.

I'll talk with her tonight & see what we can work out.

Our VCR's not working & we just bought a house so the money it costs to buy a TIVO could be spent on a moe lasting improvement.

You're going to fight. No matter how much you don't think you will, you will. No matter how you sugarcoat it, she will become defensive and that will lead to an argument which will lead to a fight. I don't know what your wife is like beyond what you've posted, but if she's like most other people, she will not be willing, or able, to give up what she is addicted to, regardless of how it makes others, or even herself, feel.

 

[WayneLigon]

It doesn't sound like she's a member of the 'TV Generation' (Everyone born after about 1960 is) but rather that she -- just based on the anecdotes you've given -- has some emotional and social adjustment problems inherited from her mother that need to be addressed. It sounds like she has an actual problem regarding the TV and hopefully the talk you're planning to have will make her see this. You sound strapped for cash so therapy might not be an option for you unless you're lucky enough to have it covered on your medical insurance or can get it cheap. There might be some kind of support group available near where you are; maybe check into your county mental health network and see what's around and affordable. Either way it sounds like smoething that needs to be confronted and dealt with.

Or you could just take a chance and sell the thing(s) off while she's not home one day. That might not go over very well, though.

 

[Cathix]

I have no intetnion to fight for my marriage. I intend to fight for my wife. We were very good friends before getting married and still are. I have will not fight for my marriage, I will work on my relationship with my wife. (oh, no kids).

In the end, I just need help with ways to break her of it. She wants too, even tells me so. Then we go over to her mom's for Sci-fi Friday. Bad habits are hard to break, being in an environment that reinforces them just makes it that much more difficult. (I know, I've good my own I'm working on).

Like one of the other readers on this thread, I too didn't get from your original post that your wife had any desire to change. That's much, much better news.

Ways to break her of it. Well, first off - you're not really going to be 'breaking' her of anything. Humans don't work that way. Semantics, I know, so I'll end that line of thought right there.

As I mentioned in my first post - behavior changes when life changes. I watched too much tv because there was nothing else going on. In the transition period between my lonely, hermetic 20's (I was very isolated, living in NYC no less) and my busy, family-oriented mid 30's, I often neglected work or social activities to watch a favorite show. I was still used to tv being a comforting activity. But it's not anymore. It took a few years, but now I don't have the patience to sit through most shows, unless they're really informative/educational. I have removed the temptation, however - by not having cable and I have brought so many other activities into my life that there's seldom time to even THINK about television.

Your wife needs to get busier. Busy enough so that other things eclipse tv. You can definitely help her with this, escpecially if some of the new activities are things you guys do together. I know that's a pretty 'Good Housekeeping' kind of answer, but there it is nonetheless.

 

[Kemrain]

Buy her a TiVo.

Buy her a TiVo and then you and she have some control. She doesn't need to watch a show when it's on, she can watch it when it's convienient for the both of you. She doesn't have to miss a show, as the TiVo will record it for her. She doesn't have to watch something she doesn't want to watch (wasting TV time, who'd have thought?) as all her shows are saved. Best of all, it gives you some control over the TV; the more control you two have over the TV, the easier it will be to wean her.

This is good also because she can just record a show if you need to interrupt her, or pause live TV and go back to it later. She can even rewind and fast forawrd through commercials, to spend less time actually watching TV.

It's a fairly cheap monthly service, and if you have direct TV you can watch one channel while recording another, or record on 2 simultaneously, very useful.

This isn't a solution to the problem, but it might help with some of the symptoms. Have that talk, and maybe use the TiVo as an initial compramise.

- Kemrain the Hopefully Helpful.

 

[Tinner]

You said that you just bought a house and money is tight. You've also said you don't want to cause a fight.
This means your next best option is manipulation. Find a way to disable the TV at will. Don't ruin it obviously, as you don't want to have to buy another, but find a way to have the thing conk out when you want it to. (I'm not an electrician, but I'm sure this is possible.)
Then, when you need to talk to your wife, just have the TV conveniently stop working. When it's not important, it will still work, so she isn't completely deprived of her hobby.
This is devious and rotten, and will likely cause worse problems if she ever finds out, but if you aren't willing to confront her, fight and/or get some solid marriage counseling, then your options are limited.
Personally, I'd go with the marriage counselling. My wife and I did a six week course with our minister before our marriage, and it was incredibly helpful.

 

[reveal]

You said that you just bought a house and money is tight. You've also said you don't want to cause a fight.
This means your next best option is manipulation. Find a way to disable the TV at will. Don't ruin it obviously, as you don't want to have to buy another, but find a way to have the thing conk out when you want it to. (I'm not an electrician, but I'm sure this is possible.)
Then, when you need to talk to your wife, just have the TV conveniently stop working. When it's not important, it will still work, so she isn't completely deprived of her hobby.
This is devious and rotten, and will likely cause worse problems if she ever finds out, but if you aren't willing to confront her, fight and/or get some solid marriage counseling, then your options are limited.
Personally, I'd go with the marriage counselling. My wife and I did a six week course with our minister before our marriage, and it was incredibly helpful.

He could always buy one of these:

https://secure.adbusters.org/orders/tvbgone/

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Buy her a TiVo.

Buy her a TiVo and then you and she have some control. She doesn't need to watch a show when it's on, she can watch it when it's convienient for the both of you. She doesn't have to miss a show, as the TiVo will record it for her. She doesn't have to watch something she doesn't want to watch (wasting TV time, who'd have thought?) as all her shows are saved. Best of all, it gives you some control over the TV; the more control you two have over the TV, the easier it will be to wean her.

The problem is not so much when she watches, but HOW she watches. I can live with setting our Friday night schedules around the Sci-Fi chann.... Umm, I can live with video taping Sci-Fi to watch later. The problem comes when she is watching, ignoring all other factors in the universe, tape delay or no. The fact that when the TV is on Live, DVD, or VCR, she zones out. 100% of all her mental faculties are geared to the TV, even id she doesn't really like what is on. Put a toddler in front of Barney, you'll probablly get a similar reaction. She doesn't NEED to put 100% effort into watching TV, it's a very passive process. Her inability to interact (or even react) while the set is on (even if she's just channel surfing) is what bugs me. (We've missed uncounted number of phone calls since she doesn't hear the phone ring when the TV is on. Well, she hears it, her brain just filters it out as useless backgroud noise; along with birds singing, the AC running, the tornado sirens, her husband screaming for help as he's discovered a hornets' nest in the backyard, those sort of things.

I can handle her watching TV, I can't handle her going into a catatonic state whenever it is on.

P.S. She hates to read. I've tried, but she HATES books. This comes from her mom, who the entire time she was growing up took her to the mall twice a week. To the bookstore in the mall. Then back home. This was fine when she was 2. About the time she turned 13, this began to teach her to hate the written word. Every week, twice a week brought to the the glorious host of commerce known as the mall. Straight to the book store, straight home. My wife resents her mother for this to this day.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

You said that you just bought a house and money is tight. You've also said you don't want to cause a fight.

No so much tight, as: OK, what do we need to buy.

1. Appliances.

2. Furniture.

You'd be surprsed how much stuff you need to buy when you have your own house. We have plenty of money, we are just very careful on how we spend it. (Thus, why we have money and many of our friends who make twice what we do scramble to pay their credit card bills every week).

I can learn to LIVE with her -15 Will save vs TV Charm, I just can't learn to ACCEPT it. Much like I've ACCEPTED that clothes can be worn only 1 before they need to be washed & that the Bed must be made every day, even if no one will see it & you'll just mess it up that night.

My wife has learned to accept some things about me she doesn't get. (The whole bird thing being one of them). Of course the fact we have Cardinals & Wrens singing their heads off at 5 in the morning isn't helping. (The Cardinals sound almost identical to our alarm clock, a Chirp Pause Chirp Pause noise). But then we started getting baby cardinals & finches in the yard, and they're cute, so they're ok.

 

[Hijinks]

I definitely think counseling would help her. It sounds like she's still very attached to her mother, whatever she might say, and she still sees the tv as comforting because it replaces her parent.

If it were me, I would sit her down and explain to her how you feel about the situation. Ask her to see a counselor (you can probably find one willing to counsel her at a reduced rate if you can provide proof of low income).

If she refuses to see a counselor, perhaps you could try turning the tv off completely, cold turkey, for a week. Play board games together. Go for walks. Take a mini-trip for a day or two to somewhere fun. Like any addiction, the longer you go without, the easier it is to stay away.