My wife won't let me play D&D.

[Geoffrey]

I'm 32 and have been married for two and a half years. If worse comes to worse, I'd game regardless.

 

[S'mon]

First the good news is that your wife values your time together.

One solution is to invite her into the game. It worked for me. I have even more fun now that my wife is involved.

If she does not want to play, schedule the game when she is doing some other activity.

Yeah, let her at least meet your friends at the game, even if she doesn't want to play (don't force her). Let her sit in on a game. You might like to suggest to your mates that they cut down on the swearing, just this once, if it's going to give a bad impression. I'm lucky, my players are extremely civilised, I'm much more likely to swear than any of them - of course it's my house...

 

[Andorax]

First, you mentioned that your friends have wives. Do they game? Do they tolerate their hubbies gaming? And does your wife get along with these other wives?

One possable solution would be for the wives to have a "ladies night out" while you guys are gaming, assuming that the other wives aren't part of the group and get along well enough with one another.


Another, which actually worked quite well with warming MY wife to the idea of 3rd edition, is to run a solo campaign. You DM. She runs a lone PC. Introduce it to her in a "safe" environment, no competition, no arguments, plenty of opportunity to learn the mechanics and how the whole thing works without worrying about other "geeky" friends around and so forth.

Results may vary. Then again, I met my wife when she was brought to my gaming group as a girlfriend of one of the other players.

 

[SemperJase]

If you can only meet with your friends on the weekends, you should really not play more than 1 or 2 times a month. I play Sunday nights, which works great for us, most people don't have much scheduled that night.

This is a great point. If you are gaming weekly, that is probably taking too much time. I can understand her not wanting to schedule every weekend around your gaming.

 

[Maraxle]

Playing on the weekend is your mistake. Make it a week night. Make it a maximum of 3-4 hours, and she should be happy. That's what seems to work for me and my players. You should be spending time with her on the weekend, anyway.

 

[Skaros]

Is she your wife or your mother.

My wife knows better than to think she can order me around, just like I know better than to think I can order her around.

Either this is a troll or someone who needs to grow a backbone and fast.

If I didn't see you posting so often on these boards, I'd think you were trolling yourself.

From the very small amount of insight we have into this guy's life, the best decision could in fact be to not game at all (as far as we know, anyway).

Wives, who love their husbands, really don't usually ask for things like this unless they see very good reason for it....or a good underlying problem behind her reasoning.

My best advise is to have a conversation about the issues where you take turns trying to understand each other's points of view.

Conflict resolution is one of the most important keys to successful marriage. In fact, studies show that it tends to be the single most decisive factor in staying together through the years.

A good technique to try is to have one of you start by expressing how he/she feels about the issue, while the other one simply listens and interrupts only to summarize what he/she is saying...to insure understanding.

Then switch roles so that both of you understand fully where the other is coming from.

Usually the issues, as others have suggested here, go beyond a dislike of the thing that, on the surface, you are arguing about. Perhaps, as someone suggested, the underlying issue is that she doesn't feel enough time is being devoted to more critical issues throughout the week, and is pointing to the adition of a game night as something that will definitely worsen the problem.

Anyway, First step is to talk about it and understand each other's point of view. Second step, after good understanding is reached, is to brainstorm solutions.

To get rid of any aditional stereotypes, as has been suggested, having her watch a game or be around during one may help a lot.

Good luck!

-Skaros

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Orders from one spouse to another is not how a decent marriage works. It reminds me more of love sick highschool girlfriends who had fits if they did not spend 24-7 with you, even when most of the time you spent the time doing nothing.

Gaming is not the problem here. His gaming issue with his wife (assuming this is not a troll) is merely a consequence of other problems in his marriage. The largest one being the very wrong tone being taken here.

From the very small amount of insight we have into this guy's life, the best decision could in fact be to not game at all (as far as we know, anyway).

 

[KnowTheToe]

You could change your gaming group.

I am also 30 and have had to recently change my gaming group. I did not want to, I have known most of them since I was a small kid, but most of my gaming friends either had babies or moved.

Instead of giving up gaming, I found a new group on-line (thru this site). I really enjoy the new game and met a bunch of nice people to boot.

I see my other friends more sparatically due to schedules, usually at parties or to go for motorcycle rides, life moves on and sometimes you needs to adapt.

 

[reveal]

While I cannot really give any advice as to how to get your wife to change your mind, I can give you some examples of the relationship I have with my wife and observations I have made of other peoples relationships.

A few years ago, a coworker of mine complained about his wife. His complaint was about movies they rented. He was not the type of person who could sit on the couch and watch a movie for two hours. He would get bored and go off to do something. His wife would get mad at him because this was "their time together." They had been married for about a year at that point.

When my wife and I first got married, about 6.5 years ago now, we were in the exact same situation. But instead of complaining, I talked to her. I communicated my feelings and she communicated hers. I told her that the movie was just not that interesting and I wanted to do something else with absolutely nothing against her. She told me that it had nothing to do with the movie, but rather just the simple fact we were spending time together. So, when I left, I was, in essence, "leaving her" for a time.

I have always said that it doesn't matter how you mean something, if someone takes something you say or do a certain way than that is what you must deal with. So I told her it had nothing to do with her and that I just did not enjoy the movie enough to sit down. After talking a while about it, we agreed that I meant nothing by it and, considering we spent every other available minute together, me not sitting through a movie with her was not the end of our relationship.

After this diatribe, your probably wondering "So what the heck's your point?"

Here it is: It's all about communication. We talked to each other, found out how the other felt and worked out a resolution. Today, my wife and I have one of the strongest relationships of anyone we know. We respect each other tremendously and realize a little "me time" for one of us is not the end of the world. Especially now that we have a 7 month old. It really helps to know you can slip away for a few minutes to take a breather while the other person watches your child.

 

[StalkingBlue]

JE, I feel for you. It's very painful when you don't know how to find a healthy compromise between me-time and us-time with your spouse.
There's been some good advice here already.

Inviting your wife to a game is one. Ask her whether she's like to sit in and listen first, or play a (guest?) character. If she wants to play, have an introductory one-on-one session with her.


Considering cutting down on gaming time is another.

I run a game on Saturday nights because it's the only day of the week on which all of us can make it.

Two of my players have a non-gaming husband/girlfriend, respectively. Of the other four players, two are a couple. Much as we love the game, none of us would want to sacrifice every Saturday night for gaming.

This means that we play only once a month. It's a compromise, and it gives everybody a chance to game - and to also spend quality time elsewhere with their spouse/SO, friends, cats or what have you.



And in yet another aside, no one in their right mind would infer a lack of backbone from your post. Quite the contrary. But you know that, of course.