When your significant other resents gaming

[Psion]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When your significant other resents gaming

Here here.

It seems to go back to that old idea that men marry a woman for who they are while a woman marries a man for who they think he can be.

Does it boil anyone elses blood here when you here wives joke back and forth about how well "trained" their husbands are? There really isnt much of a difference.

Actually I sort of understand the sentiment. I do beleive that we have to be willing the change, make accomodations and compromises to have healthy marraiges.

But my point is that to be have healthy relationships/marraiges, BOTH SOs/spouses have to be willing to compromise. I don't think marraiges with henpecked/"whipped" husbands and demure little subservient wives are the best, and are often very harmful to those involved.

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Re: Re: Re: When your significant other resents gaming

Right, but that's not the sort of thing I am talking about. It certainly is possible to become too obsessive about gaming (and I think I was that way not too long ago) and neglect your other responsibilities.

Oh, I know. I'm just pointing out (quite OT) that it's sometimes very easy to mistake the one for the other.

BTW, are you not light-hearted anymore?

 

[Chimera]

I'm very lucky in that while my wife doesn't game or have any interest in it, she also has a number of Gamer friends from before we got together. So no worries on that front. In fact, she is very happy to have the "Alone Time" while I'm off gaming.

No way I'd allow my wife to tell me what activities I could or could not participate in, nor would I ever dream of doing that to her. We may Negotiate, Limit or Compromise, but none of that "Thou Shall Not Do That" crap. That ain't Love, folks.

 

[Psion]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When your significant other resents gaming

BTW, are you not light-hearted anymore?

I don't think in the way I used to be. 6 years in the Navy turned my sense of humor a little more to the cynical side.

 

[fett527]

I too have a wife that i would say hates that I game. Her reasons are two-fold. 1. Time- She didn't even like the once a week and i had to compromise to a 2wks on, one wk off cycle. To our gaming group every other week loses all continuity. 2. She thinks it's immature. This is the unreasonable part of it and the source of many arguments. I have asked and she has replied if it was something other than D&D, such as playing poker, that she would be more tolerant of it. She thinks it's something that I should have outgrown.

I have made her understand that the major reason I do it is to spend time with friends and that has helped. We don't argue every time about it, only when something else takes up some time she expects me to cut out gaming and I won't do it. I've tried to make her understand that it is a commitment as well and the other players count on me to be there. I know I have a commitment to her, but she can't expect me to abandon something I love to do. There's been one instance where I was wrong and shouldn't have gamed, so I try to keep that in mind as well.

I realize this post is a little scatterbrained, I'm trying to do a couple things at once. Sorry.

 

[Ghostwind]

Back on Topic

Let me quickly outline my situation so perhaps everyone will understand why I posed this question in the first place.

I've been married 13 years and for the first couple of years she gamed with me (we were gaming about once every other week at that time). Although she tried to understand and even like gaming, she thought it was a huge waste of time to spend 8-10 hours sitting around doing essentially nothing. Consequently, she quit gaming and was willing to let me game by myself (although she wasn't pleased about it). The group's gaming time soon went to once a month due to everyone's differing work schedules. For most of this time, I worked in a situation where I had every other weekend off and many times she felt that gaming that one day a month took away from time that her and I should spend together. This is where the resentment and hatred began to form, I believe. I should also point out that because of her legal career, my gaming hobby had (and still has) to be kept a secret because of the beliefs that D&D and Satanism were directly correlated (which are still believed today in the legal/social work systems). When we had our first child over four years ago, my gaming time had further reduced to once every 6-8 weeks because of conflicting schedules and so forth. Again, the issues remained, especially the time one.

Despite the fact that we now have two kids and that my group now meets 4-6 times a year, each time I leave to play for 6-8 hours usually results in a heated exchange (but not necessarily an argument). I am a stay at home dad who has chosen to sacrifice his professional career in order to take care of our kids and maintain the household. My only real form of recreation outside of family things are gaming-related and computer related. Now add all of what I have said to the fact that I have also begun to forge a new career in this industry as a writer which does demand a considerable amount of what little free time I do have and you maybe understand why I was asking the questions about how other folks handle this situation. I have to say that honestly, if all of my gaming stuff was destroyed through some unforeseen circumstance, such as the house burning down, she wouldn't shed a single tear and if I wanted to replace those items, it would come strictly from whatever money I earned on my own from writing...

So how would you handle this or have you dealt with this in your own experiences?

To head off some of the responses that inevitably will be brought up...
*Yes, we have discussed how she feels and no, it is never productive simply because she feels that gaming is wrong now matter how you explain it.
*Yes, this is a time spent issue (and largely a control of that time issue).
*Yes, I make time for family activities and often sacrifice large blocks of time for those purposes (like entire weekends).
*I average about 4-6 hours a day on the computer doing my writing, with most of that being after everyone has gone to bed (but that is a whole other argument). So I don't feel like I am taking away from her or the kid's personal time on a large scale.
*No, divorce is not an option either...

 

[BlackMoria]

Ghostwind: I hear ya, bro.

That was very much the same thing for me in the early days of my marriage.

6-8 hours with the gaming crowd every 4-6 times a year is not a 'quality time' issue. That is the window dressing on the real issue. It's not about the gaming....

I am no expert and don't know the two of you personally, but I'm willing to bet it has nothing to do with gaming at all. There is another issue here but the gaming is focal point of the outlet of the deeper issue. The problem is in the resulting dialogues, you both think it is the gaming and it is not, so the real issue is not forthcoming.

In all seriousness, pickup the book by Dr. Phil McGraw on relationships. Its called 'Relationship Rescue' or something like that. I have watched enough of 'Dr. Phil' on Oprah to realize that this man has a real talent for helping people get to the underlying root of the problems that plaque most marriages.

As a testimonial, I have found that the advice of Dr. Phil is very instrumental in my wife and I better understanding each other.

We used to fight all the time about this and that, and yes, gaming was one of them. We don't fight about almost anything at all now. Some of that I can attribute to what I have learned from watching Dr. Phil on Oprah or reading one of his books.

As long as the two of you dance around the real issue, its not going away. You both have to identify the real issue, deal with it in a fashion what is a win-win situation for both of you.

Best of luck.

Del

 

[Xeriar]

Okay, my first post on this thread was assuming intolerance of either the time spent (usually valid on anything more than once a week), the D&D = Satanism crud, or the immaturity bit.

4-6 times a year, however? I have to go with Blackmoria here, something else is seriously and utterly wrong.

I think it's a control issue, not a time spent or hobby issue. She does not control every aspect of your life yet, therefore she does not control you, therefore you are not her slave (because, well, you're not making any money now, are you?).

Of course, I know very little of the other side of the story. Certainly she feels that if she's paying the bills, you owe her your time... but all of it? There is something far deeper there. This goes beyond common control-freak.

I really don't get it.

 

[Ghostwind]

There are other personal issues between us which I will not drag out into this forum. I was mainly concerned in coming up with new ideas or tactics to approach matters from a fresh perspective. There hasn't been a whole lot of imput from the female gamers to this thread and I would like to hear the female point of view to this situation. Any takers?

 

[Xeriar]

Well, I only know a lot of women. And the thing is, they're all different. But one thing that most have in common to a T is that they really do say one thing and mean another when feelings are involved (unless they're the type that doesn't consider the feelings or needs of others important - fate help you there).

Sometimes I have to out and say it 'You are thinking something else, but I'm a man and don't get it, what is it?'

She may think, for some reason, that if you drop gaming it will solve a certain problem rather than making it worse, but she does not want to tell you what that problem is for fear of causing more problems.

She may just find her work too overly stressful to deal with the children when you go on your gaming sessions. My father had this issue for a bit (work was just... depressing. Just the environment, damn beige walls...), and I can't blame him.

---

I don't think any advice can help you with your gaming until you work out whatever problem is really going on first. -Then- you can work on setting aside 'me time' and 'family time'.