Marriage and the Power of Divorce

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Hatorade

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I was 16 maybe 17 and had a friend that introduced me Ultima Online he was a little older 22 I think but had a mortgage, wife and son on the way when I told him about Everquest. Basically the older brother I wanted, his wife was super hot too...Anyways I slowly saw his life fall apart because all he would do is play EQ, at one point he was ignoring his new born, wife left him, took the kid and we stopped hanging out, like a year later I run into him at the gym, he is super ripped and introduces me to his insanely hot new girlfriend. We caught up and he said yeah it got pretty bad but losing his kid in the divorce woke him up and he literally one day threw away his computer and everything that went with it and never looked back. I remember thinking shit that was a awesome computer too...instead of hrmm maybe I should do the same.

I often wonder what my marriage would be like if I wasn't a gamer, not that I let my gaming get in the way of real life but it is mostly what I do with my free time.
 
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Noodleface

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FFXI was my EQ. I spent a few years on that game probably 8-12 hours a day while working full-time too. It's basically a giant void in my life where I didn't do anything. I can recall what I did in-game but I don't know about anything that went on around me. It's part of the reason I graduated college at age 30.

When my wife and I started dating I did make it clear that gaming was one of my most important hobbies along with guitar. It's something I wasn't willing to drop completely for anyone, it was part of my life. I've made concessions here and there and I generally try not to game hard when she's home. The exception is I raid twice a week. This is something I started to line up with her working schedule, so when she quit we talked about it and she agreed it would be ok to continue.

The difference to me is if it became and issue, or I felt my wife or son were sorely neglected I could just as easily pull the plug. My son is probably the most important person in my life and I can't imagine playing a game over that
 
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Namon

Namon

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Noodleface said:
FFXI was my EQ. I spent a few years on that game probably 8-12 hours a day while working full-time too. It's basically a giant void in my life where I didn't do anything. I can recall what I did in-game but I don't know about anything that went on around me. It's part of the reason I graduated college at age 30.

When my wife and I started dating I did make it clear that gaming was one of my most important hobbies along with guitar. It's something I wasn't willing to drop completely for anyone, it was part of my life. I've made concessions here and there and I generally try not to game hard when she's home. The exception is I raid twice a week. This is something I started to line up with her working schedule, so when she quit we talked about it and she agreed it would be ok to continue.

The difference to me is if it became and issue, or I felt my wife or son were sorely neglected I could just as easily pull the plug. My son is probably the most important person in my life and I can't imagine playing a game over that
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Yeah when I got married it was the same thing, but I just did not have the luxury of ever being able to get back into MMO's. Way too many needs to jump up right that second and without being able to pause, and with no internet available, it got sticky so I just had to drop MMO's. I just game on console and hit pause when I'm needed at a moments notice. Now that I got the kids gaming, when we do eventually get non capped data (at least bigger than 20 gigs), we will probably try our hand at things like Destiny or what not. But that addiction thing was real though, my anecdote was the most blatant example, but over the 6 years I hardcore played MMOs, I saw countless issues with folks playing nearly 24/7.
 
Zaara

Zaara

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The husbando and I met at a raid crew get-together in CT. This was back during 40man Molten Core progression. I still remember getting him in a shitload of trouble because we were expected to show up for the raid that week, and in the course of giving him some sugar I accidentally sat on the keyboard long enough to make him facepull Majordomo. Whoops.

From the start we always had an understanding that gaming was something we were both going to do, and not neccesarily together. We leveled 3 times together in Warcraft, grinded out Conqueror title twice. Didn't really have a deleterious effect on the relationship because we were both doing the same thing. 2.2k arena grind needed its time, just like his poopsocking League or doing raids with his buddies.

I'm worse than he ever was in terms of time investment/hours spent, so there was never really any conflict over it. There's been times where I wanted to throw my computer out the window though. All that time grinding and raiding and doing BGs, and you look back on it and remember pretty much nothing.
 
Mures

Mures

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I got my wife hooked on computer gaming just by having her harvest shit for me in Star Wars Galaxies.
 
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Noodleface

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Namon said:
Yeah when I got married it was the same thing, but I just did not have the luxury of ever being able to get back into MMO's. Way too many needs to jump up right that second and without being able to pause, and with no internet available, it got sticky so I just had to drop MMO's. I just game on console and hit pause when I'm needed at a moments notice. Now that I got the kids gaming, when we do eventually get non capped data (at least bigger than 20 gigs), we will probably try our hand at things like Destiny or what not. But that addiction thing was real though, my anecdote was the most blatant example, but over the 6 years I hardcore played MMOs, I saw countless issues with folks playing nearly 24/7.
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For me I got back into playing MMO's when the kid went to bed. I figure I can ride that out for a few more years until he's a sentient being.

Some people drink, some people smoke, some people watch TV.. but for me, logging into WoW or whatever MMO has always been the most calming for me. I enjoy spending time with my wife, but for those couple days a week I can 'get away' from her and life and just do my own thing. I don't go out very often either, so really it's my alone time (even though I am playing with friends).

I had a best friend and roommate who fucked up his life by playing WoW 12 hours a day for over a year. II know people that have played and become extremely morbidly obese. Lots of failed relationships and marriages too.

I do look forward to the days of gaming with my son (hopefully). My dad gamed with me when I was a child and it was awesome. It's unfortunate he grew out of it.. I never will.
 
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Mures

Mures

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Yeah man, I heard on the radio recently that there was a recent study that showed gaming is an important stress reliever for men these days. For my dad it was hunting, he loves hunting and would hunt all the time if he was able to and would drive my mother crazy. Two totally different hobbies, but now I realize what hunting means to him.
 
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Omi43221

Omi43221

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Every once in a while I take two weeks off of gaming completely. If the idea of giving it up for two weeks terrifies you then your addicted.
 
Namon

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Noodleface said:
For me I got back into playing MMO's when the kid went to bed. I figure I can ride that out for a few more years until he's a sentient being.

Some people drink, some people smoke, some people watch TV.. but for me, logging into WoW or whatever MMO has always been the most calming for me. I enjoy spending time with my wife, but for those couple days a week I can 'get away' from her and life and just do my own thing. I don't go out very often either, so really it's my alone time (even though I am playing with friends).

I had a best friend and roommate who fucked up his life by playing WoW 12 hours a day for over a year. II know people that have played and become extremely morbidly obese. Lots of failed relationships and marriages too.

I do look forward to the days of gaming with my son (hopefully). My dad gamed with me when I was a child and it was awesome. It's unfortunate he grew out of it.. I never will.
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Not wanting to turn this into a parenting thread derail, but that moment will come, and it is a great one.
 
alavaz

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I'm sure gaming with kids is cool when they are like 8+. My son is 5 and only wants to play minecraft. But when we play, he doesn't actually play, he just fucks around and kills me (but gets pissed if I hit him back), jumps around doing stupid shit while constantly telling me to "watch!" and then bugs me to load mod after mod... Yeah needless to say me and him playing minecraft together is only a couple hours on the weekend event.
 
Springbok

Springbok

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Ya, I go in spurts where for a month I play something non stop after work, on the weekends, whatever - but then (and I don't know if it's age related, or the games just aren't as good or compelling) I can go months at a time without even turning my super-expensive leet gaming pc on. I'd say the Ipad gets by far the most use in the house just browsing forums about games, rather than actually playing them. My wife is pretty chill about video games, but our priorities have always been traveling (#1 leisure activity for us, pre-children), cooking, little stuff like that that we're both involved in and into. I tried to get to her to play Overwatch, but she hated it and immediately went back to Planet Coaster - sunk 40 hours into a park and hasn't turned on the computer once since... that was in November.

If we'd met when I was 22, I doubt we'd have made the relationship work. When I was skipping classes/work/engagements and lying about shit just to go home and raid in WOW I realized pretty quickly that it was a genuine addiction. Like my crack addiction.
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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The only time gaming every interfered with my marriage was right when I got married. My wife was going to grad school at night so I'd get home from work, we'd see each other for 30 minutes and then I'd game all night until she got home. Only reason it became a problem was because it was fucking P99 right when it came out and EQ is not something you can just mess around with for 30 minutes at a time like WoW.
 
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Soygen

Soygen

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I don't game much during the week, but on weekends, I like to play several hours at night. I set a precedent from the get go with my girlfriend that this is what I like to to on weekends that we're home. Five years in and she doesn't really give a shit. I don't play MMOs much, so that probably helps. With the baby coming in less than 8 weeks, I'm sure my weekend gaming will get disrupted for a while!
 
Cad

Cad

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Soygen said:
I don't game much during the week, but on weekends, I like to play several hours at night. I set a precedent from the get go with my girlfriend that this is what I like to to on weekends that we're home. Five years in and she doesn't really give a shit. I don't play MMOs much, so that probably helps. With the baby coming in less than 8 weeks, I'm sure my weekend gaming will get disrupted for a while!
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A while = 10 years

Just saying
 
Noodleface

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Not true. My kid goes to bed at like 8pm and sleeps through the night. I use that time to game
 
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Soygen

Soygen

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Word. Also remember, I have a step son who was 3 when I met my girlfriend. While he's with his dad about half the time, it's given me a dose of what the baby will be like post-infancy(as far as affecting what I do in my free time). That said, I'm trying to beat a bunch of games over the next two months!
 
Cad

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Noodleface said:
Not true. My kid goes to bed at like 8pm and sleeps through the night. I use that time to game
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I spend that time with my wife. Before kids, I used to spend like early evening with the wife and I'd game after she went to bed. Now we do family stuff until the kids are in bed then spend time together until bedtime, unless I gotta work. There's just very little time for sitting at the computer for hours if I want to be able to spend any time with her.
 
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Cad

Cad

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And I don't mean that in any disparaging way against anyone else's marriage as if they aren't spending time with their wife. Just saying what works out for me.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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I think I mentioned it but I game only twice a week. Usually not on weekends too. Just saying you can compromise
 
Soygen

Soygen

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Yeah, as long as nobody is butthurt, do whatever works. I do most of my gaming on my couch, so at the very least she's hanging out with me on the couch reading, etc.
 
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