Gaming and Marriage. Has it caused issues?

[Exhuminator]

I'm not religious whatsoever, but I agree with you Sarge about pastors. I've gotten some solid advice from religious authority figures in the past without them weaving any religion into it whatsoever. Definitely a great idea if you can't afford a therapist.

Anyway, I wouldn't say what we've been doing is navel gazing. I think this has been one of the better discussions I've ever seen on Racketboy. We've debated some pretty heady subjects and certainly have seen a lot of different angles on this issue. Maybe we didn't help Vant3c out, but who knows perhaps we've helped a lurker or two find a solution to their own issues.

[marurun]

I don't think most of the discussion has been navel gazing, but some of it has, and I think we're starting to repeat ourselves at this point.

[jp1]

I don't think most of the discussion has been navel gazing, but some of it has, and I think we're starting to repeat ourselves at this point.

That is subjective.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[Frag Mortuus]

Vant3c:

One thing to consider with this "game time" is the amount of time you spend hunting those deals, visiting various shops and yard sales, on top of playing and whether or not those times conflict with the times your wife wants to spend with you. Now, I've never been a fan of ultimatums. I think they are unfair. To me the lines of communication need to be open enough to where the two of you can clearly discuss the issues surrounding your gaming and what damage it is causing, and to also propose solutions. Now, with that said, if you both discuss it and either agree on a happy medium that one of the two of you don't adhere to, or if one of the two of you are being completely unfair with their demands on a solution (i.e. you sell everything and stop gaming. Or, she has to just wait her turn for your attention), then an ultimatum is reasonable as a last straw. That is just my opinion and every couple dynamic is different.

In my marriage, my wife is very much a passive person and will never tell me if something is bothering her. So, I have to be extra aware of what I'm doing or how I'm spending my time as not to upset her. I don't mean that in a bad way. She would just rather not rock the boat unless it is something she feels extremely strong about. So, in return I choose to be ultra observant of how my hobbies and free time are affecting her and the kids. If I start playing a game in the evening and I see her head to the bedroom instead of hanging out in the living room with me while she reads I'll make it a point to ask her if she minds that I'm playing. To which she will ALWAYS replay "No", but I follow up with suggestions we could do instead like watching TV together in bed or watching a movie or whatever. Usually if she wants to do any of those she will let me know. If so, I will go watch the movie or TV show and after she decides to actually go to sleep I will get back up and play games if I'm not too tired.

On the weekends, I typically reserve the whole day on Saturday and Sunday as family time. I may get on first thing in the morning and play for an hour to two while everyone gets up and moving and ready for the day to begin. But then I won't play again until that night and only if my wife wants to play as well. I also keep the kids engaged by playing games like Disney Infinity or Mario Kart 8 with them. But, if my kids are asking me to tickle them or to come see their room, I know this is their way of saying "lets play" or "I want to spend time with you" and honestly, sometimes it only takes 15-30 minutes of playing blocks or wrestling for them to get worn out and ready for a nap or bed time.

I try to bend my gaming time to the desires of my family. I'm not a perfect husband and father. In fact sometimes after work I just want to relax and be left alone. But, once I give myself a bit to decompress, I force myself to do the husband and father role and walk away glad that I did.

Now, with all that said, it is pretty much understood that on Tuesday, after dinner, baths, and cuddles with the kiddos, it is my time to play Destiny. Tuesday is the weekly reset where the weekly missions and Raids all drop loot again, all of my buddies are online and I stay up until at least midnight trying to cram it all in. That way if I can only get a hour here or there the rest of the week I still got most of my weekly rewards.

I hope you and your wife are able to mend things and find a system that works for both of you. Also, keep in mind that games are material things that are easy to reacquire. But, love is really hard to replicate don't let it go because of something inconsequential like a hobby. At the same time, if your love and respect for her is mutual she should be willing to compromise to allow you to keep gaming since it means to much to you.

Just my $.02. Hope it helps.

[kikenovic]

My fiancee doesn't know I like videogames. I'll bring it up after we get married. We'll see if she really loves me.

[Exhuminator]

Surprise twist: She's a closet hardcore gamer, and upon realizing your hobby she steals all your gaming stuff and runs off with the local GameStop dude.

[Sarge]

Surprise twist: She's a closet hardcore gamer, and upon realizing your hobby she steals all your gaming stuff and runs off with the local GameStop dude.

M. Night Shyamalan would be proud.

[bacteria]

Everyone is different, so the concept of understanding of what someone can/should be in regards to an obsession is flawed by everyone's conception of their thinking, understanding and also experiences. For some, cold turkey is required, some people do not have the will power to suddenly stop something they enjoy, others can just curb back and not have any issues or can do things in moderation.

Talking from my own experiences, I can focus for hours on end on something and lose all regards to time in the process (part of my Aspergers), which means "just have to do this" = hours. That means my wife gets pissed as she gets lonely without me. Also, when i'm not doing what I was doing i'm thinking about it in anticipation of getting back to what I was working on. That is obsession. The issue then is how much of an addictive personality you have as to how you deal with the problem. I take my marriage vows very seriously, hence why we have been married happily for 19 years to date, therefore if something gets in the way of that it has to go - so for me, by taking away the need for "likes", forum activity (and running it), takes away the drive and most of the obsession by distancing from it; what's left then is modding with no constraints, ie just for the fun of modding and not status or fame. Not even on this site much these days either, popped on for a few minutes as bored at work!

[s8n]

i watch a lot of Luke Morse videos on Youtube and always wondered and thought this isnt just adding up to me. Sure i love his videos and have learned and been entertained by them , but how is it he's married with a kid and can put in so much time in gaming and repairs.


checkout his final video on Youtube it makes sense to me now.............

[Vant3c]

Hello Racketboy!

Long time no post lol. I wanted to update this post after a long, long..... long time. Some of you might still be on here who committed and others who properly never seen this at all. I figured I would give an update on this post after so many years and what all happened afterwards with my former marriage. I think the reason I'm doing this is somewhat cathartic and to give the real insight as to what really happened after all the information came to light. This will be a long read for some of you, but if you take the time to read, then it might give an idea of what really took place and gaming was not the issue at all.

So....where to start with something like this. Well, I think I need to explain what the core was really issues of my ex-marriage, and how I handled it when I found out the cause. My ex-wife (who has since passed away. I'll get to that later) was hiding massive amounts of credit card debt and was also using drugs behind my back. Shocking I know right!? It did completely surprise me, and I didn't know what to do. See, I did sell some of my collection at the time before I found all of this out. It was about a $1,000 or so at the time. Well, once I did find out that she was doing all of this, I stopped and focused on these issues. It came to light that she wanted me to sell it under the guise of an obsession and addiction for collecting/gaming to then use that money to pay off her credit card debts. Once that information was out in the open, I knew then I was not going to be able to trust her and honestly.... that trust went away. I mean, how can you trust someone after all of that and the lies? Well, she didn't like that and felt that I should help her since we were married, and we fought about it while I also tried to understand how this all could happen. Then, I came one day I came home to note saying that she was moving out, not to contact her and she took all the money we had saved together. About 10k in all that we had at that time in our joint account. Well, I was scared, no money, had bills and rent to take care of. Luckily, I had my parents, who understood and helped me get back on my feet and loaned me money (which has been paid back in full long time ago) Needless to say, I decided the marriage could not continue and I filed for divorce in early 2016 and official by June of 2016. After that, I got my life back on track. It took but I was able to do it with loving family, friends and people who was understanding of my situation. It wasn't easy but I worked hard at it while dealing with my trauma from the whole thing.

In the summer of 2018, I got contacted by an old friend of hers, who told me that her drug abuse was bad. I'm talking heroin and pills here folks. She said that my ex-wife has been arrested for possession and other drug related charges multiple times. I shocked again but at the same time.... I wasn't too surprised by that kind of news. It comes with the territory, I guess. Well, this was during the summer of 2018 that I got this news. She asked me to reach out to her and that maybe she would listen to me. I said I would think about it but wasn’t sure If I should given all that went down between us. Instead, I decided to reach out to her younger sister and see what was all going on and what information she could give to me. So, I did and found out it was all true that she was going to go to rehab. After a long conversation, her sister told me not to contact her again because she didn’t want to get to involved with all that’s going on and she thanked me for my concern and call. I mulled on that information for a bit and decided to reach out to my ex-wife out of concern. Well, I called, we spoke, and she said she wanted nothing to do with me, and not to talk to her friends or family again. She has moved on with her life, has a better boyfriend that me (he was a drug addict too by the way) and she was happier now. I said ok and left it alone. I didn’t know what to think or what to do but there was nothing to do in that situation I thought. So, I just continued in my life, but the thoughts weighed on me for some time and could not for me understand her or how she became like this. I just had to move past it and so I did…. until.

I was out my house on Saturday, the 25th of August 2018. I received a phone call from her friend again. I thought about not answering but she wouldn’t be calling me if it wasn’t something to do with my ex. I answered the call. She said to me “Are you sitting down and can talk for a minute?” I said “I’m at my house and what do you need to talk about? Is it about my ex again and what happened this time with her?” She then said….” Your ex has died from a drug overdose last night and I figured you should know. I’m sorry you must hear this from me, but I wanted to let you know” I broke down immediately once she told me. I couldn’t believe it. This woman who I used to love, trust and built my future hopes and dreams passed away from a drug overdose. I asked all the questions that I could from her friend of the why, who, how and so on. But nothing she said could make me understand what happened and where it all went so wrong for her. I blamed myself and that it was my fault all of this happened to her. But, in time after speaking with friends and family they showed me that I didn’t cause this, that I didn’t lead her down this path she took and that I wasn’t to blame for her choices that she made. It took me to realize all of that, but it didn’t make that pain go away all at once. It just took me time. I was lost as a person in my thoughts and during that time I needed to distract myself to where the thoughts would not weight me down.

To help me keep those thoughts at bay and to process them in my own way I turned to my hobby again and decided to pick up a game in the hopes it would cheer me up. I picked up a new release called Dragon Quest 11 on the PS4. That game helped me to not only keep the thoughts at bay but helped me in my own way to process what was happening around me. I lost myself in that game for weeks on end. I mean I went to work, hung out with friends and family, workout and so on but in those moments by myself, this game helped me. When I reached the end of Dragon Quest 11 and saw the ending and that hero’s journey. I felt that I overcame my own grief, sorrow, and sadness. I came away with new understanding from processing all those thoughts and emotions. I now had the peace, understanding, hope and a new vision of my life and what I have come to learn and grow as a person. Like that game, I found that I overcame many obstacles in my life and forged my own path, and the path behind me does not define who or what I am, but only my dreams and hard work determine that. With that chapter of my life now closed, I knew I could move forward and see what would be next for me.

Like many of you, I still have had ups and down because that’s life, but I found that I always had the strength to endure and preserve though it all. I kept my feet planted firmly on the ground I kept making progress now matter how big or small or what setbacks came my way. I have now made many accomplishments in my life, I own my first home, moved to a new area, have a better career, and have found someone that I feel I can have a life with. A person who not only understands my passions and hobbies but also enjoys them and is fascinated with game collecting (she is nerd like me and love that about her lol) and wants me to partake in it with to some degree. Its still early but we have something that helps so much and that is communication, patience, understanding and a desire to always improve with each other and make sure to keep happiness in each other’s lives. Be that peace to each other with love, kindness, and nerdy things too lol.

Thank you for reading my post and taking the time to do so. I do still collect and game and that won’t change, but my hobby did not lead me to ruin. My hobby helped me as much as it could to provide comfort in my life. It helped me to find that peace I needed and for that I am thankful for games can provide.

P.S I’m currently playing Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy on my Xbox one and it is a fantastic game so far. Go pick it up and give a go. You will love it, I think!