First, let's set the record straight. My distaste for my husband's gaming habit has nothing to do with a belief that it is "childish". Just because someone dubbed this activity "gaming" does not make it youthful, playful, imaginative or giddy. I am not a gamer, but I can frolic barefoot through the grass giggling and singing nonsense songs with any four year old any day. You want to see play? I can bring it. So please, stop believing that your spouse is rolling their eyes at you again because they think you need to grow up.
First Things First
My husband doesn't even kiss me before gaming in the morning or in the evening after work. He emerges from whatever state of dressed or undressed he's been in and makes a beeline for the game. He doesn't even bathe first...or sit down to eat dinner with the family first...or make a connection with our children. The MMOG (multiplayer online game) he is currently enamored with is running in the background on this computer as I type right this minute. He can wake up, play for a few minutes, position his character out of the battlefield but within some "experience earning" context and return at the end of the day finding his character is even better than he left it.
Well, shoot, I just can't imagine why it isn't that way in the real world.
I Robot Was More Engaged than This
Have you ever watched that scene from Joe vs. the Volcano or the original Apple commercial or (insert other mindless drone imaging here)? Yep, that's him. I find it completely interesting that there is this segment of techies and inventors trying to program machines to be more and more human, yet human gamers are working every day to be less and less. They disconnect and disengage from everyone with a heartbeat around them only to have long conversations with people half a world away they've never met. My husband has had some amazing conversations and gained cultural perspective on things such as American politics because he games with people from France, Germany, Korea, Canada, etc. and, while, this could be seen as an upside, every conversation we have begins with "this guy on the game..." and he either doesn't want to or doesn't have any words left to talk about our world. The one I live in and he just exists...in the corner...lit up in blue light emanating from liquid crystal diodes embedded in the monitor.
You've Only Got Four Minutes
Okay, if you know anything about Madonna (or me) you'll get the reference. I'm using it here though because I feel like that's what we're left with to save our little world. Four minutes every night before I crash to try to squeeze in family schedules, budgets, household needs, parenting strategies, vacation plans, and any intimate overtures that I may or may not be interested in after cleaning, cooking, parenting, taxi driving, job hunting, grocery shopping, and even frolicking in the grass by myself throughout the day. Lately, my husband has started interjecting tidbits and two-cents into conversations from behind the bookshelf (It's a small house.) He never looks up and I can here the click-click-thud-click of his gaming commands the whole time he's home.
For me, as a person who lives every moment present and to the fullest capacity, I find myself making choices about what I can actually say in that miniscule moment of time. Let's face it, we all have a limited amount to get it all done and, if you're list maker, much of the list probably bumps back to the following day. I'm not a list maker, so I hold these things in my head -- is the F-bomb little Johnny dropped during a play date more important than little Janie's most recent growth spurt (think: need for a new wardrobe)? Should I even bring up the fact that it's our anniversary in less than 2 weeks? Does he even want to know that about the lab results from the current medical issue turning my insides upside down? Maybe I'll just mention the oil needing to be changed and see what happens...
Solitary Solidarity
Once upon a time, I googled "Gamers with Non-gaming Spouses". I wondered how partners are handling this issue that has left the two of us so very separated after reading an article summarizing research out of BYU about this very subject. What I found, were a whole lot of gaming men cheering each other's choice to game while ignoring everything else and making very negative (even derogatory) comments about women they'd never met (other men's wives). Occasionally, there was a comment about the luckiest man alive who'd married a gaming woman and the ensuing comments were something out of Fantasyland.
In all of the reading, I found ONE husband who said, "If your wife is having trouble with your gaming, you need to monitor just how much time you are doing it and how many family activities it is interrupting. I did and it saved my marriage. I still game, but I respect that I made commitments to her first."
It's hard to know that my husband is spending the majority of his time with others who encourage him to neglect commitments and will even put me down as much worse than a "ball and chain" for asking for more than the previously mentioned four minutes a day.
The Worst Part
I would love to be able to say that after all these years of being second...no, wait, 75th...to a game, that I've figured out a way to just go about my business happily being me. Of course I have my own friends, interests and hobbies. I'm a mom, a homemaker, a teacher, a writer, an outdoor enthusiast and an environmentalist. But, marriages aren't intended to be played out alone. I love my husband. I've watched his body change from the sedentary lifestyle he's chosen and I worry for him. I miss being the one he rants and raves with about politics. I don't even plan events and parties with the neighbors anymore because it is terribly awkward when the computer makes its entrance into the festivities ("You've gotta see this.").
Yesterday, our youngest did drop a bad word he'd heard and didn't know was bad. I'd already talked with him about it and we'd gone through the list and how adding "-er" to the end is still a bad word. My husband called me on his way home (a new and pleasant benefit to his new commuting job) and I mentioned it to him. Last night, he was window shopping for TVs so he can set up the system in the basement and have some father-son bonding time over "a game or two". He's talking about downloading Minecraft to the family computer so our son can have his own gaming time. Really?
The worst part is that during the majority of every day I have lost my companion, my partner, and helper to a virtual reality that isn't real to me at all and now, because it is how he connects, he will take the childhood from our child all in the name of a "game".
First Things First
My husband doesn't even kiss me before gaming in the morning or in the evening after work. He emerges from whatever state of dressed or undressed he's been in and makes a beeline for the game. He doesn't even bathe first...or sit down to eat dinner with the family first...or make a connection with our children. The MMOG (multiplayer online game) he is currently enamored with is running in the background on this computer as I type right this minute. He can wake up, play for a few minutes, position his character out of the battlefield but within some "experience earning" context and return at the end of the day finding his character is even better than he left it.
Well, shoot, I just can't imagine why it isn't that way in the real world.
I Robot Was More Engaged than This
Have you ever watched that scene from Joe vs. the Volcano or the original Apple commercial or (insert other mindless drone imaging here)? Yep, that's him. I find it completely interesting that there is this segment of techies and inventors trying to program machines to be more and more human, yet human gamers are working every day to be less and less. They disconnect and disengage from everyone with a heartbeat around them only to have long conversations with people half a world away they've never met. My husband has had some amazing conversations and gained cultural perspective on things such as American politics because he games with people from France, Germany, Korea, Canada, etc. and, while, this could be seen as an upside, every conversation we have begins with "this guy on the game..." and he either doesn't want to or doesn't have any words left to talk about our world. The one I live in and he just exists...in the corner...lit up in blue light emanating from liquid crystal diodes embedded in the monitor.
You've Only Got Four Minutes
Okay, if you know anything about Madonna (or me) you'll get the reference. I'm using it here though because I feel like that's what we're left with to save our little world. Four minutes every night before I crash to try to squeeze in family schedules, budgets, household needs, parenting strategies, vacation plans, and any intimate overtures that I may or may not be interested in after cleaning, cooking, parenting, taxi driving, job hunting, grocery shopping, and even frolicking in the grass by myself throughout the day. Lately, my husband has started interjecting tidbits and two-cents into conversations from behind the bookshelf (It's a small house.) He never looks up and I can here the click-click-thud-click of his gaming commands the whole time he's home.
For me, as a person who lives every moment present and to the fullest capacity, I find myself making choices about what I can actually say in that miniscule moment of time. Let's face it, we all have a limited amount to get it all done and, if you're list maker, much of the list probably bumps back to the following day. I'm not a list maker, so I hold these things in my head -- is the F-bomb little Johnny dropped during a play date more important than little Janie's most recent growth spurt (think: need for a new wardrobe)? Should I even bring up the fact that it's our anniversary in less than 2 weeks? Does he even want to know that about the lab results from the current medical issue turning my insides upside down? Maybe I'll just mention the oil needing to be changed and see what happens...
Solitary Solidarity
Once upon a time, I googled "Gamers with Non-gaming Spouses". I wondered how partners are handling this issue that has left the two of us so very separated after reading an article summarizing research out of BYU about this very subject. What I found, were a whole lot of gaming men cheering each other's choice to game while ignoring everything else and making very negative (even derogatory) comments about women they'd never met (other men's wives). Occasionally, there was a comment about the luckiest man alive who'd married a gaming woman and the ensuing comments were something out of Fantasyland.
In all of the reading, I found ONE husband who said, "If your wife is having trouble with your gaming, you need to monitor just how much time you are doing it and how many family activities it is interrupting. I did and it saved my marriage. I still game, but I respect that I made commitments to her first."
It's hard to know that my husband is spending the majority of his time with others who encourage him to neglect commitments and will even put me down as much worse than a "ball and chain" for asking for more than the previously mentioned four minutes a day.
The Worst Part
I would love to be able to say that after all these years of being second...no, wait, 75th...to a game, that I've figured out a way to just go about my business happily being me. Of course I have my own friends, interests and hobbies. I'm a mom, a homemaker, a teacher, a writer, an outdoor enthusiast and an environmentalist. But, marriages aren't intended to be played out alone. I love my husband. I've watched his body change from the sedentary lifestyle he's chosen and I worry for him. I miss being the one he rants and raves with about politics. I don't even plan events and parties with the neighbors anymore because it is terribly awkward when the computer makes its entrance into the festivities ("You've gotta see this.").
Yesterday, our youngest did drop a bad word he'd heard and didn't know was bad. I'd already talked with him about it and we'd gone through the list and how adding "-er" to the end is still a bad word. My husband called me on his way home (a new and pleasant benefit to his new commuting job) and I mentioned it to him. Last night, he was window shopping for TVs so he can set up the system in the basement and have some father-son bonding time over "a game or two". He's talking about downloading Minecraft to the family computer so our son can have his own gaming time. Really?
The worst part is that during the majority of every day I have lost my companion, my partner, and helper to a virtual reality that isn't real to me at all and now, because it is how he connects, he will take the childhood from our child all in the name of a "game".
