Dear Pink Hair Girl, I spend a lot of time playing WoW. I like it because when I get home from work, I look forward to sitting down, chatting with friends, and doing something fun. I guess it’s how I de-stress at the end of the day. My wife, however, hates that I play it. She keeps telling me that I care more about the game than I care about her. That’s totally not true, it’s just something I enjoy doing because it helps me relax. I do get around to all my chores to help her out, and we go out on weekends. I feel like I spend plenty of time with her. And no matter what nice thing I do to make it up to her, the moment I’m back on my computer I get dirty looks and eventually nagging. How do I get her to understand that it’s not as big a deal as she’s making it out to be? Sincerely,

Forsaken Hubby

I don’t mean to be an alarmist or anything like that, but let me just suggest that you and your wife get to the bottom of this one, NOW.

And I hate to break it to you, but your wife feeling like you care more about a game than you do about her IS a big deal. I’m not saying that she’s right, you said yourself there’s no competition when it comes to caring about her vs. the game. The problem, regardless of what you think, is that she FEELS like she’s competing with the game for your affection. And feelings are always there for a reason. She’s not crazy. If you don’t both work together to fix that, then this is the start of a very rocky battle that ends somewhere ugly for both of you.

This issue goes pretty darn deep. I’m kind of not sure how to give advice to just you, since working through this one will take just as much work for her as it does for you.

Anyway, let’s start by getting beneath the surface of this one. There are a few ways this can go. Think about the scenario that sounds most like the situation you’re in:

Scenario 1 – She says you play too much, you think you don’t. So you can agree on taking your gaming down to just two hours a day as a compromise and you’ll both be happy.

– She says you play too much, you think you don’t. So you can agree on taking your gaming down to just two hours a day as a compromise and you’ll both be happy. Scenario 2 – She’s so mad that you play video games that even if you play any amount of it at all, she’s going to be miserable and get passive aggressive around you, and get mad for no reason.

– She’s so mad that you play video games that even if you play any amount of it at all, she’s going to be miserable and get passive aggressive around you, and get mad for no reason. Scenario 3 – Two hours a day!? That’s like nothing. If I’m spending some time with her, and eventually do the stuff that has to get done in the house, then why shouldn’t I spend my free time doing what I want? It’s not unreasonable to play more than two hours a day.

OK, have you picked the one that seems most like the case you’re dealing with? It might be a mix of all of them actually, and that’s OK. Let’s take each one and see what’s going on there.

In Scenario 1, it’s mostly a case of you having your head up your butt and not realizing just how much time you spend playing. It’s fun, so time flies. Happens to the best of us. It’s also way more rewarding than washing the dishes, so you put off chores for as long as you can… and by the time you get around to them sometimes she just does them on her own and gets mad at you for not doing them, yada yada yada. Man, you SAID you would do it, why did she vacuum? Just so she could be mad later that you didn’t do it?

But whatever, she wants a clean home on a schedule, not just whenever you get around to it. Fine, you can agree on that. You sit down, talk about how much time you spend playing, what she feels is getting neglected in the home, and defines what she considers ‘quality time’ together, and come to a compromise. You pick an acceptable amount of time for you to play each day, do chores each week, and be a couple each week. You PROMISE not to go over your game limit EVER. She PROMISES not to nag or bother you while you’re having your time to relax and play a bit.

If you both follow through 100% on your agreement to do the things you promise, you guys will be just fine. Crisis averted. Yay for being adults who trust one another to be responsible! And once she starts to trust you a little bit more to be reliable with the chores, and reliable with spending quality time with her (which I admit may take years), then she’ll eventually feel safe in your partnership no matter what you do with your spare time.

In Scenario 2, you get the feeling that you’re screwed no matter what. She’s got it in her head that video games are the enemy and there is no compromising with her. Even just sitting in the WoW forums on your computer makes her pissed off! Heaven forbid you log on for one quick raid a few times a week after dinner. She’ll bite your head off fifteen minutes into playing and demand you gather up the dirty laundry IMMEDIATELY.

This one will be much more difficult to deal with. It’s highly likely that there is something terribly lacking in her emotional life, and possibly something very lacking in her relationship with you. Even after you spend enough quality time together, it still makes her mad when you go to do something on your own (which happens to be WoW). She’s made video games the villain in this story. It’s easier to point to something obvious like the video games, and say “THAT makes me feel bad”. When really, its her lack of trust, or lack of fulfillment that makes her feel bad, and seeing you doing anything other than spending time with her reminds her of that pain. This is going to be something she needs to work on for herself. She will have to do a ton of soul searching to figure out what she thinks is missing from her life or your relationship before she can let go of the idea that video games are to blame.

And you’re not off the hook here either. This is your wife, if she’s not happy, then you’re going to live in a house and share a life with a miserable person. That’s only going to make you miserable. You will have to put the breaks on the video games for a while to really sit down and talk to her and try to understand what’s causing this anxiety in her. If it’s really bad, or if you guys can’t get to the bottom of it on your own, I highly suggest professional help. The goal is to eventually have you both feel fulfilled, feel completely loved, and completely safe to go spend time by yourselves doing what you want to do. It’s mostly up to her to find the strength to understand what it is she needs to be happy, but also up to you to help her get there. And when you do make it there, playing video games and enjoying your down time however you want will not be an issue, I promise.

In Scenario 3, it may be time to evaluate your priorities. Sure spending 4 or 5 or 18 hours on a game each day the first week it comes out, we’ve all been there. But being in front of the game from the time you get home, to the time you crawl into bed, every week day, for months at a time is not going to foster a healthy partnership in the home. Getting chores done last minute, or rushing through dinner so you can get every ounce out of play time is not a good sign. If you feel compelled to play for more than two or three hours a day on a daily basis for more than a few weeks, something not good is happening. In all likelihood, you are using video games as an escape from a stressful situation, or a boring life. It’s also quite possible that you’ve become addicted to the video game. You are going to have to do some serious soul searching. Spending your leisure time the way you want to is one thing, but as a husband you’ve made a promise to your wife that you are part of a family, and as part of that family you have responsibilities to uphold to make it run smoothly. If your ideal day to day life is spending 10 hours a day playing WoW, why did you decide to get married? You did get married for a certain number of reasons, I imagine. Think about what those reasons are, and decide how important those are to you now.

If you realize that you only play WoW so much because your actual life isn’t as gratifying, fulfilling, or enjoyable, then I highly suggest you take the time to find things in life that ARE just as fulfilling as getting that last piece of armor you needed to finish the set. Lest you become that guy in the wow episode of South Park. I mean, unless you do really want to be him. But as I recall he also didn’t have a wife. When you resolve the parts of your life that make you unhappy, stressed out, unfulfilled, or bored, you will naturally distance yourself from gaming, and have a much more productive and rewarding life, overall, which includes your relationships. This is of course WAY easier said than done. If you’re having trouble figuring out why you spend so much time playing, seek out a professional. They can ask you questions objectively about what’s going on in your life and help you pinpoint the things that are causing you to disconnect and want to escape, and may possibly give suggestions on how to resolve those things.

<rant title=If I could tell girls one thing about controlling their partners’ behaviors> Stop nagging. Just stop. Please stop telling your partner what to do. You’re not going to change them by being up their ass all day. You’ve noticed it, haven’t you? It’s like it goes in one ear and out the other, right? And that pisses you off even MORE, and omg what can you do? Yeah, eventually they feel guilty and stop the behavior, but for what? a week? A couple days? Guilt only works VERY short term, and it usually just makes them resent you for it. Here’s the sad truth, if you ask someone to do something, and they don’t do it, it means they don’t want to. And you can’t make anyone change for you. People DO change, but ONLY for themselves. When they change for other people, it makes them miserable and eventually revert back to their old ways after a period of trying to be someone they’re not. If you find yourself in a situation where someone close to you is doing something you don’t like, then unfortunately that’s their choice. All you can do is set boundaries for yourself. Say “I’m not going to be in an emotional relationship with someone who does X”, and stick to it. Sometimes that means breaking up, sometimes that means relationship counseling. The reality is that if you’re happy with yourself and trust your partner, it doesn’t matter what they do at all. Figure out what it is that’s making you so unhappy, go beneath the surface and figure it out so you can ask for something constructive, not just dish out commands when something makes you unhappy. Nagging doesn’t work. Pick your battles, let the little things go, and when you find a big thing, understand why it makes YOU upset before talking it through. </rant>

I hope your situation is one that can be fixed by just setting a time limit and making some compromises. I hope it hasn’t gotten so far that you’ve hurt one another’s trust for the other. You’re half responsible for making your home life work the way you both agree on, and she’s responsible for not adding stress to your life by trying to change the person you are. If it’s still at a place where you can fix it by talking things through do it RIGHT AWAY. Because letting this fester and become a bigger issue is seriously damaging. One study projected that this year, 15% of divorces were because the wife felt like her husband cared more about video games than her. I’m not making that up, look. Totally serious.

I know this has been a heavy topic, it’s a really important one for us geeks. Those of us who make it all the way to the point where we’re even able to meet someone we can fall in love with, reciprocate feelings with, and decide to spend the rest of our lives with someone have gotten so incredibly far! And what? Only to have that all dashed away because we’re not talking about what we REALLY need from each other to be happy. It’s such a long way to go to lose it all. Take care of it, don’t give in, find what works no matter what it takes. You’ve gotta fight. For your wife. To party.

Sincerely,

Pink Hair Girl

If you’ve got a snag in your social life, cramping your g33k style, feel free to ask me for some advice!

Write to pinkhairgirl@g33kwatch.com.