UPDATE: Wifely disapproval of video games

Aaron D. wrote:

People need alone time to charge their mental/physical/emotional batteries. Healthy couples recognise this and don't disparage a partner for having unique, unshared interests as long as each individual is pulling their weight in the marriage and life in general.

Short version nails it.

MaverickDago wrote:

This just seems to be a major example of why you better live with someone before you marry them.

Agreed, if I hadn't lived with my girlfriend I mentioned earlier who know what would have happened.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Sarcophagus wrote:

Great ideas about trying to sell her on pretty innocent games. I showed her Professor Layton, but she wasn't into it. She didn't immediately hate it, however, which was nice.

Do you have a 360? Maybe try get her to help you out in a game of Viva Pinata. That has a co-op feature. (I think)

I'd say Hexic is even more pure win. And it's readily accessible.

EDIT: Sarcophagus, I hope this works out for you in whatever way turns out to be best.

EDIT EDIT: Sorry, I play Hexic "co-op" because of color identification problems. No matter what I can't discern the colors of some bombs. That's why it sprang to mind for me. Also, it's deceptively addictive. ERM.... engaging.

I've been there (I still miss WoW every so often). I have a buddy in the same situation and (a lot of people have said this already) this isn't an easy thing to fix.

Let's talk about my friend for a minute. He's been married 2 years now and has been seeing this girl for 9 (almost as long as I've been with my wife; longer if you don't count the periods where she dumped him for one reason or another). At the outset, it was a normal relationship. He had friends, she had friends, everyone hung out with everyone else and both of them did their own things. That started to change about 6 months in.

At 6 months they had a "talk" (in quotations because I know who did the talking) and my buddy stopped playing games all together. Seriously, he gave me his playstation. He wouldn't even play games when he came over because he promised not to. He was done. Over.

And extremely unhappy.

Well, 9 years later and he put his foot down somewhere along the way. She plays Rock Band and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (for some reason). Don't get me wrong, she still runs his life, picks out his clothes and I haven't seen him in a capacity outside of work in... 5.5 months but at least he can play FF13, yeah?

What I'm getting at is that it sounds like you have bigger problems and I don't want to sound mean about it. Marriage is hard. Living your life for someone else is hard but it's also a partnership. That implies that there are two people making decisions.

Look, I've only been married for 5 years so take my advice for however much you think it's worth:

1.) a spouse should never give an ultimatum unless the behavior in question is destroying your relationship. No one ever made their partner happy by making demands, that isn't what a partnership is.
2.) honor her wishes about violent/ sexist games. There are a lot of ways to scratch your itch that will be inoffensive.
3.) You're a husband first and a gamer second. If you get too caught up in games to pay attention to your wife, you need to look at your game playing habits. In all honestly, a friend's dad obsessively played flight sims every night and ignored everything going on around him. It cost him his marriage.
4.) Be proactive in bringing this up. As long as you can look at your behavior objectively and say, "This is who I am, these are my interests and I can be a good husband while doing it" then that's something your wife will need to accept. And I'm not saying give her an ultimatum because that will devolve into "i want this and nothing else." Same goes for you, a marriage doesn't work when partners are throwing demands around but at the same time, you both need your own interests and to understand that it's healthier to not be in agreement on everything.
5.) This is such a small issue in the grand scheme of life. Once you guys are married for a while and completely comfortable with one another, this passes for bigger concerns like jobs, money, kids, house, etc. All the more reason to set boundaries for each other now before you run into bigger problems and don't know how to handle issues between you.

I'm sure your wife is a wonderful woman and I wish you both the very best of luck.

Zablocki19 wrote:

Quit Videogames and take up smoking or drinking.

Best advice evar!

The bigger question here is why your wife is not able to handle you having a hobby which is harmless.

It is not right for a person in a relationship to get upset about another person's hobby and essentially demand that the hobby be given up. It does not matter what the hobby is. That just isn't how a relationship should work. A relationship involves two people and each person needs to be willing to compromise.

I don't think you're going to be able to tackle the gaming issue until you're able to find out why your wife thinks taking this approach is okay. If it is a fairly innocent reason it probably has to do with her ideas about gender roles and about "growing up." It is also possible that your wife is overly controlling and needs to better learn how to compromise with others.

In either case, it isn't okay to give up a favorite hobby just because your wife has a problem with it.

SallyNasty wrote:
Zablocki19 wrote:

Quit Videogames and take up crack and heroin, and snorting coke off hookers.

Best advice evar!

Now it really is the best advice ever.

By the way, reading over your post again and looking at your "points of agreement," it seems like the only things you agree on are things in favor of your wife's opinion. Even the one where you're allowed to enjoy things you like seems to have a caveat that sounds an awful lot like, "except for this."

Is your wife flexing on this at all?

It sounds stupid to let video games come between you and your wife. This isn't really about video games.

LobsterMobster wrote:

This isn't really about video games.

That's what it sounds like to me, too. It's a proxy war of some sort. We're only seeing one side of it of course, but it seems like there is some deeper issue here they need to work out.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
ThatGuy42 wrote:

1) I'm a productive member of society with a full time job, a wife, a son, and a dog who owns his home.

Your dog owns his own home? That kicks so much ass.

Sorry.

It's actually pretty awesome, but making out the rent checks to "Riley-Roo" always gets weird looks at the bank. And don't get me started on the tenant improvements!

Seriously, though, see how much this community rocks? The overarching line through this thread is:
"Stand your ground, talk it through, don't give up gaming on her say so." Now how you want to talk it through is up to you. Oh, and having met Wordsmythe and E Hunnie, they're perfect people for you guys to at least have a good conversation with.

LilCodger wrote:

I'm in Legion's camp on this one.

I love having a camp!

A few people have said that this issue is an indicator of "bigger problems". Perhaps that's true, but I think it might be a bit presumptuous to conclude this. Sometimes otherwise well-behaved people have a massive blind spot to some particular aspect of their behavior. I'm sure my wife could conjure up some point in our relationship where I wasn't sufficiently respectful towards her on some particular issue. I would not want that incident held up as an indicator of "bigger problems" (although an ongoing campaign against one's hobby is a bit more than just reacting badly to something "in the moment"). When emotions are involved, it can often be easy to get blinders, even very selective ones, where you end up acting a certain way in a specific situation that is counter to your norm - but you can't see it yourself. If there is one thing we as people are, it's highly inconsistent.

It was also tempting to respond with the, "well, I'm sure she has a hobby that is equally unproductive" argument. While it might be a way to illustrate to her the unreasonable nature of her behavior by changing the subject to one that's closer to her, I think it also misses the point. It should not be necessary for a tit-for-tat scenario to exist to "justify" one's hobby.

Anyway, as everyone has laid out: reframe this discussion away from video games. Ask her, in the friendliest terms possible, why she feels justified in dictating to you what hobbies you can have, and why a highly educated person like her would base her arguments on hearsay garbage instead of rational and well-researched facts (although even that part is beside the point, but let's face it, the actual discussion will go there). With luck, the sensible person inside will get shocked into consciousness and realize what she's doing, rather than staying fixated on her demonized mental image of video games.

El-Producto wrote:

Sorry for a quick OT comment.

ColdForged.. great blog! As a fellow endurance athlete/dad, love it!

Many thanks! You're not a furry, are you?

*Legion* wrote:
LilCodger wrote:

I'm in Legion's camp on this one.

I love having a camp!

A few people have said that this issue is an indicator of "bigger problems". Perhaps that's true, but I think it might be a bit presumptuous to conclude this. Sometimes otherwise well-behaved people have a massive blind spot to some particular aspect of their behavior. I'm sure my wife could conjure up some point in our relationship where I wasn't sufficiently respectful towards her on some particular issue. I would not want that incident held up as an indicator of "bigger problems" (although an ongoing campaign against one's hobby is a bit more than just reacting badly to something "in the moment"). When emotions are involved, it can often be easy to get blinders, even very selective ones, where you end up acting a certain way in a specific situation that is counter to your norm - but you can't see it yourself. If there is one thing we as people are, it's highly inconsistent.

It was also tempting to respond with the, "well, I'm sure she has a hobby that is equally unproductive" argument. While it might be a way to illustrate to her the unreasonable nature of her behavior by changing the subject to one that's closer to her, I think it also misses the point. It should not be necessary for a tit-for-tat scenario to exist to "justify" one's hobby.

Anyway, as everyone has laid out: reframe this discussion away from video games. Ask her, in the friendliest terms possible, why she feels justified in dictating to you what hobbies you can have. With luck, the sensible person inside will get shocked into consciousness and realize what she's doing, rather than staying fixated on her demonized mental image of video games.

Well said. I think I'm camping with *Legion* too.

Besides, if she's anything like my wife, she doesn't do anything that isn't productive in some sense. Freaking unlazy people... /sigh.

I skimmed, but everyone seems to be saying the same thing as everyone else anyway, and I want to exercise my fingers.

First off, not every situation can be a win/win. You'll have lots and LOTS of situations in your marriage that are win/lose. Remember that even a compromise is still win (but not as much as you wanted) / lose (but not as bad as you feared).

So you and your wife get to pick your battles; and you'll need to man up and judge, objectively, how much your video game habit is going to cost you. If it's "video games will cause this marriage to end," you might want to cede this fight.

But at that point, you might want to go an extra step and judge, objectively, how many situations your wife is going to pull the "divorce" card out.

Coldforged summed up my thoughts on this topic, so I'm just going to yoink his furry quote and leave.

If you're going to be in Legion's camp, make sure you zip your tent up tight. I'm not saying you're in danger or anything. Just saying that that guy forgets his sleeping bag with suspicious frequency.

Are there marshmallows in *Legion*s camp? I'm in it as well.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a person can be unreasonable about just one thing. Or she may be nuttier than squirrel sh*t, but I'm not going to presume.

oilypenguin wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
LilCodger wrote:

I'm in Legion's camp on this one.

I love having a camp!

Well said. I think I'm camping with *Legion* too.

Lets start a scout troop.

oilypenguin wrote:

Besides, if she's anything like my wife, she doesn't do anything that isn't productive in some sense. Freaking unlazy people... /sigh.

Are you married to my wife too?

LobsterMobster wrote:

If you're going to be in Legion's camp, make sure you zip your tent up tight. I'm not saying you're in danger or anything. Just saying that that guy forgets his sleeping bag, and his pajama pants, with suspicious frequency.

I haven't played much since we started dating a long while back (maybe 3 hours a week, generally PC gaming. My 360 hasn't been used for anything other than Rock Band in over a year).

Is it possible that you've shielded her from your hobby while courting her, and now she has the shock of finding out she married a "basement dweller"?
I'm baffled that someone was so distraught over how another person spent a whopping 3 hours of their week.

Also -- I should mention. This is a public forum, easily googled. Keep that in mind when posting personal stuff about a significant other.

Taggin this thread for later use.

farley3k wrote:

My wife strongly dislikes video games but I hate to say it this seems like a bigger issue. It doesn't matter if she likes them it matters whether you have a right to do things that you enjoy. When you start getting into sports what will happen when she doesn't like the people you play basketball with? Just quit the league? I could go on with examples but the thing is it is no very respectful for her to force you to give up something you enjoy just because she doesn't see the point.

This^^^

This isn't a video game issue it's a personal / relationship issue. My wife and I don't disagree on everything, but we respect the right of the other person to self-identify and be their own person.

Seth wrote:

So you and your wife get to pick your battles; and you'll need to man up and judge, objectively, how much your video game habit is going to cost you. If it's "video games will cause this marriage to end," you might want to cede this fight.

But at that point, you might want to go an extra step and judge, objectively, how many situations your wife is going to pull the "divorce" card out.

The reason so many are saying this is bigger than video games is because that card is currently in play. Never let the "divorce" card win. Once that happens, it becomes an instant win card.

They need to talk this through and come to some type of agreement that doesn't involve her controlling his life. Demands and ultimatums are big no-nos and both parties need to understand this right now. Throwing in the towel will not help them in the long run.

By the way, since it has been brought up repeatedly in this thread, I will agree that living together before marriage is generally good. I had a Christian friend who liked to quote a statistic wherein a majority of couples who cohabitated before marriage broke up; I thought this was sage advice about saving relationships. Now I see those break-ups as averted divorces.

The best thing you can do, imho, is to be respectful, but reasonable. She's being neither. In a healthy marriage you are allowed your non-destructive hobbies, and she hers. Neither of you are allowed to dictate to the other, particularly in so arbitrary a fashion.

If this isn't a sign of larger things, awesome! But it does sound like she has the desire to control you for some reason, and as Violet has pointed out, you shouldn't be tacitly agreeing with her right to do so. If you want to compromise out of your great love for her, fine, but it needs to be absolutely clear that it's your pleasure to do so, not her right to control you.

Seth wrote:

Also -- I should mention. This is a public forum, easily googled.

Man, that's a good point. I should take the time to point out that if Jennifer Connelly ever entertains the idea of being a "third wheel" my PM button always available. Come on, you know she Googles herself. Who? JENNIFER CONNELLY.

oilypenguin wrote:

honor her wishes about violent/ sexist games. There are a lot of ways to scratch your itch that will be inoffensive.

I wouldn't do this. That'll just open up another can of worms. He doesn't need to constantly get her approval for every video games he wants to buy. And the second an approved game goes off the rails with a random "Damn it," a woman appears who isn't wearing "enough clothing" or an event occurs that seemed too violent, it's another fight. She's his wife, not his mother.

A better compromise would be to save the M rated games for times when she's not around, asleep, busy with other things, out or at work. This is the same thing couples do when they have children.

I would like to add that leisure activity, regardless of its nature, is not a waste of time. If you enjoy it and it's doing something for you, the time spent on it is not wasted.

Apologies in advance for the textbomb - when you ask an academic for an opinion, they tend to take it seriously

Mrs. Dim wrote:

Perspective from a Long-Time Gamer's Wife:

Reasons why I support Mr. Dim's right to game:

1. I love my man, gaming makes him happy, and I love to see him happy.
2. In a good marriage, autonomy is important. He has his hobbies, and I have mine, we don’t have to always like the same things. Example: I love dressmaking but I would be extremely surprised if Mr. Dim started sewing frocks any time soon.
3. I will be much safer than a non-gamers' wife in case of a Zombie Apocalypse.

I would also like to give my perspective on some of TMEW's arguments:

* Video gaming is an inherently anti-social enterprise: Mr. Dim really enjoys socializing with his gamer friends on-line.
* Video gaming produces socially maladjusted individuals, and most adult gamers are "basement dwellers.": Many gamers have rich social lives and good jobs – I know this because I live with one. Mr. Dim also is teacher at our local Aikido club, works 50-60 hours a week, and has a lot of local and on-line friends.
* Video gaming is a waste of time: It is very important for everyone to have time to just have fun and let off a little steam.
* Video gaming is a childish enterprise that most adults find infantile: I don't think this is true, but always worrying about what others think is exhausting and ultimately self-defeating.
* Video gaming isn't fun, just addictive: While I am not a huge gamer (not addicted), I can attest to the fact that gaming is fun. Games I have liked include: Animal Crossing, Sonic, the Sims, Super Mario Cart, Wii Tennis, Ages of Empire, and Myst. TMEW might want to try one of these games if she doesn't like first person shooters. I think she should make an effort to at least try a number of different kinds of games, she might find one she likes. Perhaps Mr. TMEW could find a non-violent game (like Animal Crossing or a Puzzle Game) they could play together to get her started.
* Video gaming is an escapist (in the bad sense of the word) enterprise in a way that books or movies aren't: How? – You would have really convince me of this one. There are games like Brain Age that are super fun and mentally engaging.
* All games have objectionable content: As far as objectionable content, I think this is a specious argument unless you also object to your man watching R-rated action movies and reading fantasy and Sci-Fi, favorite pastimes of many gamers and non-gamers alike. An adult should be able to handle fictionalized sex and violence and realize that that they are fantasy. In TMEW's defense, she also has every right to avoid those things if they make her uncomfortable.

Mr. Dim and I have been married for almost 15 years. He will always be a gamer – that is part of his personality. I am totally fine with the fact that gaming is one of his hobbies. Like any hobby, it is only out of control if it negatively impacts your job and/or family life. I would be very concerned if Mr. Dim had any hobby (from playing golf to building vintage cars) that caused him to miss work or time with his family. Thankfully, Mr. Dim is very sensitive to this, and he makes a big effort to hang out with us a lot. :)

Lotta people have already said here what I would say. If you give up your beloved hobby because your wife has an irrational disliking for it, you will be miserable and resentful and it might just kill your marriage in the end anyway.

And having separate hobbies is more healthy than many people realize.

ColdForged wrote:

Come on, you know she Googles herself.

Or at least she does in my fantasies. Also in my fantasies, she's wearing a raccoon costume.