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Gaming vs Relationships

Posted by Zonk on from the love-hurts! dept.

bgalbraith writes "BBC News has posted an editorial piece called Confessions of a Game Widow, where a frustrated spouse writes about getting neglected by her partner in favor of games such as Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. Her solution to all those like her: 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Let's get together and form a clan. We can call ourselves the Game Widows.'"

4 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Addiction is addiction by smcg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA:
    My relationship of six years ended because of the PlayStation. When our son was born my partner spent all his time playing games. We never went to bed at the same time due to him staying up as he wanted just to get to a certain level. He slept during the day due to being up all night and I was left holding the baby literally. Our relationship ended and he admits now it was down to the PlayStation.
    Video game as chore, as negative reinforcement (removal of withdrawl symptoms), as escapism, etc. It's the type of folks who are prone to addiction in any form that become addicted to video games.

    To know "Daddy" as "the man who snarls at you when you want to play PlayStation" rather than a father figure, well, it really puts a somber image on things. If you'd rather raise your online char than raise your son/daughter, then the child might as well be missing one parent.

    Just interesting to see the shoe on the other foot, when the addiction applies to the parents. Much more serious when you think about it.

  2. What a noobie by ShawnMcCool42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It sounds like you thirst a relationship more than you really understand them. Even if 'Half-Life' or 'Halo' don't get trapped by the assumption that it's the gamer's fault. Despite the fact that I made 3 times as much money as my wife, allowing her a pretty decent quality of life, she looked down on me for playing as if I was a child. We did things 'out' all the time and I spent a lot of time with her. She was too immature and it was a mistake to take a relationship so far with someone like this. I'll always care for her, but I'm glad to be out of it. If she didn't want to bother trying to understand who i REALLY was (not some little kid) in favor of her prejudices that's her problem. Video games are a perfectly valid and respectable hobby. Like anything, people can get addicted. I may have played video games as a hobby but she watched televisions ALL DAY ALL THE TIME. Talk about a ludicrous double standard.

    I'd rather entertain my hobby than sit around spending time with my woman watching tv all day. And I doubt many would disagree unless they simply havn't been in a relationship =P

  3. there's another level to consider by evilmousse · · Score: 3, Interesting


    sometimes it's not even so much the game as the passtime. i heard and older woman comment that getting together to play video games are to the younger generation what getting together for poker night was for an older generation. i'm not surprised that transcends to poker widows.

    i told her she was +5 insightful, and then she just stared at me blankly.

  4. Re:Overrated. Heh. by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm a non-Christian who backs the rhetoric, up to a point: staying in a destructive relationship doesn't help anyone, but the data shows rather strongly that children of single parents of the opposite gender are far more likely to run into difficulties: a single mother raising a boy, or a single father raising a girl, is a situation which predicts for high-risk and destructive behavior more than income, education level, or even an "unhappy" marriage.

    Data in general suggests that, even barring that, children are better off in a non-abusive 2-parent household (even if there's an absence of inter-parental affection) than in a single parent household.

    Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and when it comes to the benefits of a two-parent household, I think the Christians and the social conservatives may be right on this one.