Play together... but not too togetherFollow

BYU did a study (wonder if it included one of those endless survey posts) and found that sharing a gaming hobby is good for a marriage, with one caveat:



Source

The article in general is kind of a no-brainer (Couples who enjoy doing things together are happy! Couples in which one partner significantly ignores the other and never comes to bed are not!), but I found that part funny, since I always told my husband that I didn't think playing arena together was necessarily a relationship booster. :)

When my wife played a healer, people died. That, combined with negative reaction to killing anything in game (by her or the people around her), made wow a poor choice.

It's much better that she stay with her internet spades card games. That's ok with me. Movies and other activities are better shared activities for us.

Edited, Feb 16th 2012 9:16am by dadanox

Raw that is hilarious. The main reason I find that funny is that I actually feel the same way. I hate that you kill these evil beings and then they are right back again.

My brother is in a raiding guild. Sorry, but no newbie girlfriends would be permitted until she had an 85. So, he rolled a new character just to help her learn, and they ended up in a small social family guild inhabited by 4 married couples who are all retired.
Their kids, and their grandkids, also play. They've all got chars scattered in different guilds, and drop in just to say hi.

It's the best thing that could've happened. These older players are patient and willing to help her out when my bro isn't around, and I think she is happy do things on her own without him. She's already formed a few negative impressions on raiding guilds, so I'm not sure how that's gonna work with his optimistic dreams of raiding with her someday.
For now, they're together in the same room, but separate in the game, and it works.

Morghast, I completely get where you are coming from.

My wife and I started the game together about 3 years ago. We have always generally played together, leveled toons together, been guilded together, etc., although I play a lot more than she does so I have 8 85's while she has 3; I have sets of toons on multiple realms just to tinker with while she stays on our main realm.

A few months back a bunch of guild drama unfolded (wife was chatting over vent with somebody about alts and how her priest was really ungeared - guildy priest was raiding with us thought she meant her - guild leader *called* wife on phone few days later chewing her out for being mean) and my wife pulled all her toons out of the guild. This was around the same time Skyrim launched so I ended up wandering off to play that mostly, only showing up for raid nights with the wife and our non-guild raid crew. I didn't really talk to my guild much after that, although I'm still in it.

She is a really good tank and now geared in at least half BiS stuff, and has gotten multiple guild invites but is much happier just lone-wolfing it. I bored of Skyrim and am back to "full-time" WoWing and I find now there are a lot of times outside of raid nights that she goes off to farm mats or mog gear, and I'm off doing my own thing. I try to get my 6 LFR geared toons through a full LFR clear each week and am in the process of collecting desired mog gear for all of my toons as well as trying to level some horde toons on other servers.

I wasn't sure how it would all shake out but it's honestly working just fine. We still have raids together and I'll run an LFR with her one toon she actually uses but most of the rest of time we just do our own things. We're still sitting right next to each other. At our gear levels, neither of us really has much use for endless (or any, really) dungeon grinding so we just do what we each want for our toons. Everybody seems happy with it.

Our problem with the guild, really, is that while we're both really solid players, some of our crew was really, really terrible. It lead to a lot of frustration between us because we were doing everything right and wiping on the same bosses repeatedly week after week after week due to utter failure by others, and while I'm pretty non-confrontational, she has no problem spouting off. So our issue was "how do we deal with being surrounded by a mix of really awesome people and idiots?" Instead of your situation where you were stuck in the middle, I'm now sitting in a guild where nobody has said anything to me in weeks.

In a way, it's kind of freeing actually. With her gone, I have zero interest in, or loyalty to the guild so I have no problem ignoring them or refusing to drag somebody through something, and the first time I get flak for anything I'll just leave. For now, I'm still enjoying mrez and the gathering bonuses.

Me and my ex-wife used to play together... when the guild leader left and put us in charge of the guild we pushed the guild outta Kara (where we were told the guild would never leave cause people would come, put up with the guild leaders BS, get gear and then leave). Within 1 month after taking over we were nearly clearing Hyjal and starting on BT. When the guild leader came back and saw how far the guild had progressed he wanted to re-assert his old position. We gladly gave it to him, but he could not respect the fact that I was now a tank and not a healer and I had been the tank that pushed them outta Kara, SSC, and into BT... soon after I gquit and went on my own..

Fast forward 1 year. My ex-wife is now an officer in the same guild playing 12-16 hours a day 6 days a week and still not getting any respect. She is leading 1 raid group at night and raiding with the guild leader I left during the day. Constantly dealing with his disrespect which is making other people disrespect her... so when I came home from work I was treated like crap cause she was.. when she started pissing herself I drew the line.. She blamed it on being 2 months pregnant and I blamed it on her making the video game her life and on multiple occasions even in-front of her family members DEMANDING its all she had that made her feel important. Not our daughter, not the fact that we were in NO debt, had everything a person could want, and she didn't have to work which allowed her to play WoW as much as she wanted...

Needless to say after I was blamed for them not progressing in Wrath because I "Left guild" and I wasn't a good enough husband to put up with people disrespecting her in game and just play with them to make them progress to make it easier on her I had enough. I mean with the pissing, always being angry, and now blaming their bad attitude on me when the guild I was in was kill LK like he was swiss cheese when most of us only played 2 hours a week while her and the guild she was in would play nearly any time the server was up except to sleep at 3am. So I let her have it. I demanded that WE BOTH take a break from the game and goto counseling. I was already going to a counselor cause I thought I was the problem.. I mean you come home and your wife that you love is ALWAYS mad at you and ALWAYS demanding she isn't happy you naturally do what you can to make her happy..

So after I put my foot down she left and is now in a serious relationship with her 48 year old BF (she is 26) that used to be in guild with her. He had no job, lived at home with his mother 4 states away, and has been married 3 times... Tomorrow we will be divorced. And as of October the woman I met has moved in with me.. she has a masters In Psychology, works at a children's home and respects video games but doesn't get OBSESSED with them... my soon to be ex-wife has already accused her of touching our daughter in-appropriately cause she WASHED HER HAIR for a wedding.. not the fact that she is a woman who is a few months younger, has her crap together, looks good (my gf is pretty hot but she thinks my ex-wife is more attractive then she is which I don't get) and she actually does contribute to the home 50% or more..

The moral of the story is,

This study may be true but when EITHER party becomes obsessed with the game people need to realize whats more important... a game that could be gone tomorrow or the person you love who you want to spend the rest of your life with.
I think my soon to be ex still hasn't realized how much she had it made. A good looking guy, who isn't LOADED but is well off and 7 years away from retirement and just turned 30, had no debt till this divorce, and is a great father... I'm glad the person I am with now that she has been living with me has stated she has NO CLUE why my ex chose the video game over real life.... in the END its just a game... yes I'm known here not being the PERFECT player but I get the job done no matter what role I play I hold my own. I'm not OMG you can push 300 more dps by doing this or OMG ya noob don't you know that you can bubble that debuff off you and save the OT a taunt cause your avoidance is more and you don't get the armor defbuff as much as he does! ITS A GAME HAVE FUN WITH IT...

Sad part was that when I used to log on her character as her rogue when she asked me to the ONE time she was sick and couldn't play I did...... and I out DPSED the other people who usually out do her when I don't have a rouge.. all because I looked up a rotation on MAX DPS and followed it... when that got back to her and I showed her what I did by macroing some things together I got laid... so.. as long as your partner doesn't put the game in-front of the marriage I'm all for it.. I've seen MANY couples play and stay together with the ones that had UNDERLYING problems fall apart. Mine was that my ex-wife was in-love with another man who played with her while I was deployed and was able to spend that time with her cause I couldn't from the desert. I DO NOT blame World of Warcraft at all for our marriage breaking up. I do blame the fact that someone escaped to a game so much during that time they forgot what reality was, and to this day still hasn't grasped the concept of money or personal responsibility. A game doesn't make ONES problems go away... its supposed to be relaxing, fun, and enjoyable.. When all of those go away then its time to take a break. You might come back you might not. But being there for the people who love you and loving them is what is important. Not your 7 level 85s with 401 item level average gear... all it takes is someone with a key logger to take that away :) think about it people :)

I FEEL DIRTY. I uprated RAW. I need to go make penance or something and find some old posts of his to downrate...

Raw's post gave the first good laugh of the day to me; and I feel the same way as you (and Raw's wife) as well.

That reminds me of a classic "Damon line" (Damon being one of the two Salvatore vampire brothers in "The Vampire Diaries") - "When I kill someone I expect them to stay dead!!" This was early in the series after he killed a particularly annoying guy during a cocktail party and within a half hour said guy startled Damon by being back at the party as if nothing had happened.


Edited, Feb 18th 2012 1:02pm by Azalysa

I want Raw to understand that I upvoted his wife, not him.

I really don't think its flaming. I had no ill-intent. I saw it more as teasing or banter than a serious flame on Raw... or are you trolling me?

Now that you've explained, I'm going to have to kind of agree. I personally, never had any ill-intent... but I've seen some pretty nasty comments towards Raw. Even when some of his ideas have been less than...kosher...they have rarely if ever been deserving of some of the mean nasty comments he's received. I just wanted to clarify that I'm totally neutral when it comes to Raw and any of my comments are meant merely as playful banter.

Unless someone's comments are directly harmful to others (like insulting or encouraging something that'll set them back in-game) they really should be free to express their opinion here. Just because you don't like someone's point of view doesn't, in my opinion, necessarily mean they should be down rated.

Edited, Feb 18th 2012 11:44pm by ekaterinodar