My boyfriend and his other world

Hello all:

My name is Anna and my boyfriends name is Marty. We have known eachother since middle school and have been dating since age 16. We are both 27 now and I'm afraid our relationship has been falling apart within the passed few years, and this could be the end. My boyfriend was always a gamer, when we first started hanging out he would always have a gameboy ... I remember him telling me he wanted a Nintendo 64 for christmas .. then a few years later it was playstation 2, then a few years later a new pc. When we we're younger I actually loved playing Super Smash Brothers with him, but I thought we had moved on. Fast foward to 2006 when Marty brought home his new computer. He started downloading all new games and stuff, typical of him really I thought nothing of it. In August I became aware he was playing a game called Everquest 2, he seemed to really like and again I thought nothing of it... until a couple weeks later.

Me and Marty did many things together, shopping, going out to eat, seeing movies, staying home and watching movies, cooking together .. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. He would never say no to me, and I think until he got this game never ever said anything to upset me, or make me think he was angry with me, I think we had gotten in maybe two arguements before this time.

It was a Friday night in October when I began to realize something was wrong. We we're supposed to go meet a few friends at a club, and in the afternoon Marty said he felt sick and didn't want to go. He spent the whole night on the computer, actually the whole weekend.. I don't think he slept at all. Sunday night I confronted him about it and he got really firm with me and insisted everything was fine. After that it was never the same. He would come home from work saying he wasn't hungry and wouldn't eat dinner with me, just giving me a kiss on the cheek and going to his computer. He started going to bed at 2-3am and waking up at 6am so he could go on before work. By March of 2007 it got to the point where he didn't even aknowledge me unless I was going to sleep with him, and that was the only way I could get his attention. At that point I told him I had enough of this, and his gaming was dramaticly effecting our strong relationshp. I told him to pick me or his computer, and he told me his choice was me and he said he would change.

He still played but much less, although this lasted maybe a month. He thought everything was ok again and got back to his routine. One day while he was at work I figured out how to log onto his Everquest 2 game and figured out how to talk to people in his guild. They told me he was a very important person in their guild and very reliable, I tried to explain to them how this game was ruining our relationship and they agreed to talk to him about. Later that night he screamed at me "WHY THE **** ARE YOU TALKING TO MY FRIENDS, WHAT DID YOU SAY TO THEM?" I fell to my knees crying and he just walked back to his computer. After he had come to bed he apoligized and told me he realized he had a problem and I thought this was all going to be over. But the next day it was the same thing, straight to the computer. By August he was calling out of work once every two weeks, and waking up almost every other night to phone calls of his "friends" asking him to come play. In october of 07 he was fired from his job for cutting too many days. I gave him his final choice, our love or his game. This time he said he thought it be better if we spent some time away from eachother and dated once or twice a week. I moved in with my mother, who I moved away from when I was 18.. to live with Marty. We were only allowed to date during the day, cause at night time it was time to play. I did this until November of 2008. By this time I was helping him pay rent with mostly money my mother was loaning me. I finally asked Marty to marry me, and he said yes. In January of this year I moved back in.. but he was still playing Everquest 2... and trying to pay attention to me. Life went on like this until last week when I wrote a fake suicide letter and went to stay with my mother. Marty called me crying to make sure I was ok, and I told him it was the only way I felt I could get to him. He confessed to me that he wanted to stop, and that he had removed it from his computer and was ready to move on .. and rebuild our relationshp.

I always thought Video Game addiction was a joke, until this happened to me. Now I know, and hope the whole world will know that this is just as bad as a cocaine addiction, it ruins lives and your family. Me and Marty have been through so much, I can't imagine life without him. I want to know what we can do now, I feel like we need professional help but I am not sure if we should seek relationship counseling, or he should seek help for his addiction. I know this was lengthy but I need to get it off my chest, somewhere. And now I don't know where to go

-Anna

[color=blue]Edited for Language - No By-passing Allowed[/color]