My Valentines Day Wishes
I wish I could be your ONLY Valentine
and you could be MY hero.
I wish we could spend the evening together
and I wouldnaEU(tm)t feel like you couldnaEU(tm)t wait for it to be over so you could get back to the game.
I wish that I could feel like you want to be with me
and that I mean as much to you as they do.
I wrote this to my husband. It will be sitting on his computer this morning. Hopefully he will read it before he signs on to play.
Hopefully he'll act on it in a positive way. Good luck to you. :|
Leveling in Real Life
That is a very sincere note ~ and quite from the heart. I hope something wonderful comes from it!! :) Blesings to you on Valentine's Day & Always, Solei
-6 Years Free of Online Gaming-
Update... He read the note and wanted to talk (defend himself). He gave me all the same lines "It's how I unwind" "I only play because you watch TV" . He even brought up things from the past to justify his playing or to make it my fault. He even tried to blame my daughter(from my 1st marriage) who has been away at college for the last 4 years! I stayed strong saying "That was then. This is now!" We talked about how I feel when he chats with the female supergroup leader who comes on to all the male group members and posts things of a sexual nature on their website. He felt hurt and that I don't trust him-that they are just friends. He still won't admit, cant see, he has a problem. At least we talked and the lines of communication are opening a little. He agreed to set aside family time. My feeling is that if he has to "schedule" times to get off the game to spend with his family the game comes 1st in his life. I'll take the 2 nights he's offering though-at least it's a start. We had our 1st "Family Night" last night and it went very well. He managed to stay off the game until 10 o'clock. I don't know how late he stayed up playing or if I made it through the day being his only valentine.
Hi Jjolli, I wasn't planning to post today, until I saw your husband's "I need to unwind"excuse. I think that is fast becoming the biggest excuse for gaming ever. Have you seen the movie "Break Up"? Vince Vaughn's excuse for ignoring Jennifer Aniston every evening is a need to "destress" with a console game. Madness. Crazy. Very frustrating. You may have tried this, but next time he brings up your TV watching, maybe turn it around with "OK fine, if you don't game this week, I won't watch TV". Be interesting to see the look on his face. :) James
I'll give it a try but I honestly don't watch TV as much as he plays his game. What could he possibly need to unwind from when he crawls out of bed and immediately starts playing? I wish he could hear himself when he makes these ridiculous excuses. There have been some humdingers! Sometimes it's even a little funny but then I realize how sick it is and I don't have anything to laugh about.
It doesn't matter how much you watch, it is one of his excuses. One of the ways he trys to put it on YOU that he games. If you make that "agreement" with him, then do not watch at all, even if he plays. It will immediatly become "see you were watching, so I had no choice but to play..." Just be aware that if you take that excuse from him that way he will most likely find other excuses. If you take them away, one way or another, he may become frustrated or angry. I am not saying these things wont work, just to be prepared in case they don't. Ultimatly he has to be ready to see he has a problem and decide he wants to fix it. You can not do that for him. You can only work on you. . I have been there, done that from his side. Over and over and over, round and round, until my wife divorced me. Took that to finally wake me up but by then it was too late. She had "moved on emotionally".
" ... don't question it just go" "... where the body goes the mind will follow"
.
Borrowed from "Desire to Stop"
I don't want it to get to that point but I can feel myself building some emotional walls around me to protect myself from the hurt and anger. I know this addiction is like an illness. I would never consider leaving him if he was physically sick. This is like a cancer eating him up little by little and it's spreading to me and our family. I wish there was a blood test or x-ray to diagnose addiction, Then maybe he couldn't deny it.
That's a good point BigH, some addicts are so blind to how they appear, they don't mind looking unintelligent with some hypocritical "logic". I still think it'd be worth trying in some form, maybe "are you seriously saying if I didn't watch TV, you wouldn't game?". Or something. Is your husband playing World of Warcraft? If so, could you persuade him to log into all his characters and type /played ? That will tell you and him exactly how bad he is. As I mentioned in my introductory post, in 18 months I racked up more /played time that I have playing sports in my entire life. I feel so ashamed and stupid, hopefully your husband will realise the same thing - soon. James
He plays city of heroes and city of Villains. I'm sure there is away to find out how much time each toon has been on. I will look into it. Thanks.
Difference between cancer and gaming addiction is one doesn't choose if they get cancer. I'm will to bet if your husband was diagnosed with cancer he'd make every effort possible to survive. Gaming is an addiction, and at the root of that continuing addiction ultimately is a choice. He can choose to quit however tough it may be. It would be one thing if he was reaching for help and trying to overcome an addiction. If he is not that is another situation entirely. I hope the family nights work out to your benefit to start unplugging him from gaming and see what he is missing. I know everytime my son smiles at me I know what I have gained from giving up gaming.
-Slade
"Falling down is not a failure. Not getting back up is the true failure"
You are totally right! I look forward to the time my hubby will realize that what he will gain by giving up the games. Until then I will just keep taking it 1 day (or family night ) at a time.