Forum post of the day: You and me against the World ... of Warcraft
is facing a not-entirely-uncommon dilemma. His fiancé is has shown no interest in playingWoW. He believes that once she spends some time seeing him enjoy the game she will want to join in. Gotnerf asked other guys how they got their wives to play. While some suggestions were entirely unhelpful, many seemed encouraging.
Leadfoot of Feathermoon suggested a direct approach "You know how you're always saying we should spend more time together? We can share this together, honey." That's more or less how it worked for me. Zelkari of Spirestone recommended something most ladies can't resist, "Show her druids and their flight form." Strumpet of Eldre'thalas had some very grounding advice from experience:
Just don't use it to escape TOO much, or one day you'll logout one day only to realize so did she, and you're left with the dog.
I've been separated for 18 months, trying to work it out. WOW wasn't the reason, but it did contribute to why we are where we are now. As our relationship got harder we both pulled away, her with her friends and me with WOW. I tried getting her involved, we played together for a while but she was never a gamer and never will be. She lost interest and I kept playing, and playing. It's still a sore spot with her and one I will have to overcome.
If she doesn't like it now, she's not going to like it later. it's best to find a way to put it in it's proper place, much, much farther down the priority ladder. If she thinks WOW is interfering, you're in for some major hurt down the road.
My WOW account will go dark if I my wife and I ever work out all of our concerns and get back together. I keep the WOW fires burning for now because...well, I'm not sure really. Boredom, loneliness, friends, cheaper than the same amount of hours at the bar/club/[insert any other money sucking hobby here].
I may need WOW Anonymous to quit cold turkey.
Make sure she comes first, always, over WOW or any other game/hobby/interest. Love and marriage take commitment & cooperation, understanding, compromise. Throw in children and it's a full time effort, and it's not always Roses. There will be bumps, try to keep your perspective and the Big Picture in view and you might not become another statistic.
With that said, congrats on the engagement! I wish you the best of luck and hopefully many, many happy years!!!
I'm sure it happens that one partner plays WoW and the other doesn't. I honestly don't know if Brad and I would have made it this far if I hadn't started playing. It something that we share quite a bit. Even when we're not playing together, we're usually playing side by side. In addition to all the other trivialities of life that we discuss WoW mechanics, theory, and meanings in the game. It's been a nice, relatively inexpensive way to share some of our down time together.
I don't exactly remember why I started to play. It was recently after he'd reopened his account, he let me roll and Orc Warlock and it seemed pretty fun. I remember walking into Game Stop and hesitantly laying down my debit card for my own copy, him holding my hand. The clerk sensed my nervousness and started talking about happy WoW couples. I'm glad I made that purchase. Sometimes we have our tense moments, but if our biggest argument is "Why didn't you bubble faster?" I think we're doing ok.
My best advice is to introduce her to good people and watch out for her amongst the trolls. Give her help when she needs it, but allow her to become proficient. Recognize that her experience will be different from yours and watch her back. Most importantly don't get bitter when she turns out to be better than you are. Congrats on the engagement, and good luck.
What advice do you have for this happy couple?
