My girlfriend games too much
I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of gaming my girlfriend does. I don’t know whether or not to talk to her about it because I don’t want to discourage her from something that brings her joy and I also feel like I’m overreacting and being immature about it. I weighed the pros and cons on my notes app so I’ll copy and paste that here: Pros and cons of sky’s gaming Cons: Plays wow way too much and for way too long - Every day as soon as she’s done with work until about 2 AM - Once chose to play instead of have dinner - Sits at the computer without stretching, drinking, or standing for hours Makes a lot of noise - noisy keyboard - Noisy clicking - Weird suppressed laugh thing - Dropping her ring or pencil repeatedly - Noisy chewing - Sometimes I can hear it over my noise cancelling headphones Is totally engrossed and not paying attention to anything else - Many times I’ve been literally sobbing in front of her and she won’t notice - I’ll try to tell her something and she doesn’t seem interested or pays attention to what I have to say - Ill tell her dinner is ready and have to wait an extra 20 minutes before we can sit and eat - I’ll need to talk to her about something urgent and she always tells me to wait - Sometimes I need help with something and she seems to not care or won’t try to help when gaming - Doesn’t check her phone but that’s nothing out of the ordinary tbh - Seems kind of unhealthy because she doesn’t seem to do much else in terms of hobbies these days - Sometimes it feels like she doesn’t care about me or anything else for that matter when she’s gaming Also I feel kind of left out because I don’t understand the references she makes or the stories she tells about it. It’s just something I can’t seem to understand or get into that she cares a lot about. Pros: Way for her to de-stress during stressful times - When she was working and doing school she started playing - Plays a lot when she’s at her parent’s house She seems passionate about it - draws art for it - Always talks about it - Making new characters with cool backstories and such A way to connect with people - when she couldn’t see friends due to COVID she seemed to get really involved with the gnome crew - She’s in a gnome group chat - Always on twitter/masto making new friends - Meeting people in game as well Seems to genuinely be a big source of joy for her and I don’t want to ruin that - always talking about fun antics that happen in game - Made a lot of friends through wow I looked online to see if other people had similar issues and it was all straight couples talking about how “gaming makes men feel more connected to their masculinity and their fragile wives need attention 24/7 so they hate it” so generally, nothing helpful. I was wondering if any other wlw couples had similar issues? I don’t want her to completely stop playing WoW, i don’t think that just because it’s a video game that it’s harmful or not a real hobby, I really like that she’s so involved in a community, even if it’s online. Also we moved into a new place and she graduated college so I’m hoping she maybe plays less since she’s less stressed and excited about living somewhere new. She’s not a bad person or a bad partner by any means, she’s very loving in all other ways and is the closest, healthiest relationship I’ve ever had. I think she just developed a bit of an obsession with world of Warcraft due to extreme stress. ( she was working part time while being a full time senior in college, she would wake up at 8 AM and would be working, doing homework, or in class until 12 AM sometimes 2 AM) also all this was happening during COVID so we couldn’t go out anywhere and she only saw her college friends maybe once or twice throughout the entire semester. Basically am I overreacting and being selfish and insecure? How do I go about discussing this with her?
I suggest to that you and her sit down to make a schedule of times you can spend together and the times that she can game without worry of bothering you. Another idea would to maybe help her find another way to take up her time when shes not gaming, maybe try making something together or starting a puzzle. In the end, being in a relationship means respecting each other and you should express that you want to spend more time together. Maybe sign her up to a gaming addiction group. But I do highly suggest that you sit down and talk with her.
definitely not overreacting or anything of the such. feeling frustrated for something like this is totally valid, things our partners do can have different impacts on us and that’s why having healthy discussions are super important. it can be difficult to start the conversation for sure. but maybe at some point when you’re both free you can just gently bring up any concerns you’ve been feeling about this, explaining how you don’t want her to completely stop gaming or anything like that but perhaps bringing up what you wrote in the pros/cons can be a good way to show her your thought process on the situation and give insight into how you feel about and that can really open up conversation and give room for you guys to work out something that makes you both happy, maybe the conversation itself will be enough to make you feel a lot better who knows! i’m in a long distance relationship and i always encourage my girlfriend to speak up if i ever do something that doesn’t feel right or upsets them some how because it’s important to know how each partner is feeling. I’ve had my girlfriend open up to me about a way i phrase some things that makes it sound uncaring, even though that wasn’t the intended effect of my words, and we talked about it and identified why it sounded uncaring and then worked out a little plan that can help me use better phrasing and to help them understand what unique ways of expressing myself i have. its a very different example to your scenario but i thought i’d add it in because it was difficult for them to open up about and they felt they were just overreacting. but yeah communication is very important and all your feelings are perfectly valid and can benefit so much from a healthy discussion with your partner
I game a lot for me though it legit helps me cope with my anxiety so my therapist requests that I game