So this morning I had a very inspiring email in my box.
Hi Chatty,
I have been following your blog for over a year now and find it the best thing to read.
Memo to self, edit that part out so I don’t look like a self-gratifying twerp. Oh, wait…
During that time you have mentioned you have a very loving and supportive wife. My question to you is how often does she interrupt your games and do you have a problem with the interruptions? Just curious and please don’t answer if you feel uncomfortable with the question.
I don’t mind at all. Alex, my oh-so beautiful non-RPG-but-very-geeky-wife, does not usually interrupt our games unless she has a very cool bit of geek lore to share with us that she thinks is worth it. I say that because she’s aware that she’ll feel the weird vibe as we more or less successfully switch from RPG-centric to casual social mode to accommodate her charming presence.
I am recently married and I game twice a week, one night at my house and the other night somewhere else. My wife seems to interrupt me at least 3 times a gaming session. I am just curious if you have any recommendations.
Now that’s an interesting question with not a lot to go on, but here’s my stab at it. In a couple’s household, when one half is playing in an RPG campaign and the other isn’t, there may be an ill-defined line between ‘me’ time and ‘us’ time that has not been mutually agreed upon. This is especially true if one member of said couple plays more than once a week.
In our friend’s case, she may find that the second game day, in her home, is a bit too much. As a newly married geek couple, some expectation of ‘togetherness’ is assumed but may not be quite shared, especially if the gamer is a guy (we’re a bit more obtuse about that). While our friend’s wife may not have challenged him openly about it (to avoid conflict) she may unwittingly interrupt many times as her coping mechanism for her frustration.
In the above case, my gut feeling is that she feels she’s not seeing her husband enough, and she might even be a bit jealous of the game. However, I wouldn’t advise confrontation. Rather, I suggested trying to understand why she interrupted his games and what motivated her to do it. Then I told him to try to find a way to avoid it. He could tell her to refrain from doing it, but before he did so, I suggested he made sure he could offer something in exchange that would make her satisfied and respect the “do not interrupt” request.
Chatty DM says: “Balanced couples are about partnership and compromises.” 🙂
To know more about his situation, I asked him a few questions:
- Does she ‘get’ what being a gamer is?
- Do you encourage her to do social things in the house that do not involve you?
- Do you have couples night or some quality together time? An inviolable evening together that is a priority for both of you.
He rapidly answered:
I think she gets what a tabletop gamer is but doesn’t play RPG’s. She’s into World of Warcraft and Magic the Gathering, put come to think of it, she really plays those for the social aspects. I have tried to explain to her that “getting into the game” was very important.
I encourage her to do anything she wants to, like last night she went out with several other girls. I will have to admit she is still new to the area and therefore doesn’t know a lot of people. Yes, we have a couples night once a week and usually Sundays.
Wow Chatty I know you are not trying to but you are making me feel like a jerk.
Oops… my bad. Far from me to make him feel like a jerk. I had to ask, since the situation had limited input for me to work with. And many gaming geeks aren’t as ‘aware’ to the realities of a couple as our friend showed in his response above.
Honestly, my wife and I have a great relationship. Most days we have lunch together. We rarely fight and we do talk . I have tried to explain how I feel about it. But for some reason my games just seem to be a source of contention between the both of us. Recently I have just decided if that is the only source of “problems” in our relationship then we are doing pretty good.
Indeed you are doing pretty good.
My second gut feeling is that the game, being not important to her, can be interrupted without her thinking it’s an issue while it’s a big deal for him. A trick would be to suggest to her (if it is possible) that the game could be moved so that her private living space be freed… chances are, she’ll counter with an offer to try to interrupt less if she wants her hubby around more.
They could also negotiate to get our friend to drop one of his two games. Dude, I play once a week (when I can) and that’s the limit we’ve settled on, unless we invite people over for boardgame and geek movie nights.
(That wasn’t in my email response… he he he)
Finally, I suggested to have breaks in his game, like once every 2 hours where he’d go see her and have a 2-5 minute “hey babe, how are you doin’ did I miss anything cool?” chat/hug/kiss session.
Instant “Spousal Miles” points if you ask me. Take it from a 11 year marriage experience. 🙂
What about you, do you have interruption issues from your spouses, girl/boyfriends and or other people who live with you? Why do you think that’s the case and how do you/would you deal with it?
Sound off!
excellent! My partner usually interrupts once a session, and everyone appreciates it because she’s fun. Gaming used to be a problem when we lived in a small apartment, because she kind of had to make herself scarce (you can’t do anything else if there are gamers in the room, so she has to use a different room for her own sanity). Sometimes she tosses in silly suggestions that are also fun, and everyone appreciates the interruption. If we have home-delivered food she will take part in that, and we’ll use it as an excuse for a break. Everyone likes my partner, so it’s not an issue.
Also she’s a bit shy so doesn’t like wandering around in front of a group of 4 or 5 guys just doing her own stuff, so she likes to have food and such like sorted before they arrive if we’re going to be infiltrating the kitchen. But it’s not usually been a problem.
Now we’re in Japan it’s not relevant because gaming tends to happen in a public space or on skype.
We mainly deal with it the way we deal with everything else – talk about it and come to a compromise. But my partner’s awesomely understanding – even though she’s not a nerd, she orders me sometimes to play computer games so she can have time to herself, and she’s generally happy to let me do whatever I want. We have very independent worlds, so this is natural to us.
I had a player whose partner was very jealous of his gaming. I thought that really sucked and was a bad reflection on both of them – her for being so insecure, and him for being unwilling to confront it.
.-= faustusnotes´s last blog ..Infernal Feats =-.
Please note that I wrote this post with the assumption of a healthy couple made of balanced human beings with the average level of neuroses. Spitefulness, insecurity and jealousy will make the life of a gamer with a non-gamer souse horrible. From wives that cry ‘Honey! Can you come upstairs!” every half-hour to husbands that will log in their wives’ World of Warcraft’ account to spy against ‘digital unfaithfulness’.
In such cases, my suggestions are moot, seek professional help or re-think your position in the couple.
Oh and by interruption, I’d include calling hubby/wife/partner on the phone several times during the game with ‘when are you coming home’ and ‘guess what/who I just saw/spoke with’. 🙂
@faustusnotes: Thanks for sharing the story. I like it when Alex comes and makes a joke (or brings cookies the kids baked for us) but I also like that she doesn’t make a point of doing systematically. My friends usually always spend a few minutes chatting her up when they arrive (she’s 100% part of our geek tribe, if you get what I mean by that).
Wow, gaming in a public place in Japan. How does that work? Details! Especially how do people around you react… And why do I have an image of “playing silent library D&D for great justice” in my fevered brain all of the sudden?
Though I usually game at places other than our house (because I don’t want to tie up the living area of our home), when I do game at home, my (non-gamer) wife is respectful of the game. She usually goes on the computer, which is very near the gaming table, and pays enough attention to laugh if something funny happens at the table. She also brings us food, etc. when appropriate. Sometimes she will watch tv a little loudly (our dining room/living room/computer area is one large open space), but it has never really been a problem. I have on rare occasions gamed with someone whose spouse gets upset over what happens at the table (even though she is not a gamer and doesn’t really know what is happening, she’s very overprotective of her husband).
Generally, I have found pets to be more of a distraction at the table than spouses. Several of the people I have gamed with own cats, and I have a large dog (siberian husky). Cats jumping on the table (especially when minis or candles are involved) can be a huge distraction, as well as my husky trying to eat gamer food out of everyone’s hands.
@Darren Miller: I don’t have pets at home nor where we usually play (although Yan has a giant mutant cat named Goliath IIRC) so I can’t comment much on them, but I distinctively recall those pesky felines jumping on game tables while we were playing these late 80’s/ early 90s Milton Bradley strategy games with 18 gazillion pieces. We had to put one of those 1970 turntable plastic covers to protect our games during meal breaks.
We do have a toddler present at our games right now. Math’s compromise to play with us every 2 weeks is that we have his 18 month old son around until he goes to bed. It’s funny because I must say that I don’t really notice anymore, I love the little man to pieces so he’s part of our gang. I’m not sure what others think but he seems to be one of us. 🙂
I think you have a lot of good insights here. My wife is a geek who despises table top gaming because we are all just sitting around the table “pretending” and not actually doing anything. However, she does seem to understand just how into it I am, and that it is important to me, and the only times I get interrupted in my three weekly games is when she has something important to ask me like “Did the dogs get fed?” or “Did you take care of that thing?”, or when she brings me dinner (SCORE!)
I think the reason for this is two fold. First, when I started gaming we were already married and I gamed away from home, so to her gaming = not at home. Second she and I have a very clear understanding that every other day of the week, and any day that a game gets canceled, go to her before anyone else. I think this helps her deal with the fact that three days a week I act like a 12 year old (in her opinion).
And I totally agree with Darren. Nothing spoils the tension when the players confront the dark wizard in an all or nothing victory or death battle then pausing the description of the failing firelight in the hall to say “Oh, Steve, can you let the dogs out? They really look like they need to go.”
This happened to me last night, actually. I was supposed to run the Power Source Podcast campaign, but my wife kept me out shopping significantly past the start time. In general, I have to run my games past about 8:00 PM pretty much any day of the week to avoid the problem and I have to play online since she gets mad if I go somewhere else to play for anymore than a couple hours. It has nothing to do with gaming, though. She’d get upset if I went to church for an hour without her. She has tried several RPGs and although we’ve never found one she likes, she asks questions about my games and my characters. She also likes to “help” me prepare, although lacking any concept of setting, balance, or mechanics she tends to just add monsters and draw things at random.
chatty-san, the details of my first encounter with Japanese role-playing are here, there are a few other posts about it too. By “public place” I mean a public hall, which is maybe something the English-speaking world has lost – a massive building full of rooms you can rent out cheap for a day. Tomorrow’s game (which I’m DMing, eek!) is going to be at my FLGS, which I will also blog about shortly (once I have pictures).
Darren, it’s funny about pets – my cat used to go apeshit over gaming days because we had crisps, which he loves, and we had a player with smelly armpits (which he loves too the wierdo). So he would do this thing where he would jump onto someone’s lap unexpected, freaking them out, and then swipe a chip from their mouth, with scant regard for lips or fingers. He’s a bastard. But people mostly thought it was funny. And he is very sweet.
Incidentally, what is it with gamers and BO?
.-= faustusnotes´s last blog ..Infernal Feats =-.
My group generally doesn’t really have this problem any more. But in the early days when we would meet several nights a week as opposed to once a week now, we had a bit of an issue with partners constantly ringing our mobiles (cell phones).
Our solution was to answer the call and converse with our partners ‘In character’. This was to us hilarious having a Dragonborn cleric, Genasi mage, Goliath barbarian and half elf ranger talking to a group of bewildered non-geek partners.
My favourite was a reply to the question when are you coming home, our Goliath replied something along the lines ‘Is this some kind of magic wizard? I hear the voice of a whining wench come from this magical box. His partner then somewhat puzzled asked if everything was ok. His response ‘Silence, I tire of you harpy’ before ending the calling and switching off his mobile.
Needless to say we all had a bit of an ear bashing when we skulked back to our own dwellings in the early hours of the morning, but it brought to a head the issue and we managed to stop the calls (well most of them) the geek in relative peace.
@Aradan: LOL, That would have been interesting to do back when I played a Mute character who communicated with the Perform (pantomime) skill!
If someone already suggested this, I apologize, but as far as I can tell the simplest and most obvious answer has not been explicitly suggested; ask her not to interrupt.
She may not even realize what an inconvenience it is to interrupt the game. I’d suggest the guy sit down and have a talk with her, explain about how the game requires immersion, and ask her not to interrupt.
Also, suggesting a date night at the same time would probably be wise so that she doesn’t feel like she’s being pushed away.
@Chatty concerning my cat, most of the time he goes on an unoccupied chair near the table watching intently what we are doing. He will Grab whatever lies within reach but that is usually the extent of his interruption.
As for my Girlfriend well… She plays with us. Case closed. 😉
@big: 3 times a week? Are you serious? Wow.. I think I rarely made it past two… ever. Except maybe in grade school/junior high where we possibly played every day.
@Aradan: Now THAT is ballsy. I would never have survived it, but the primal chauvinistic pig that sleeps in me is smiling slightly.
@Asmor: I mentioned it, as always, couples need to talk more (as in both actually listen to what the other says and makes an effort to understand and empathize). The gap in according ‘importance’ to the activity may be more complex to resolve.
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Mighty Anthropomorphin’ Power Rangers =-.
What about inviting her to the game? The interruptions might be (consciously or subconsciously) attempts to join in.
My wife plays in the game that I DM, as does the wife of another one of our players (who also hosts the game), and it’s a LOT of fun having the spouses play.
@Ryven: Your case falls more into the ‘personal couple dynamics’ so I won’t go there. I’m happy to see you worked out appropriate coping mechanisms.
@Matt: That’s a suggestion too. However, many couples don’t share RPGs as a common past-times. My wife knows that she would be potentially interested, but she has no interest for the time investment of learning the rules, making a character and joining a campaign. She did tell me that she’d consider doing one shots, and I’m confident I’ll get her to play with the kids soon.
Cool article.
Breaks to visit with the wife are like magic, I have to say.
I’d play in three or four games if I weren’t compromising with my spouse. I play in two only because she plays in one with me. =)
My wife, the barbarian.
I find that finding someone who already games and marrying that person really works well. That way they almost always game in the same game as you.
The biggest distraction is the children, but that’s partially mitigated when other gamers have children so that they can play with each other. Of course, our two teenagers are already starting to game with us.
I’m not so sure about regular small interruptions for couple time during the game – it seems to reward essentially slightly impolite behaviour. I’ve always asserted pretty early on in a relationship that I have my own friends and my own time and I expect the same of my partner – I wouldn’t call her regularly or expect her to call me regularly when she’s hanging with a friend or at dance class. If she’s doing the same to me it suggests that there’s something up, something… selfish … and talking about that or compromising is good but taking a break from something you’re doing is a bit much like rewarding the negativity.
Interestingly, partners often only do this when there are male friends involved. I think it’s a problem for sporty people too. I suspect some women are uncomfortable about partners having male friends, and there’s a simple solution to that – get them to get over it.
.-= faustusnotes´s last blog ..Infernal Feats =-.
Wow Chatty, I didn’t know you gave marital advice. 🙂 And pretty good advice too. 🙂
Yeah in my group we have a wife who has to call her husband every single game, always about 1 hour before our agreed finish time to ask when he’ll be coming home. The funniest part is when he changed his dial tone for calls coming from his wife. One night during one of our games at the expected hour we hear this cow – MEEEEW….MEEEEW. “Sorry guys it’s the wife” and he picks up his phone. We laughed so hard and loud that he had to explain the next day to his wife why we were laughing. Funny thing the calls have stopped.
Keep up the good work Chatty.
.-= White Wolf´s last blog ..Stargate Worlds – MMORPG – Don’t wait up. =-.
In some ways, i’m not qualified to really offer a perspective, as personally, I made gaming with my groups a requirement to moving in with me.
On the other hand, in our gaming nights, we have 2 spouses who often come to our gaming sessions and bring their laptops, as we are all friends and we have kick-ass dinners before our sessions. I will also say that the kids are one of the biggest issues…one of the reasons my wife gets ‘saint’ status from me. The boy is 20 months, so his need to sit in everyone’s laps and say, ” Dice!” every few minutes is distracting until he goes to bed…luckily, we are normally still eating then.
I think your advice and perspective is really a good one. Moreover, it’s nice to see this side of you. The only part I don’t get is any reason to force the ‘geek life’ thing onto it. It’s all very good advice for adults meshing their lives together.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Celtrician Worship =-.
Fortunately, my wife and I (married seven years) understand each other’s need for “me-time”. We’re both introverts by nature, and so we value the time we spend by ourselves. It also helps that we’re both geeks, though she was a “proto-geek” when I first met her, and I introduced her to a lot of the geek subculture, including roleplaying games. We’ve played WoW together, and though she doesn’t play every game I get into (she tried LARPing with me once, but isn’t interested in doing it again), she is a member of the gaming group I have now.
The notion of a weekly game session sounds wonderful to me, though I’ve rarely been able to do it myself. For the brief period of time when I did, she was fine with me going over to a friends’ place to game once a week, so long as I didn’t stay out too late (she worries when I’m out past midnight). We often agreed to meet at different houses, and when they came to meet at our apartment, my wife decided to prepare fruit and snacks for everyone. And to be honest, she enjoyed having a night once a week totally to herself. It may make a difference that we’ve always shared rather limited living space, so being apart from each other while at home has rarely if ever been a possibility.
I think that if our current gaming group (basically just the two of us and two others) met more than once a week, she would take issue – and perhaps rightfully so, in my opinion. It seems like that’s rather a lot of “hanging with the guys”, but then, that’s my personal social dynamic and may not hold true for everybody. I would very much like to meet more often than we do now, but the reason we don’t is due to the distraction of children, not because of the spouses (which is its own big kettle of fish).
In the end, I have to agree that the key is communication. Find out what your spouse expects in your relationship, and put your mutual concerns out on the table. Be open to the possibility that you’ve been neglecting your spouse. You may discover that you *have* been acting like a jerk lately. At the same time, maybe the problem is stemming from your spouse’s insecurities or misconceptions. You’ll never know unless you discuss it.
It’s pretty likely both of you are going to have to strike upon a compromise, but you’re never going to be able to game in peace until you know why your spouse is unhappy with the current arrangement. Obviously, gaming shouldn’t take priority over your marriage, but there’s no reason why you should have to give it up, either.
.-= Devin´s last blog ..Back Again =-.
I’m in six games currently. two of which are weekly while the other four are fortnightly. I run one of the fortnightly ones. I don’t have a spouse but one of the gang has a gf who plays in the other half of one of my weekly games, which I’m not a part of but hang out at sometimes. she will sometimes interrupt our other games since they’re held at this person’s house but mostly she sits at her computer playing WoW. the guy mentioned above also has a kid just starting high skool. when he GM’s for us it’s usually, “you are now fighting this monster.” “ok, what CR is it?” “uhhhh… 14.” “right, we’re level 5, we run away.” the kid’s never actually ran a game though. not even a battle, which is probably a good thing for our characters.
when we game at my place there is a cat which attacks this one persons feet and she doesn’t like it so the cat gets put in the laundry where his food, litter and cat flap are. sometimes we game at that person’s house who has a flat mate. the flat mate would game with us if she had the time (study and work take up most of it with church taking up the rest). she usually just spectates and has input or sits at her computer at the other end of the house.
the only other semi-regular interruption is another person’s parent/sibling asking if they got here ok or asking if he wants a lift home. he got into the habit of answering when they called with “I’m not dead.” it’s a bit overprotective since he only has to walk about 5 mins but the calls don’t go for very long. our group is more likely to interrupt ourselves with chatter about some youtube video or some game we are really into etc. so I’d say my group is doing a lot better than most other groups. but it is a fairly young group with all but one of us 18 to 25.
Thanks for the great comments everyone. It’s nice to see that the majority has adjusted or has good coping mechanism.
As @LordVreeg mentions, I could have applied this post outside the tabletop gaming geek sphere, but it’s the one I write to/about right now. 🙂
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Min/Max Mashup =-.