Marriage 07′ Versus Madden 08′
One of the things that is most surprising about being married is the ultimate commitment to compromise that my wife and I share. One of things that works her nerves more than anything about me is my desire to play video games. She associates it with immaturity and childhood, and if I stopped playing tomorrow, it wouldn’t have been soon enough.
Interestingly enough, she’s the one that brought me an X-Box for my birthday a little less than a year ago, but that’s another story for another time.
I’m not a huge television watcher, and although I try to work out pretty regularly, I’m not an exercise fanatic. Video games are a source of instant competition, man vs. man, or man vs. machine. You never play the same game twice, and there is always something you learn in terms of strategy. Early on in our relationship, it was a sore spot about how much I played them, and I’ll admit, I was a bit fanatical. Considering that most of my friends here in Baltimore lead busy lives, there’s not a lot of hanging out time.
But we’ve compromised. I’ve tried to not only keep the majority of video game time relegated to before 8:30 pm on weeknights, but I’ve also been proactive in suggesting more games that she and I could play together. As a result, we have a unofficial Scrabble tournament going, and we are tied at about four games a piece thus far.
It’s one thing to be a product of the Nintendo generation, but its another to let it affect your marriage. I’m lucky I have a wife who is willing to be married to a gamer.