June 21, 2008, the day that would change my life forever. It was the day I got married, and the day my sports gaming addiction suddenly was turned upside down. Just days after the return from our honeymoon, my glorious, man’s gaming room had been transformed into a “family” room, complete with a DVR full of episodes of The Hills and various accent pillows. My usual gaming time had been replaced by “couple” time, where we would discuss our day, and do various household tasks like color coordinating our guest bathroom (joy!). I was losing my identity as a sports gamer more and more every day, and I didn’t know what to do.

June is the absolute worst month to get married for a sports gamer. Oddly enough this is the best month to get married for about 99 percent of the female population, so basically we are at a disadvantage the second we get down on one knee and ask that fateful question. With NCAA Football hitting in July, Madden in August, NHL games in September, NBA games in October, and finally NCAA College Basketball in December, there's not only a significant strain on sports gamers' wallets, but also on our marriages.

You see, once you get married, your wife doesn’t care that you’ve got a busy night of NCAA Football recruiting to do to solidify your program as a national powerhouse. She doesn’t care that your MLB Road to the Show player is in a slump and is on the manager's chopping block. She doesn’t care about the fact that you’ve just lost three key free agents in NBA 2K. Most of all, however, wives just do not seem to understand the concept, let alone the excitement, that comes every summer when the barrage of new sports titles begin to release on a monthly basis. This my friends is where avid sports gaming junkies need a battle plan to survive the brutal months (July-December), while also making sure our better halves are still talking to us when winter is in full swing.

Let me start by addressing the financial burden sports games bring into a marriage. As one of the many hopelessly addicted video game fans that purchases every sports game the day it comes out, imagine the day I told my wife that I had a $500 budget for sports gaming. I don’t think I really need to explain how well that went over. In fact, it went over so well, that I was informed of every single home improvement chore that needed physical and monetary attention. Thanks to my big mouth, I just invested in a new bathroom vanity, and a new kitchen floor, not to mention the fact that my back is still sore from various cabinet installations.

There is a loophole when it comes to my wife, though, one that has not failed me yet.

Trying to convince your wife your Franchise is really THAT important can be tough.

Survival Key #1: Find a Deal

Women love a deal. It doesn’t matter if it’s $5 off a purchase of $500, or opening up a new line of credit at a store to save 10 percent on a dress (yay! more credit cards!), women just seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to sniffing out deals. Rule No. 1 that must be followed in order to avoid the dreaded financial talk with your wife (“How can you spend $60 on a video game and not $60 on taking me to dinner and a movie?”), is to make sure you get some sort of deal on your new games. Trade in last year's version to save an instant $5-$10, and you immediately have justified the purchase to your wife. Also, scour the net for any type of deals that may be out there -- perhaps a free gift card with the purchase of the game, a 10 percent coupon granted by some sort of reward program, or by constantly checking out Cheap Ass Gamer.

This little strategy works like a charm, and not only do you get to feed your yearly gaming habit, but you give your wife a sense of satisfaction, because she thinks she taught you how to find a great deal by observing her magic on one of those endless NFL Sunday trips to the mall. Seeing this strategy in action is basically the equivalent to hitting a walk-off home run, except at home plate your teammates meet you with a plate of nachos and pitcher of your favorite beverage.

So, now that we’ve solved the money discussion, we have to tackle the whole issue of making time to play (the biggest deterrent to feeding a married sports gamer's habit in my humble opinion). Back in my single days, even through the days of dating my wife, I was always able to meet my virtual teams' demands. Once I got married I was with my wife 24/7. When we did get some alone time away from each other, it was hardly ever enough time to really sink my teeth into the inner workings of what my virtual teams needed. I felt bad for my virtual athletes too -- imagine telling that five star blue chip seven footer in College Hoops that you wanted him to come to your school, before vanishing for three weeks. But my wife isn’t going to understand that level of sports gaming devotion. In fact, when I politely tried to explain my strange connection with my polygonal players, she looked at me as if she had married a crazy person. How can you keep that internal video game coach integrity meter up while keeping that real life good husband meter up? Look no further:

Sometimes, games in the snow are so special it is going to require some careful diplomatic negotiation.

Survival Key #2: Show Some Interest in Her Hobbies

There’s nothing harder for a man to do than to really listen to his wife and show interest in her hobbies. When my wife tells me about how she found a new duvet cover that will accent our bedroom décor better, I simply zone out and nod my head. (I don’t even really know what a duvet is to be perfectly honest.) Think about it though -- we want our wives to understand our obsessive need to play a sports video game, and we aren’t even listening to them when it comes to issues of relative importance. Survival Key No. 2 is that you have to not only show interest in what excites your wife, but you also must genuinely listen to her when she tells you about those things. I get excited about Madden every year, my wife doesn’t get it. She get’s excited that we are getting new drapes, I don’t get it. See the point here guys?

How can we expect our wives to show respect for our gaming habits, if we as husbands don’t show respect for our their hobbies? I’ll be perfectly honest, three weeks into our marriage I started watching an hour or so of home improvement television shows (my wife loves decorating), and suddenly it was as if I had discovered the treasure of Ali Baba. I would simply disappear into the video-gaming room, and not hear a sound from my wife for a couple hours. She would even come into the room now and then to inquire as to how the gaming was going.

The final survival key again deals with the issue of finding the time to game, more specifically, finding the best time of day to game when married. This survival key needs to be used in direct correlation with the lessons of key no. 2 in order to work. You can’t build a house without a foundation, and you can’t use Survival Key No. 3 without key no. 2 -- doing so would be a disaster (and not the good kind like when the Ghostbusters crossed the streams).

Staring at screens like this for hours on end probably won't help your case with your wife.

Survival Key #3: Pick Appropriate Game Times

There is no bigger adjustment for the recently married sports gamer than figuring out the appropriate time to sit down and feed a craving. Back in my single days, even during the dating process of my wife, I would regularly have the 12 a.m. to 2 p.m. Madden franchise marathon or NBA 2K offseason scouting session. When I got married, I couldn’t find the right time to lose myself for a few hours in my hardcore sports game obsessions. The worst part was finding a time that I thought would work, only to be interrupted 15 minutes later by a wife that needed help with something. As everyone knows, the interruption scenario is perhaps the worst possible thing to happen to a sports gamer. How can you properly devote time to "labbing" plays, tweaking sliders, or moving on in a dynasty mode, if you can only play for 15-20 minutes per sitting?

My solution: TALK to your wife. I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but it is critical if you hope to get any type of long term gaming established. Here’s my personal favorite strategy, and it's something I like to call “The Stressful Work Day.” Basically it involves letting your wife know that you need a couple hours a night to unwind because you have a stressful 9-5. If anything, this is the most straightforward and honest way of getting some uninterrupted game time out of your wife. Sure, we don’t always have tough days at work, and I am sure there are days where it feels like you hardly worked at all, but for the most part, as long as you are honest with your wife and tell her you need some time to yourself, you should have your wish granted. There is nothing a wife hates more than a grumpy husband with the work monkey on his back; and what better way for a husband to vent away the days frustrations than to spend some time gaming?

So there you have it, the three keys to finding a sports game addiction/happy marriage balance. Getting married was the best decision I ever made; and even though my sports gaming time has suffered a bit, I wouldn’t do things differently if given the chance. It took me two months to figure all this out, but now that I have, the results have been amazing. My wife actually asked me about how my NCAA Football dynasty was going this weekend -- I was stunned.

Stick to these three easy steps, and I can guarantee that you will not only enjoy more guilt free married sports gaming, but your wife may actually show some interest. Then it’s only a matter of time before you convert her to a sports gaming addict as well. Let’s save that for another article though.