Three Survival Keys for the Married Sports Gamer

[Da_Czar]

Absolutely GREAT article... Loved it so much I finally made a digg account and submitted the article... GREAT read !!!!

[rockchisler]

Thank god Im not married or have kids..Yea me

[Pete1210]

Great article and funny. Married going on 15 years here. My wife is an early riser so by 9pm she doesn't want to be bothered and I have my game time. Having 2 boys is also a bonus. My 9 year old is a great sports gaming companion.

[kerosene31]

Nice article and so true.

After being married 9 years it does get a little easier. It is seriously very hard to get to a good place with this. The tough thing is that gaming time isn't "your" time if she can come in and bug you anytime.

Some tips that work for me:

-Build a gaming room (man-cave). This is vital.

-Remind her of how expensive and time consuming real sports are. You need equipment, will be gone for hours playing and of course off to the bar afterwords with friends for some "post-game" analysis. When you compare gaming, it is actually cheaper and of course she knows where you are!

-When all else fails, get a good pair of headphones and crank them up to where you can't hear anything else. Just remove all the frying pans from the house first.

[K_rob11]

This is the first article that I have read here at OS that wasn't a game review. This was great! Made me laugh out loud a couple of times because of how I relate to it. As others have already stated, wait until you have kids! You will have to soon make the critical decision between sleep or continue your franchise? I have successfully trained my body to only need 4 hours of sleep!

[NZ Buccaneer]

I introduced my wife to Carcassone - which we now play most nights three times - and playing league games of Madden online she knows that someone else had to partially schedule a time to play too.

Great article - it's amazing that all wives seem to like home improvement/decorating

[ghm125]

I think part 2&3 are huge keys to continuing gaming for yourself,but my wife understands when football,basketball and baseball begin,and new games are released...its my time for the next week or so..then it diminishes somewhat,but the finding the right time to play,is really key.......or at least my key......

[DJ]

I hear ya. It's really tough now because we just bought a new home so all of our time on weekends is devoted to home-improvement projects. The 360 was supposed to go in the basement, but we don't have a TV down there yet, so my gaming time has really been cut down. Thankfully I have a PSP and DS that I can use while she's watching her shows on TV.

She is understanding of my passion for gaming, though, and will cede control of the TV to me a few nights a week if there's nothing on TV. Otherwise I play in the afternoon (I work split shifts) or squeeze in a game either before I leave for work in the morning, or before going to bed.