Totally with ya.
WoW has been for me:
1. Completely relaxing escape from the stress of a high-pressure career
2. A fun hobby shared with my spouse - we play together
3. Something to do in the evenings when we had a small child and he was in bed for the night (you have no social life when you have babies, lol)
4. Something I now share with that child, who got his own WoW account when he turned 12 - now we all 3 play together! (As long as he keeps straight As, anyway <g>) I will say I am grateful to have a ongoing game we can share a few hours a week with a 12 year old boy, who's at an age where most boys don't want to play with mom or dad.
Even at the times where the developers have done things I didn't like or agree with, it's still a great game. There have been a few times where I took months-long breaks for real life reasons, or reasons of utter frustration/disinterest (primarily Cata, there), or even trying other games that were fairly quickly abandoned (Warhammer, SWOTOR, Rift). WoW is still the one that I can't ever quite leave.
My kid will go to college in 5 years. I figure we'll still be playing a couple hours a week, us from home and him from his dorm... lol.