Balancing family and WoW

[yjmark]

imho - the main issue is that you are your husband do not have an agreement, and you are treating it like you do. So, I would recommend you sit down and talk it over with your husband, and get resolution. If you can't even agree on something as trivial as him watching a kid while you do a hobby, then you will be in for a world of hurt on important decisions in life.

The key is - you both need to make a decision and agree on it. From what I've read, you are not there yet. And if you ignore his concerns without getting to an agreement, then you will just be putting gasoline on the fire.

Oh, and men are dumb as rocks. The way you take care of your child when he plays his games, but he does not repay the favor. You seem to expect him to figure out on his own that he's being an idiot by not recognizing that. But, he's a guy, and we (yes, I'm a guy) don't really see these obvious things many times. So sometimes (i.e. most of the time) you have to spell things out.

[Deleted]

I was in the exact same situation as you when 5.0 was released. I raided 4 days a week at pretty good progress pace. It caused big problems in my personal life and i went casual and now just attend the guilds alt run on a Friday. Sorry to say but the kids come first in all cases when compared to a video game. Now the more time i spend with my kids i realised actually how bad my habit was.

[Deleted]

Hi there,

Just wanted to say unlike many on here I wont try and give you advice as I don't know you at all so I can't possibly judge you or give you advice about this problem.

However what I can offer is my wow or gaming code I live by, I am 30 years old and a father of a 2 year old son who means the world to me and I am married to a wonderful partner.

Arrange WoW around your life... not your life around WoW...

[IRunSoFarAway]

Hypothetically speaking, if I was raiding and someone got to go afk on trash and caused wipes because of having to tend to his/her child, it would annoy me for multiple reasons.

1. Your child should be your #1 priority.
2. Wiping on something because someone had to get up in the middle of it to do something IRL wastes the time of those who can devote however many hours to raiding.
3. I'd like to go AFK on trash as well.

If I had a child, and I came home and saw my wife playing games while he/she was crying, I'd be mad too, that said, your husband is a hypocrite. In my opinion, when he gets home, he should be helping you take care of him...caring for a child should not fall on the responsiblity of one parent alone(unless you're a single parent, obviously).

I have much stronger opinions on this matter, but I won't voice them, all I'll say is that things of this nature make me sad for the child.

[Hotsforyou]

My wife and i went through the same thing. Actually split up for a bit because of it. So we made a deal.

I can play wow whenever i want, but at her say so i have to get up and do whatever she wants (Minus my designated raid nights). I raid 3 nights a week after 9pm our time once the kid is in bed.

No i come home, do homework with the daughter. After all that is done i sit and play wow or some Torchlight with my daughter. It is great. If the wifes says get off the computer, i do so.

Now what i do to make sure that no one is inconvenienced is this, I am pretty much the GM of our raid guild. I only recruit people that are understanding of the Riad leder, GM and myself situation with kids and wives or other people that are married with kids. We don't really hardcore raid anymore but it is still good and we get to see content.

[MouseD]

So so called husband can play his game without interceptions or having to deal with a baby he help make but mom can't play her game of WoW without being jumped on .....that is soo freaking wrong ....tell your husband you want same amount of free time to play wow that he uses to play his games.....husband is just as freaking responsible for care of that baby as the mom is...

[Raelbo]

I am a father of two (twins) and started playing WoW shortly after they were born. It was a good way for me to pass the time while I was taking the night shift.

There have been times where my wife and I have run into conflict over WoW, and every time this happens we talk about it and come to an agreement about how to proceed. Importantly there are a few basic principles which we have established:

1) I am entitled to have a hobby that does not involve her or the kids.
2) I have a responsibility to my family. Kids have needs. A wife has needs.

So really, it is all about establishing a set of parameters which work for both of us. We treat my WoW as any other hobby and have agreed what is an acceptable schedule. As long as I stick to that, she'll support my hobby. Also, life situations change, so our agreement needs to be dynamic and adapt to changes over time.

Currently I raid once a week. That is the only time I have which is guaranteed WoW time. The rest of my WoW time is opportunistic and I know not to commit to anything I can't leave if something comes up.

Fortunately I get in a few hours in most nights after everyone goes to sleep (and my wife goes to bed quite early). There are other times when I might get half an hour in here or there, but for the most part, I keep WoW (aside from my 1 raid night) from interfering with family time.

By the sounds of things, your situation has issues from both sides. It sounds like your husband is completely intolerant and unsupportive of your hobby, but at the same time, it does sound like your raiding schedule is messing with your childcare responsibilities. Babies especially need to take higher priority than WoW, and if your hubby isn't available to look after them (and even if he is, there are limits on how much he should be expected to do this), then you need to be able to literally "pause" whatever you are doing in and be ok with that. This is not say that WoW has to fall away - there is always time to fit some WoW in, but your WoW schedule should be built around your child rather than vice versa. Bear in mind this will become easier as your child gets older and becomes able to entertain himself - goes to school etc.

You guys need to talk about it and find a middle ground that both of find acceptable and it seems like that might require compromise from both of you. Most likely a bit less committed raiding hours (especially during the daytime when the child is awake) and probably also a bit more support from him to make time for you to get some time to yourself. What I can say is that if you can't find a compromise, it won't end happily for anyone

[Zeldaveritas]

[Andaja]

While not a lady, I think that depending on situation your husband is the one that's wrong. If he is working on one job and its ok to provide for family, then what does he do with his free time? Cause if I understand correctly, you take care of the household, the food supplies and the kid. If he does work from 6 in the morning till 12 at night, then he might be right, a bit, but even then he needs some breaks. Wonder how he spends those. For some strange reason I think that if you didn't had a kid and would both work normal hours he would still be nagging as he wouldn't get enough attention or some other crap. Overall you need to rethink your situation and answer the question is the household ok, is the kid ok, is the husband getting enough attention, if some is not ok you must discuss and fix it. Everything else is your free time and no one can tell you how to spend it.
On the other hand, kid at early ages might need more attention then later on, so you should try researching abit into it. it might turn out that not only you are wrong, but your husband is also doing damage to it, by overworking, which might result in child divelopement and psychological problems.

[Nifra]

Not sure if sarcasm or just pure ignorant.

Having a child does not mean you cant enjoy yourself anymore or do things you like to do. it just means you wont be able to do it that ofter as you might like. but hey you chose this life yourself.
Try to find a good balance when you son needs attention he should get it from you instead of playing a game. raiding, i believe is not something you should be doing at that time. you can do that once he is sleeping.

But those are my 2 cents and i dont have kids so i might be wrong but responsibility is key in this.

^This.

It's true I could always find another family-oriented guild that raids mornings (aka nights here) or on an oceanic server.
While we got a good bedtime routine, our 10-month old still wakes up every 3-4 hours to be fed but it would be manageable. The only drawback is being extremely tired the next day due to raiding instead of sleeping, which wouldn't do much good anyway.

Another option is to only play solo, do things I've been wanting to finish for a long time (Loremaster, the Insane, etc) and play while he's napping/sleeping.. But most of my passion within the game lies with raiding.. It'd be hard keeping from hitting the LFG button

Also, I've been finding the "troll" posts helpful as well

I'm a single Dad with a 15 month old, had him on my own since he was 2 months old BUT still managed to play WoW in the evenings and do some casual raiding as well....but when he was asleep.

My hat goes to you. I was alone with my son for his first 6 months of life as my husband was forward deployed, so I kind of know what it's like to be "single". Not easy at all. But I guess easier in a way since you don't have a girl nagging about you playing ;D.. But regardless, best of luck to you and your little one!

Moral of the story: Don't ask those questions on a forum, you just get flamed and people are judgemental. Glad for Rivelle's post though. Take her up on that offer to PM ....

I was prepared for that And honestly, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of positive and constructive feedback.
Thanking everyone for their insight and sharing their views

*snip*

More very strong facts, I will definitely consider all the suggestions you provided. Again, thank you.


One thing I haven't mentioned in my original post: my husband and I ironically met on WoW! He had to quit due to going to boot camp and all, but he was ok with me continuing playing at the time.
For some reason, when we started thinking and planning for children, WoW never really came up.. So that's why I automatically assumed he'd be OK with me dusting off my account again.

After having a good talk to him, he explained to me that he never had (and still don't) have any respect for raiders with "families".. Which is kind of sad.. There are probably still a lot of people out there who do neglect their children to play (as horrible as that sounds), just wish he was more open to see that it's still possible to balance.. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to convince him unfortunately.

The more I try to defend my point with him the more and more he treats me and calling me an "addict" for wanting to play "that bad".

A bit off topic but I feel bad for you OP, when I was stationed in Yokosuka my connection made WoW almost unplayable. I can't imagine being a hardcore raider with a connection like that.

Actually our connection here is decent, definitely not the fastest, but getting 800-900kb/s downloads on average, 150-300ms in-game. We do pay out of our asses for a mediocre connection, but it's the best we can get out here.

---------- Post added 2013-04-18 at 08:05 PM ----------

*snip*

That's a pretty good idea.

I hate to bash on my husband, but other than watching our son while I take a quick shower and playing with him occasionally when it's convenient for him, he really doesn't do much, but at the same time it's understandable. He works. I've been doing the nightshift since June, do every diaper change and the bedtime routine.

He has a two week leave coming up soon, and hope he'll step it up a lot.

At the end of the day, regarding the other posts, I do agree 100% I should be revolving my life around WoW and not the other way around.
For now, I'm not going to re-sub, to spend more time with the family until our relationship strengthens up a little and find another hobby.

[Zeras]

Was gonna post a the guild vid, darn it someone beat me to it. oh well. :P
I feel bad for you OP, however the choice is your's how you wanna balance it, im glad i don't have kids or raid frequently, one too many times something interupted me in real life and im like "oh but the raid, oh but they need me to be there etc". im so done with that. :

I can't imagine how it is with kids and all, but it could build up stress i remember one person i met once, married and all, could hear the kids in the background. He sounded quite stressed. :|