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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that you should never marry a gamer

344 replies

Somersetlady · 12/07/2019 15:54

A glut of threads on here recently reference DH being useless/not contributing/ not looking after kids because they are in the xbox. Often they stay up late on the xbox.

One but of advice for those dating would seem to be to steer clear of gamers as your future OH!

OP posts:
Fibbke · 15/07/2019 21:02

You are super weird about this chovihano

I mean, really proper weird.

Fibbke · 15/07/2019 21:04

waves to rasberry

I have a horse and game too Smile I also run and I am fittish, clever and look 10 years younger than I am. Have a wonderful good looking, clever dh who runs his own business, used to work for a gaming company. We are both good company and we have four fab kids.

So the really nasty bitchy posters can actually fuck off.

Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 21:07

@rasberryroyale

I am sure is it a very small percentage of the population that do this to excess also:

I would much rather he games than goes to the pub, gets rat arsed and comes home steaming drunk, but that’s just me.

OP posts:
JacquesHammer · 15/07/2019 21:09

RasberryRoyale

I wonder if he works for the same company some of my friends work at?

My ex was/is a gamer. He used to game on the nights I was out rehearsing for AmDram. He would put DD to bed then spend the couple of hours I was out gaming.

As I keep saying, the issue is not gaming. It’s dickheads.

Fibbke · 15/07/2019 21:11

or in reference to this thread: the issues is not not-gaming. It's dickheads.

Damntheman · 15/07/2019 21:13

My husband is a gamer and he's awesome. An active and involved father, does most of the house cleaning, pulls his equal weight. Much rather a gamer than a football nut! We both game when the kids are in bed, I think nerdy gamers are the best :)

RasberryRoyale · 15/07/2019 21:15

@Fibbke I completely agree.

@Somersetlady I’m not so sure about that. But my point is there’s worse things my DH (or I for that matter) could be doing with our spare time. Gaming doesn’t hurt our lives. It impacts on our lives due to the long hours my DH works sometimes but there are plenty of jobs that work long hours.

I just find it really pathetic that some on this site judge over a hobby.

Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 21:29

Just lost a whole written post.

  1. That is a skewed overview article on lifehack.
  1. Only 2 of the links work
  1. Having read both the studies now this is the definitive point.
Gaming is not proven to advance creativity. See picture taken from study MSU.
  1. Off the less 500 12 year olds that were surveyed (parents were paid for responding all were gamers. Name me one parent who is going to tick the box that says my child is not creative on this task set.
To think that you should never marry a gamer
OP posts:
Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 21:34

@RasberryRoyale again there is a disproportionate number of posts on MN that state gaming as a DH hobby causing a problem with the relationship.
Granted there must be plenty of gamers who do not do it to excess or at the expense of their partner or children but gaming seems to be a very regular gripe with posters on here.

OP posts:
gamerchick · 15/07/2019 21:41

You're still (probably deliberately) missing the point. Gaming isn't the problem on these threads no matter how much you say it is.

RasberryRoyale · 15/07/2019 21:45

@Somersetlady Then they have a DH problem. If it wasn’t gaming, it would be be something else. Sometimes the person is just a dickhead.

Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 21:46

Am now looking at a raft of studies that list why Gaming MAY have a negative impact on a gamers life. It’s a very interesting insight to popular culture and having two young boys I’m sure gaming will come up at some point in their future.

www.daimanuel.com/2018/10/23/6-reasons-why-gaming-is-bad-for-your-health/

OP posts:
Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 21:48

No @gamerchick unless you can not read I totally get your point as i said above:

Granted there must be plenty of gamers who do not do it to excess or at the expense of their partner or children but gaming seems to be a very regular gripe with posters on here.

OP posts:
MarshaBradyo · 15/07/2019 21:49

It wouldn’t be my choice but others might welcome it

MaryPopppins · 15/07/2019 21:52

My DHs top hobby is gaming.

I'd prefer it to my friends DHs who cycle, play rugby, football.

DH games once DC are asleep. Turns it off/doesn't do it if we want to do something together. Doesn't play until house work is done etc.

I get more annoyed when he's training for long races as then he runs for ages and it out the house. At least on the Xbox he's home and can stop to help me out etc.

A twatty person is a twat no matter what their hobby is.

So don't marry a twat. The hobbies are a red herring.

RasberryRoyale · 15/07/2019 21:57

@JacquesHammer If they work for the company that makes that game that according to some here “they don’t allow in their house” and that they don’t allow their partners to play then yes. Wink

RasberryRoyale · 15/07/2019 22:11

@SomersetLady All those negatives can also be caused by watching too much tv or a child sitting on a tablet.

Gaming can be social. My friends and I get together and chat sometimes whilst playing a game. It can be creative, you only need to look at Minecraft, The Sims and the likes of Planet Coaster to see that.

Gaming is also a great escape. I have a disability and gaming allows me to lose myself in another world, to do things that sadly I may not be able to do in real life. I have a friend in a wheelchair and she loves the escapism of playing in a different world, a world without her chair and pain. She also doesn’t get treated differently playing with other people which is important to her.

But go ahead, keep seeing only the negatives.

Vulpine · 15/07/2019 22:13

I'd rather my dh had a more active hobby than gaming, for his health and energy levels

Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 22:28

Agreed @RasberryRoyale but i wouldn't let my children on a tablet (unless they are on a longhaul flight) and am not a telly person so again the if you weren't gaming you might be doing something else sat on your arse staring at a screen wouldn't apply here.

As i said above ive learnt a lot about gaming from this thread. I didn’t realise it was so social for some.

Now I’m having to look up the games you referenced above. Minecraft = online lego who knew!? Confused

www.webwise.ie/parents/a-parents-guide-to-minecraft/

OP posts:
Original poster
Somersetlady · 15/07/2019 22:32

@RasberryRoyale please dont flame me for this bit is Sims like virtual dolls houses and virtual dolls?

See wikipedia quick explanation below:

The games in the Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals (except for some later expansion packs and console versions which introduced this gameplay style). The player creates virtual people called "Sims" and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves. Each successive expansion pack and game in the series augmented what the player could do with their Sims

OP posts:
RasberryRoyale · 15/07/2019 23:03

@SomersetLady, I won’t flame you. At its core yes I believe way back when the franchise started almost twenty years ago, that was the idea. (The working title was called DollHouse- but it was changed to attract boys as apparently the games creator didn’t believe girls would buy video games.)

But it’s a life simulator, it allows you to be creative, to build whatever you want, to create different families, households, worlds and allows you to create different characters and live different kinds of life.

Which does sound sad, it’s one of those games that once you see it, it makes sense. People (children and adults) write stories from their games, make videos and share their creations with each other, it’s very creative and it’s a game that kids and adults can enjoy.

NameChange9854 · 16/07/2019 02:07

Minecraft is incredible really, I played it a bit with my Nephew (and actually tried to carry on myself but it was too much to learn and perhaps was a bit lacking in imagination.

I know we had to build tools to chop trees and mine for minerals so we could build a house to hide from monsters at night. And because we wanted the house to have windows, we had to collect sand to blast in a furnace (after mining coal to use in the furnace). We collected seeds to plant crops (which needed an irrigation system) and animals to breed for food. He somehow rigged up electric-powered lights and an electric, underground minecart to take us between his various villages. To be honest there was so much going on it was a bit lost on me but it felt like a full and complex ecosystem.

Personally I prefer strategy/puzzle games or story-based games if I find the time to play on my own but also enjoy playing silly party games with friends.

Shooting, fighting or driving games leave me cold but each to their own.

NameChange9854 · 16/07/2019 02:15

And someone apparently made a functional 16-bit computer in the game? Boggles my mind that.

NameChange9854 · 16/07/2019 02:37

Sorry, going off on one a little now while I keep catching up on the thread, but gaming absolutely can be social. In addition to having friends occasionally come over for a game night, one of the ways my partner and I keep in touch with friends who've moved abroad is by playing a frantic, team-based cooking game with them. We stick our headsets on and have a 4-way chat, occasionally interrupted by demands that someone takes the rice out of the steamer before it burns, or for someone to chop more onions or wash some plates.

It's good fun and I don't think we'd have many 4-way telephone chats if it wasn't around a shared activity.

I also play a few simpler online games with my grandmother to help keep her amused :)

verystressedmum · 16/07/2019 02:46

A selfish man can turn anything into family-avoidance.

This.