Video Games Causing Divorce

    She’s a gamer widow. That means he gets more pleasure playing with his joystick than cuddling with her. As for any real conversation, well, she can just forget about it. He’d much rather engage in a Barrens Chat with his fellow World of Warcraft gamers then to ask her about her day in the real world. 

No wonder she’s about to call it quits.

But if he thought a killing blow was the worse that could happen to him, wait until he gets to divorce court. No amount of fire resistance can offset the trauma of a failed marriage. Here’s the sad part: he won’t be alone.  

According to the research firm Park Associates, an estimated 34 percent of America’s adult Internet users play video games online. MMOGs and MMORPGs — or massively multiplayer online games, some with roleplaying components, like WOW, Everquest and Second Life — are now just as pervasive in our society. And they’re just as debilitating to marriages, as gambling, sex, Internet porn and other behavioral addictions.  

The journal entries appearing on blogs for and by “gamer widows,” like the aptly named GamerWidow.com, speak volumes as to how gamers’ spouses feel about this phenomenon.  

So, how does gaming become an obsession? “We have a society where things aren’t going to well,” explains psychiatrist Michael Brody, M.D., who has written extensively on video game compulsions. “We’re mired in an unpopular war, and a depressed economy. Many gamers, who are in their twenties and thirties, feel politically disenfranchised. Gaming is an escape, a way to decompress.”  

Beyond that, says Brody, online gaming allows its members to be active participants. “This generation wants to participate, which is why gaming — along with social networking venues like Facebook and MySpace, and handheld wireless devices such as Blackberries — is so popular, as opposed to movies or TV, which are passive activities.”  

Another advantage, says Brody: gaming allows you to take on a different, more impressive personality. “Most gamers don’t look like celebrities, but like so many people, they want to be celebrities. With gaming you can try on a new identity — or multiple identities, and the other players don’t know this. It’s anonymous.”  

In many ways, addiction is built into game play. Says Brody: “Videogame companies spend millions of dollars to produce these games — and they are purposely designed to be compulsive. Repetition creates habits, and these games challenge motor skills and cognitive skills, by rewarding players with harder and harder levels. You can’t stop; you are motivated this way to go on to the next kill.”  

Another reason that, by its nature, explains Brody, gaming does not lend itself to intimacy. “When someone is caught up in a compulsion, he or she leaves other things out, even their relationships. When a compulsion goes on, week in and week out, it’s because the gamer would rather be caught up on that, than address any of their life’s problems — including the issues in their marriage.”  

No wonder so many marriages are feeling the strain. That said, Brody does not feel that video game play, in and of itself, can be the death of a marriage. “People use many things to keep away from addressing their true marital issues. Any compulsive gaming is just acting as a distraction. There would have to be underlying problems in the marriage.”