How do you work PC gaming around family?

LiE · 21 Feb 2020 at 15:07

Gaijin said:
It's about communication and boundaries.

I've largely moved away (as in geographically) from my friends, so I have a gaming night once a week where we all play online co-op PC games and have a natter. Single player stuff I fit in around when house jobs have been done and either kids in bed or they are out.

It's just a conversation to establish that we both need downtime (sometimes away from each other) and so I accommodate her gym workouts (we have a gym in the garage) and yoga in the local church hall, and she accommodates my gaming.

It's not too difficult if you are both reasonable people and you are fulfilling your obligations to the household and the family, and also finding time to spend with each other too - however being realistic, you'll never have as much time as you used to for playing games.

This guy understands. Just make sure your wife/girlfriend/partner isn't off getting a super hot body in the gym while you sit at home eating Doritos and playing CoD

Curio · 21 Feb 2020 at 15:55

Wife and 2 kids (5 and 8) and this has been a big issue for me for a few years now. It wasn't too bad at first - I'd get an hour or two most nights to play games as the wife would rather read or watch her shows anyway while the kids slept. Then my PC died. I just didn't have the inclination to fix it, and could not justify spending any money to get it working again. Didn't bother me that much, and we had a Nintendo as well to help with the gaming fix. More recently, the kids are both at an age where they go to bed and sleep without any fuss, so we've had more time in the evenings again. It was great catching up with all the great TV shows from the past few years we couldn't really get into with screaming babies around. A few months ago we had pretty much watched everything, and the wife was happy reading her Kindle or watching her "girly" shows in bed again. That's when the PC building and gaming itch started up again

I also started a new job about 3 months ago and don't feel guilty about spending money for myself for the first time in a long time. So....I'm putting together a new budget gaming rig. The first parts arrived yesterday - woohoo! I've really missed that buzz of looking through benchmarks, hunting for deals, and waiting for boxes to arrive.

Also, we got a Switch a few months ago as the kids were at the right age for gaming. That has been awesome. All 4 of us on the giant sofa playing Mario Kart or Mario Party, laughing our asses off and having quality family time. The wife and I have even played a bit of Diablo III co-op on the Switch. We spent a lot of our first "dates" together playing Diablo II co-op between bouts

It's really important for couples to have quality time AND time alone to do the things they're interested in. In my case, I've tried so many different hobbies, and tried to kick-start various interests, all to no avail. My wife knows that my "thing" is looking at PC bits and thinking about the next upgrade. We're lucky enough to be at a point in our lives where I can indulge in that again. When you have babies though....any hobbies and interests just have to take a back seat for a while.

G-MAN2004 · 21 Feb 2020 at 16:29

Get yourself a robot wife that lets you game 8 hours a day. Stand up for your gaming rights.

Bassmansam · 21 Feb 2020 at 20:01

Some people sound scared of their own shadow own here

Django x2 · 21 Feb 2020 at 21:28

We (collective) as parents, strive to return to a life of enjoying catching up around the dinner table without phones or tablets, and encourage outside activities after school and weekends, and yet here we have a thread full of 20-40 year old men advocating sitting on a gaming laptop in the the lounge whilst we chide the kids for doing something similar just so we can get some frags in on CoD, and that's acceptable. Give me strength.

Malevolence · 21 Feb 2020 at 21:32

Simple, besides my parents and younger Sister, I don't have a family. And I don't want one either.

Bassmansam · 21 Feb 2020 at 21:57

Django x2 said:
We (collective) as parents, strive to return to a life of enjoying catching up around the dinner table without phones or tablets, and encourage outside activities after school and weekends, and yet here we have a thread full of 20-40 year old men advocating sitting on a gaming laptop in the the lounge whilst we chide the kids for doing something similar just so we can get some frags in on CoD, and that's acceptable. Give me strength.

err, your posting on a forum of a shop that sells computer parts..

Gaijin · 21 Feb 2020 at 22:15

LiE said:
This guy understands. Just make sure your wife/girlfriend/partner isn't off getting a super hot body in the gym while you sit at home eating Doritos and playing CoD

Errrrrrrrrrr

Incidentally this week once the kids were in bed and I was playing games with my mates, she was sat on the sewing machine on the other side of the study making etsy-esque dungarees for the boys. Occasionally tutting at the bad language me and the guys were using mind....... :rolleyes:

sideways14a · 21 Feb 2020 at 22:17

I manage this by simply not having a family.

Django x2 · 21 Feb 2020 at 22:44

Bassmansam said:
err, your posting on a forum of a shop that sells computer parts..

Your point being?

Bassmansam · 21 Feb 2020 at 23:00

Django x2 said:
Your point being?

enjoy your gaming pc. In your post you seem to assume everyone has the same idea about parenting also, why?

chroniclard · 21 Feb 2020 at 23:09

Django x2 said:
We (collective) as parents, strive to return to a life of enjoying catching up around the dinner table without phones or tablets, and encourage outside activities after school and weekends, and yet here we have a thread full of 20-40 year old men advocating sitting on a gaming laptop in the the lounge whilst we chide the kids for doing something similar just so we can get some frags in on CoD, and that's acceptable. Give me strength.

There is room for both. Outside is overrated anyway.

PardonTheWait · 21 Feb 2020 at 23:43

Roar87 said:
I like how men need to have a limit for their hobbies (adult men supposedly), but women can sit and watch reality TV and soaps while being on their phone all night and that's okay

Just don’t get with a woman who’s like that unless you like it too? It’s not rocket science

R.P.L · 22 Feb 2020 at 00:49

sideways14a said:
I manage this by simply not having a family.

This. Some people do make life hard for themselves.

Sho · 22 Feb 2020 at 01:24

I normally get an hour in the evening, and weekend mornings. And that's about it. Even though it feels like 5mins, it better then nothing. I prefer to spend more time with kids Mrs etc.

I did stop gaming for roughly 5 years. Once you have kids it's soo god damn hard to have any free time. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Only recently I've started again with my old i5 rig
Just playing CSS, it's the only game that's got my attention. Need to fund another game...

Dirk Diggler · 22 Feb 2020 at 07:39

@beasty6

You have mentioned in the OP that you encountered serious difficulties in your relationship in the past due to gaming. That in itself indicates to me that you need to keep your gaming at a minimum, and maybe even conclude that it has no place in your relationship. I think you may be approaching this the wrong way round; don't try to work out how much time you can safely allocate to gaming, try to work out how much time you should be allocating to your family. Make sure you're taking your turn to do your share of cleaning, cooking, bedtime stories etc. Make sure you're allocating enough time for you and your wife to share adult conversation and the other adult things you should be doing.

If, after all that there is no time for gaming, then there is simply no time for gaming. Although, I'm sure you'll fit some in at some point.. maybe not as much as you'd like but there will definitely be time for yourself when you've worked the rest out.

HTH and good luck.

beasty6 · 22 Feb 2020 at 08:06

String said:
@beasty6

You have mentioned in the OP that you encountered serious difficulties in your relationship in the past due to gaming. That in itself indicates to me that you need to keep your gaming at a minimum, and maybe even conclude that it has no place in your relationship. I think you may be approaching this the wrong way round; don't try to work out how much time you can safely allocate to gaming, try to work out how much time you should be allocating to your family. Make sure you're taking your turn to do your share of cleaning, cooking, bedtime stories etc. Make sure you're allocating enough time for you and your wife to share adult conversation and the other adult things you should be doing.

If, after all that there is no time for gaming, then there is simply no time for gaming. Although, I'm sure you'll fit some in at some point.. maybe not as much as you'd like but there will definitely be time for yourself when you've worked the rest out.

HTH and good luck.

Cheers mate

I don't think it's gaming as such that's the problem as I have my PS4 pro, and I play company of heroes on her laptop now and again, so it's not games that's the problem, it's having a rig in the house.

I had a talk with her last night, she kinda got defensive about it and didn't seem to at least give me a chance to prove that it can be used respectfully.

I think a gaming laptop might be the best bet, can be completely put away and out of sight as stated in a previous reply.

Just annoys me a little that I can't seem to have a second chance after knowing and learning from what went wrong last time.

Scrutinize · 22 Feb 2020 at 09:42

beasty6 said:
Cheers mate

I don't think it's gaming as such that's the problem as I have my PS4 pro, and I play company of heroes on her laptop now and again, so it's not games that's the problem, it's having a rig in the house.

I had a talk with her last night, she kinda got defensive about it and didn't seem to at least give me a chance to prove that it can be used respectfully.

I think a gaming laptop might be the best bet, can be completely put away and out of sight as stated in a previous reply.

Just annoys me a little that I can't seem to have a second chance after knowing and learning from what went wrong last time.

Hence my comment re avoiding the shrine to it. If you built the rig, it could easily become the negative focus of every argument, and not just ones about gaming.

It is clearly very important to your partner, and thus to you.

Relationships require hard work and often ingenuity to compromise. Sometimes to move forward, you simply can't afford to repeat past occurances.

Not having a gaming rig is a pretty straightforward fix.

There are already enough pressures on family life; some of which once enacted, you can't repair.

Bassmansam · 22 Feb 2020 at 10:13

It seems like to have kids you have to give up most of your hobbies. Is that really worth it?

Blue160 · 22 Feb 2020 at 10:24

Bassmansam said:
It seems like to have kids you have to give up most of your hobbies. Is that really worth it?

Yes.