I Love That My Husband Plays Videogames

Be honest - how upset are you at simply reading the title of this blog? I’m not going to assume that you were thrilled to read that, given all of the social stigma around adults playing video games, but thanks for coming and still reading! Don’t click off the blog yet, we’re just getting started. 

No, I didn’t fully use the title of this blog post to be click bait, although I’m glad it worked ;). I truly mean it. 

As mentioned above, due to social stigma, there has, unfortunately, now become a ‘necessary’ caveat for me to put at the top of this article: if your spouse is neglecting your relationship, home, kids, etc. because of video gaming, then no, I wouldn’t love it either. However, Micah is an incredibly intentional person with his time. We have weekly date nights, he spends time with each of our kids, enjoys family meals when his work schedule allows, and never once has he turned me down when I’ve asked him for help doing a task and he’s gaming. 

Now, I want to preface the rest of this by saying, I’m going to ask some hard questions. (I can feel your eye roll from here as I write this, trust me)

Let’s just start with them, shall we? 

What does your husband/boyfriend like to do for his hobbies? 

How much time does that take? 

What’s the cost (financially)? 

What’s the cost (relationally)? 

How does he recharge? 

How do YOU recharge? 

I rewrote this next section at least three times… still not totally sure I nailed it, but here we go:

Micah loves to be with his friends, he recharges with uninterrupted/no end time with his friends. He also doesn’t drink a whole lot and when he does, he prefers it to be from home so he’s not driving after a long day, plus getting the kids to bed. I, on the other hand, recharge by being alone, or having one-on-one time with Micah. 

You know what works out REALLY well for us? He can go game and I can be alone 😂 honestly, so ideal. Micah will (again, when he has a semi-normal work schedule) tag team bedtime for all three kids, help clean up the kitchen, shower, and then go game and I go read. He’s a night owl and I’m a morning person - it’s not uncommon for me to be asleep by 9/9:30 and him to come to bed way later. We hang out together on Wednesday and Sunday, with Friday night being our typical date night unless he’s working and we need to shift it. 

Want to know what’s super cool? His bucket is full. He can pour out onto me the nights we are intentionally together because he’s getting that friend time. AND, I can pour from my full bucket as well because I’ve been alone to recharge. 

We’ve been doing this rhythm for about three years. And we still get flack for it, which we both find so sad. Not flack for having structured weeks, but simply because he plays video games. But I LOVE it. He gets to recharge, he doesn’t have to leave the house, and I know for a fact (because it’s happened) if I go to him and tell him I absolutely need time with him one night that we normally don’t hang out together, he will absolutely say yes. 

For your relationship, maybe it’s golf or sports or something else. Answer the above questions and really dig into how you’re feeling about it. I can’t stand the stigma around video games and adults. Just like sports and golf, video games allow Micah an outlet where his decisions during that time have ZERO affect on our everyday life. He’s still a teammate at home and in our marriage, so why not encourage it? Why not give him that space? He certainly doesn’t make fun of me and my hobbies, and out of (at minimum) respect for him, I don’t intend to do the same. 

I could write for days on this topic, it’s something I’m weirdly passionate about in our work-life rhythm simply because I’m tired of hearing my husband being made fun of for enjoying video games. He’s built some of his best friends through this outlet. His friends that he games with most threw him a baby shower for our third baby where they gave us diapers and had an all night gaming party. WHY?! Because men typically don’t get baby showers, it was our first son, and they wanted him to feel celebrated. Again, all centered around gaming. 

Two of his friends he games with moved to Austin after meeting Micah through gaming. We’ve hosted friends at our house for days that he’s gamed with, we’ve sent friends things when they’re in need, and when our home flooded in 2020 and we had to relocate to an Air BnB for three months, it was two people in this photo (that we had NEVER met in person, only gaming) that sent us care packages of toys for the kids because we couldn’t access the toys in our actual home. 

I won’t for a second say the hobbies of your husband/boyfriend don’t provide the same community and support that gaming has for us, but I will say it’s still shocking to this day how many adults say gaming is not a ‘real’ hobby. 

Micah, thank you for playing video games. It actually brings me joy to hear you laughing with your friends through your headset when I walk past our office. I love how nerdy you get trying to explain plot lines to me, which I admittedly don’t understand to this day 😂. 

To our friends in the gaming world, thank you for sending us gifts, loving my husband, loving on our kids, and giving us a different type of community that we couldn’t ever have imagined.