Tweet
I have just found myself at a very important cross-road in my life. I am posting my situation and story here in hopes that some of my fellow-FFXI players can offer me some insight. Basically, my wife has given me what I see as a completely unfair ultimatum. I either quit FFXI, throwing away over four years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears, or she up or leaves me taking our dog and 2 year-old daughter.
First, I’ll give a little back story. My wife, for her privacy, I’ll call her Crystal (not her real name) and I started dating about 6 years ago. When we dated, we were both younger (around 19) and obviously acted differently. We went on dates all the time, often with other couples. She constantly reminds me of all the things I did back then like surprise her with flowers and stuff like that. I guess what she doesn’t realize, guy have to do stuff like that in the beginning to seal the deal. Anyway, we were almost always together. We did tons of stuff including playing video games.
We got engaged after dating for 2 years. Right around this time is when FFXI came out. I have always been a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but this was my first MMORPG. At first, I was a little disappointed with the game as it was so different from the rest of the series. Over time, I really started to enjoy the depth of the game, as well as making friend in this virtual world. I was in my final year of college, and was playing literally ever free minute I could get.
I noticed the desire to get things done in the game quickly became a small obsession. Going out with friends and doing things like watching movies and such now seemed like a chore. During my free-time, my fiancé would come by and ask if I wanted to do such-and-such. I told her she could watch me play the game and she did. But she kept doing annoying things like talk on the phone to her parents about the wedding and was basically a distraction that I had to ask her to go home. We started seeing less of each other, but I thought that was ok as we were both busy – me with the game and her with planning the wedding.
My personality during this time also started to change. I like to think of it as I didn’t put up with crap. I was living with friend during this time. He also played FFXI, but quit after like 3 months. Well, there was this one Friday night, him, I and two other guys were all suppose to hit the bars. I was leveling MNK at the time and was in a sick jp party. We were getting chain 7s in Crawler’s Nest, at a time that was unheard of. Obviously, I told them I wouldn’t be going with them. They kept making fun of me and threatening to turn off my PS2. I was getting pissed, but nowhere as pissed as I was about to be. When the party leader said we were taking a 5 min break, I went to the restroom. When I came back I saw my character standing in Lower Jeuno by the mog house. I was confused and paniced. I checked my log to see that I had used an Instant Warp. Also there was a message sent to myself saying ‘LOL now come out you fool’ or something along those lines.
I had never been that pissed in my life. The party was speaking in Japanese. I tried to tell them I was omw back, but they booted me from the party. I was screaming. I wanted to drive to the bar and kick his ass. Instead I took it out on his stuff. I took a couple concert tickets he had for the next weekend and tore them to shreds. I broke his lamp and a bunch of his CDs. After that, I went out and keyed the side of his car. He got home and bitched, but I told him he was lucky I didn’t kick his ass or kill him. He basically just shut up and moved out, leaving me with the entire rent for the next 4 months until my wedding.
Speaking of the wedding day, I seemed to have gotten in a bit of trouble for that too. About three hours before the wedding I was leveling WHM in the dunes. It was an ok party. Well, about this time my mom said I needed to go get dressed and get my pictures taken. I refused. I figured we could take pictures later. When she turned off my PS2 I started cussing. It took me a lot not to hit her, but that has never been my style. I just threw my controller against the wall, breaking it to pieces. I still to this day think she owes me another one for that, but has refused.
So we got married, had a honeymoon – which sucked – stuck on a cruise ship with no Internet access (well at least not with FFXI). I got a job during this time after just graduating. Was ok, but I just never wanted to be there. I spent most of the day on the allakhazam forums. I ended up using my 120 hours of PTO during my first two months there so I could play the game. After that I made up a story of having a dieing mother and taking unpaid time off for the next few months.
My wife was wondering where all the money was. I tried to tell her not to worry about it, since I was still making more than I was before and could easily afford the apartment. Around this time she kept complaining we didn’t go out as much. I tried to tell her if it was a big deal not hanging out, she could play her own character. She eventually did, and then just started complaining we didn’t do stuff together. I had 2 75s at the time, a dynamis and sky linkshell and she wanted me to hang out with a level 14 RDM with no sub job. I told her to get to 75 and we could hang out all the time. She lost interest and gave up before ever even getting a sub job. Somehow this is my fault.
We had fights like this all the time. She tried to make me feel bad by crying on the phone to her friends right outside the door. It was obvious what she was doing, so I just turned the volume up. I was achieving a lot in game. I was one of the first NA players to have multiple level 75 jobs while holding a full time job. I was sacrificing sleep, but she still complained that I wasn’t giving her enough attention. I told her to get a hobby, but she just kept complaining.
Later we had a baby. We had a lot of fights that I didn’t help out with the baby. Well I never wanted a damn baby anyway. I think she tricked me into it. Birth control failed my ass. Well, one time she leaves me with the baby during dynamis when she went out with her sister who was in town. I was main tank for dynamis and also sponsoring it to get my relic Excalibur. I did not have time to take care of the baby. Well something was wrong with the baby to the point it would not stop crying. About 30 minutes before she came home I was sick of hearing the baby cry, so I put her in the closest just outside my game room. Of course, when my wife sees this she freaks out.
I think that led to the biggest fight we had ever had. She wants to yell and bitch while I am trying lead 80 players to handle this massive train our puller had pulled. I told her to shut her f-ing mouth. After dynamis, I noticed she was not in the house. I called her and she said she had to get out for a while. She came home two days later acting like nothing had happened, LOL.
So, last night I missed some stupid meeting with my daughter’s pre-school ‘teacher’, because of my linkshell friend and I were camping her joyeuse. She flipped when she found out and basically said that was it and she was leaving if I don’t quit this game. I think she is serious this time. Part of me is excited to get rid of the constant nagging and responsibilities. Part of me is scared of being alone though.
My close friends in-game have helped me a lot to get through this. I feel close to most of them anyway than anyone in real-life, as I spend more time with them. Also, there is Kittie, my in-game wife. She knows I’m married in real-life, but she also understands my wife is pretty unbearable. To be honest, I love her and I know she loves me, even if we have never spoken in real-life or seen each other. She lives in Canada and I’m in Houston though. If I could convince her to move here and be my new wife, I’d be so happy and I’d leave my wife in a second. Having a girl like that might even convince me to lose some of this 100 lbs I put on since I started this game four years ago.
Anyway, that’s my story. It is nice to be able to talk to fellow Vana’deil citizens about these issues. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just completely cut off the real-life ties once and for all? Oh well. I am open to hear any suggestions you might have. Thank you all!
First, I’ll give a little back story. My wife, for her privacy, I’ll call her Crystal (not her real name) and I started dating about 6 years ago. When we dated, we were both younger (around 19) and obviously acted differently. We went on dates all the time, often with other couples. She constantly reminds me of all the things I did back then like surprise her with flowers and stuff like that. I guess what she doesn’t realize, guy have to do stuff like that in the beginning to seal the deal. Anyway, we were almost always together. We did tons of stuff including playing video games.
We got engaged after dating for 2 years. Right around this time is when FFXI came out. I have always been a big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but this was my first MMORPG. At first, I was a little disappointed with the game as it was so different from the rest of the series. Over time, I really started to enjoy the depth of the game, as well as making friend in this virtual world. I was in my final year of college, and was playing literally ever free minute I could get.
I noticed the desire to get things done in the game quickly became a small obsession. Going out with friends and doing things like watching movies and such now seemed like a chore. During my free-time, my fiancé would come by and ask if I wanted to do such-and-such. I told her she could watch me play the game and she did. But she kept doing annoying things like talk on the phone to her parents about the wedding and was basically a distraction that I had to ask her to go home. We started seeing less of each other, but I thought that was ok as we were both busy – me with the game and her with planning the wedding.
My personality during this time also started to change. I like to think of it as I didn’t put up with crap. I was living with friend during this time. He also played FFXI, but quit after like 3 months. Well, there was this one Friday night, him, I and two other guys were all suppose to hit the bars. I was leveling MNK at the time and was in a sick jp party. We were getting chain 7s in Crawler’s Nest, at a time that was unheard of. Obviously, I told them I wouldn’t be going with them. They kept making fun of me and threatening to turn off my PS2. I was getting pissed, but nowhere as pissed as I was about to be. When the party leader said we were taking a 5 min break, I went to the restroom. When I came back I saw my character standing in Lower Jeuno by the mog house. I was confused and paniced. I checked my log to see that I had used an Instant Warp. Also there was a message sent to myself saying ‘LOL now come out you fool’ or something along those lines.
I had never been that pissed in my life. The party was speaking in Japanese. I tried to tell them I was omw back, but they booted me from the party. I was screaming. I wanted to drive to the bar and kick his ass. Instead I took it out on his stuff. I took a couple concert tickets he had for the next weekend and tore them to shreds. I broke his lamp and a bunch of his CDs. After that, I went out and keyed the side of his car. He got home and bitched, but I told him he was lucky I didn’t kick his ass or kill him. He basically just shut up and moved out, leaving me with the entire rent for the next 4 months until my wedding.
Speaking of the wedding day, I seemed to have gotten in a bit of trouble for that too. About three hours before the wedding I was leveling WHM in the dunes. It was an ok party. Well, about this time my mom said I needed to go get dressed and get my pictures taken. I refused. I figured we could take pictures later. When she turned off my PS2 I started cussing. It took me a lot not to hit her, but that has never been my style. I just threw my controller against the wall, breaking it to pieces. I still to this day think she owes me another one for that, but has refused.
So we got married, had a honeymoon – which sucked – stuck on a cruise ship with no Internet access (well at least not with FFXI). I got a job during this time after just graduating. Was ok, but I just never wanted to be there. I spent most of the day on the allakhazam forums. I ended up using my 120 hours of PTO during my first two months there so I could play the game. After that I made up a story of having a dieing mother and taking unpaid time off for the next few months.
My wife was wondering where all the money was. I tried to tell her not to worry about it, since I was still making more than I was before and could easily afford the apartment. Around this time she kept complaining we didn’t go out as much. I tried to tell her if it was a big deal not hanging out, she could play her own character. She eventually did, and then just started complaining we didn’t do stuff together. I had 2 75s at the time, a dynamis and sky linkshell and she wanted me to hang out with a level 14 RDM with no sub job. I told her to get to 75 and we could hang out all the time. She lost interest and gave up before ever even getting a sub job. Somehow this is my fault.
We had fights like this all the time. She tried to make me feel bad by crying on the phone to her friends right outside the door. It was obvious what she was doing, so I just turned the volume up. I was achieving a lot in game. I was one of the first NA players to have multiple level 75 jobs while holding a full time job. I was sacrificing sleep, but she still complained that I wasn’t giving her enough attention. I told her to get a hobby, but she just kept complaining.
Later we had a baby. We had a lot of fights that I didn’t help out with the baby. Well I never wanted a damn baby anyway. I think she tricked me into it. Birth control failed my ass. Well, one time she leaves me with the baby during dynamis when she went out with her sister who was in town. I was main tank for dynamis and also sponsoring it to get my relic Excalibur. I did not have time to take care of the baby. Well something was wrong with the baby to the point it would not stop crying. About 30 minutes before she came home I was sick of hearing the baby cry, so I put her in the closest just outside my game room. Of course, when my wife sees this she freaks out.
I think that led to the biggest fight we had ever had. She wants to yell and bitch while I am trying lead 80 players to handle this massive train our puller had pulled. I told her to shut her f-ing mouth. After dynamis, I noticed she was not in the house. I called her and she said she had to get out for a while. She came home two days later acting like nothing had happened, LOL.
So, last night I missed some stupid meeting with my daughter’s pre-school ‘teacher’, because of my linkshell friend and I were camping her joyeuse. She flipped when she found out and basically said that was it and she was leaving if I don’t quit this game. I think she is serious this time. Part of me is excited to get rid of the constant nagging and responsibilities. Part of me is scared of being alone though.
My close friends in-game have helped me a lot to get through this. I feel close to most of them anyway than anyone in real-life, as I spend more time with them. Also, there is Kittie, my in-game wife. She knows I’m married in real-life, but she also understands my wife is pretty unbearable. To be honest, I love her and I know she loves me, even if we have never spoken in real-life or seen each other. She lives in Canada and I’m in Houston though. If I could convince her to move here and be my new wife, I’d be so happy and I’d leave my wife in a second. Having a girl like that might even convince me to lose some of this 100 lbs I put on since I started this game four years ago.
Anyway, that’s my story. It is nice to be able to talk to fellow Vana’deil citizens about these issues. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just completely cut off the real-life ties once and for all? Oh well. I am open to hear any suggestions you might have. Thank you all!
,
Comment