This may be ridiculously long but I am writing as part of my healing process. So here it is: I still remember the day he placed the game in my hands at Best Buy just days before Christmas in 2007. I rolled my eyes but knew he only played his video games about 3 hours twice a month so no big deal. On Christmas day, he got pissed that we were out doing family stuff b/c he wanted to upload his game. I cried all the way home, wishing I was spending Christmas with my family in Colorado instead. At that point, we had been married 2 years and had moved back to Washington to be near his friends. He started playing Christmas day and life was never the same. Somehow I pried him away a couple week later just long enough to conceive our first and only child. I found out I was pregnant on January 25th and I got laid off from my relatively high paying job a week later. I qualified for the highest unemployment so in order to match that, I would have had to get a job at Starbucks for about 60 hours a week (while prego!) so I continued to look for work while building my own business and collecting unemployment. Not once did he offer to get a second job to help make ends meet, only yelled at me that I was a loser, living off the government. At that point, he was playing about 70 hours a week (yes, SEVENTY!) His best friend lived with us at the time and would try to get him to hang out but he wouldn't.

I spent the first 6 months of my pregnancy crying myself to sleep, alone in our bed, about 6 nights a week. When I had enough, we tried different "WoW schedules" but they never worked b/c when he wasn't playing, he was annoyed that he "had" to spend time with me. Let me assure you that prior to WoW, we were actually a pretty happy couple, loved eachother very much, went to church, had a social life, etc but that all went away. By June 2008, we had tried several combinations of WoW schedules and I finally begged him to take a break. I told him that WoW was a whore in our marriage. I started to call it "her" b/c he cared more for "her" and to spend time with "her" than he did with me. He agreed to take a break and we started counseling. The counseling went well but partially b/c we didn't seem to have as many problems--he was now going to bed at a decent hour, getting more than 2-4 hours of sleep, cuddling with me, feeling the baby in my tummy...life was pretty good...except that he talked about playing WoW practically every day at first and eventually it dwindled to about twice a week. Things like, "do you think I will ever be able to play again?" And every time he asked, I felt like he was asking if I minded if he slept with someone else...literally! It was a punch in the gut EVERY time and I would often cry when he asked and he would get mad and say that I was overreacting.

The baby was born at the end of September and when she was 2 weeks old, he asked to play WoW again on a limited schedule. He asked practically every day. When she was about a month old, I finally gave in but requested that he write me a "WoW Playing Guidelines Contract". He started and it was never as bad as it was those first 6 months but there were constant compromises such as, "I had to work until 8pm on one of my WoW days so I'm gonna play on a non-WoW day". We actually had to write in the contract that he wouldn't intentionally start fights w/me to play WoW and if we were in an arguement, he couldn't play (to prove it wasn't intentional)

By June 2009, when the baby was 9 months old, I had to get a live in nanny b/c he wouldn't help me with the baby or ANY household chores. He was either working (but never more than 40 hours) or playing WoW and if he did spend time with us, he was short and irritable. By August, I was so lonely and felt like a single mother and didn't want my baby growing up thinking that daddy's live in front of the computer. I filed for divorce and then the 20-30 hours went back up to 50-60 hours (which he still denies). The closer it gets to our divorce day, the more frustrated and devastated I feel that a stupid computer game actually ruined us! I tried to retract and reconcile. We admitted we love eachother very much but he said, if I won't allow WoW in our marriage then the marriage is over.

That was 2 weeks ago. He moved into his one bedroom apartment this week. He can now be alone with his addiction. Our house will go into foreclosure b/c I still haven't found a job and my startup businesses are still struggling to stay afloat. I will move into my friends garage. He won't pay child support b/c he still won't get a second job to provide for his daughter (b/c it would take away from his WoW time). I needed him in the last 2 years more than I have ever needed anyone in my life...but apparently his guilds needs overpowered his wife and child.

I will ALWAYS blame WoW for the dissolution of our marriage. I hate it and I just hope that someday, he sees his addiction and can overcome it so that he can find happiness in the here and now, real world of people that love him and want to spend time with him, touch him, laugh with him, talk with him and spend the rest of their life with him. Maybe...just maybe...