Topic : 03/02 Our Biggest Battle

Online gaming has taken over my marriage.  I have been married for ten years.  My husband runs a what is called a clan for one of the war games.  Every day it is the same.  Whether he works day shift or swing.  He comes in the door and straight for the computer to check his email or forums to see what happenned while he was gone.  Then he has to play for what he says is an hour always more so that he find out the details of the day.  On his days off from work he doesn't offer to take the kids to school or pitch in around the house.  He gets up and plays.  I can call home from work on a break just to say hi and he is to busy paying attention to the game to talk.  I come home and he doesn't even get off to say hi or help with dinner or homework.  Then we fight because it is like you have been playing for at least eight hours.  They will live without you till tomorrow.  But then I 'm the idot and stupid and don't understand the effort it takes to do this.  I agree with the lady on the show who wants to make love to someone who has ignored you the last eight hours and doesn't care what is going on around him.   I tell my friends it is like being a single parent I go it alone.  The game ranks higher on the list than myself or the kids.  It is really sad when your seven year old tells your five year old I will read to you because daddy is busy on his game and mom is making dinner and getting ready for the next day.  I have threatened to leave many times if it doesn't stop.  I just don't have the nerve yet to do it.  I guess I hope he will change.   

I respectfully think you are wrong. As former military myself and someone who likes rules, regulations, and things neat and tidy, I understood why he was doing what he was doing as well as sincerity in his desire to fix it.

A smirk? I think he was doing his in-grained military thing and not losing his military bearing. In otherwords, notlosing his composure. I can gaurantee that has been drilled into his head since he was 17 and first went into basic training.

Unless you have been military, it is hard to understand where he was coming from. Mom needs to tighten down a little (not a lot) more, and he needs to have different expectations. He is a good guy trying to do the best he canin unfamiliar territory. They are all good people- they just have different prior life experiences. I think this family will use the rescources that Dr. Phil offered them and pull together.

I really felt for the teenage girl- she just wanted his approval and felt like she could never be good enough. I've been there with a step-parent, too. He needs to let mom handle the stuff she is doing wrong and praise her for the stuff she is doing right. I think he'd be amazed at the results.

Again, just my two cents!

Nancy Anne

I don't know if you have been in the military or not, but my guess would be that you have not.    The point I think a lot of civilians don't get is that this guy is not doing this on purpose!  He is going on 22 years of training and a lifestyle that worked for him.  He didn't know how to raise teens- he'd never had any before!  More than likely when he married his wife he felt that he could handle it because he had trained young airmen, many of who are 17 and 18.  To him, he was going into a familiar setting.  I am sure it was quite a shock when it didn't turn out to be like that at all. 

Do I think he should keep up what he is doing?  No.  He is going to have to re-learn how to deal with the people he lives with or else his marriage will suffer or, worse yet, end.  The man waited until later in life to marry his wife- clearly he loves her or else he'd have just stayed single.  I think he will try very hard to learn how to deal with his family in a new and more productive way, but it won't be easy.  On the other hand, he is a carreer miltary man, so he is accustomed to doing and accomplishing things that are not easy.  Therefore it is my guess is that they will all come out of this fine.  It will take work, but they will be Okay. 

I do understand wanting to take the tactics that work in the military and use them in your home.  I am former Air Force, and rules and regulations to me represent predictability and security.  I love rules, so I really get this guy.  I have even made lists of rules and responsibilities for the family to follow, thinking it would clear it all up, just like he has.  I love lists!  They enable me to go down them, check them off, and know that I got everything done and done and done correctly.  However, we have seven kids, four of whom are teenagers.  I am telling you that they do NOT think the same!   It just doesn't work because, unfortunately, you can't stick kids into a box and expect them to conform.   They won't:  They didn't sign up for this; They were born or married into it.  They didn't volunteer!  Dr. Phil made a very good point when he pointed this out to Jeff.  It took me a while to figure this fact out, and I birthed four of these children myself!    

The curious thing is that my husband is the carreer Air Force person, whereas I only spent a few years in, yet he is much more laid back and pretty much leaves the Air Force at the military base.  I think a lot of it has to do with personality. 

Having said that, I am totally "hands off" with discipline when it comes to my step-kids UNLESS my husband has to leave and hands the discipline baton over to me (this is figurative, not literal!  I'm not beating on kids, here!) in front of them.  In that case, I handle it for the sake of harmony, but drop the baton as soon as he walks back in.  And he does the same with my children.  We basically take the same disciplinary position when we are alone with our step-kids that a babysitter would.  As a step mom I am his wife, but not their parent.  I learned this the hard way, but it has made for imporved relations with both my husband and my step-kids.  I try to be their advocate with their father, and I think they (and he) appreciate it. 

Anyhow, that's my two cents.  Jeff, if you are reading this, I understand where you were coming from and I admire you for prostrating yourself in front of the entire nation to talk about your family issues.  I pray that your family is able to work past this, because I really do believe that you have some great kids and a wonderful wife.  I am pretty sure you will, tough.  You seem like a man who wants to do the right thing. 

My two cents, anyhow. 

Nancy Anne 

Online gaming has taken over my marriage.  I have been married for ten years.  My husband runs a what is called a clan for one of the war games.  Every day it is the same.  Whether he works day shift or swing.  He comes in the door and straight for the computer to check his email or forums to see what happenned while he was gone.  Then he has to play for what he says is an hour always more so that he find out the details of the day.  On his days off from work he doesn't offer to take the kids to school or pitch in around the house.  He gets up and plays.  I can call home from work on a break just to say hi and he is to busy paying attention to the game to talk.  I come home and he doesn't even get off to say hi or help with dinner or homework.  Then we fight because it is like you have been playing for at least eight hours.  They will live without you till tomorrow.  But then I 'm the idot and stupid and don't understand the effort it takes to do this.  I agree with the lady on the show who wants to make love to someone who has ignored you the last eight hours and doesn't care what is going on around him.   I tell my friends it is like being a single parent I go it alone.  The game ranks higher on the list than myself or the kids.  It is really sad when your seven year old tells your five year old I will read to you because daddy is busy on his game and mom is making dinner and getting ready for the next day.  I have threatened to leave many times if it doesn't stop.  I just don't have the nerve yet to do it.  I guess I hope he will change.   

You said:  "Addiction is a compulsion to repeat a behaviour regardless of its consequences."  

This happens to be one of my pet peeves and you're exactly right!   

Mental health professionals need to stop using such garbled terms - it creates most of the confusion.  And what they need to do is differentiate between a compulsion and an addiction. 

Behaviors (gambling, gaming, internet-porning, overeating, etc) are compulsions and your sentence is a perfect definition of what a compulsion is.  It's a mental illness. 

It's a vastly different animal when you combine compulsive behavior with chemical dependency.  That's when you have addiction, because there are issues that arise solely related to this chemical dependency. 

I'll never figure out why they fix their terminology  - it would help tons.  It's a no brainer :) 

From Dictionary.com: 

ad·dic·tion    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (-dkshn)
n.  

1. 1. Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance: a drug used in the treatment of heroin addiction.
   2. An instance of this: a person with multiple chemical addictions.
2. 1. The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.
   2. An instance of this: had an addiction for fast cars.

ad·dic·tion (-dkshn)
n.  

com·pul·sion    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (km-plshn)
n.  

1. 1. The act of compelling.
   2. The state of being compelled.
2. 1. An irresistible impulse to act, regardless of the rationality of the motivation: “The compulsion to protect the powerful from the discomfort of public disclosure feeds further abuse and neglect” (Boston Globe).
   2. An act or acts performed in response to such an impulse.

com·pul·sion (km-plshn)
n.  

But I wasn't questioning your ability to parent.  Also, one of the most well adjusted kids and self confident kids I know is being raised by a single mom.  So it isn't a question of kids "needing" 2 parents.   

Maybe a better way to word it is that I think you're oversimplifying the situation.  You seem to think you'll be able to control when and how he does express interest in his kids, and that is almost never the case, especially when Dad is living in the same house.  At any point, your "right" to make decisions on behalf of the kids can be challenged by Dad...it isn't the same as being a single mom.  And you won't be able to resolve the conflict by telling him you're the primary caregiver, so his opinions don't matter as much.  He will not see it this way. 

my children will get plenty of love and affection from me, and eventually they will be old enough to understand  their father's lack of ability to manage children. 

This kind of gets back to my original  post.  Sure, they'll "understand" it conceptually, but during those younger years when they integrate the behaviors they see around them, this adult understanding doesn't mean that they will be able to examine their mindsets and pluck out all that is unhealthy -- when it's your own psyche, this is impossible to do. 

I don't mean to sound picky or overly-analytical!  I just react strongly when there are known serious issues in a relationship and people plow ahead and have kids, assuming somehow that everything will work out fine.   It rarely does, because there are too many "x" factors out there that have the potential to derail all your good intentions.   

This might be idealistic, but the single biggest choice a mother makes on behalf of her kids -- by far -- is who their father is.  And if you have significant questions about your boyfriend's parenting abilities, it strikes me as unfair to your future kids to not produce for them the best father you can find.