Game widows grieve ‘lost’ spouses

Humor to help the hurt
"I've just come to a point where I don't care anymore," Newberry says. "I just kind of live like a single person. It's a lost cause. I can't make him change. And there are no rehab centers to send him to. If there were rehab centers I could send him to, he'd be first in line to get in."

Dr. Hilarie Cash, a Redmond-based therapist and one of the few who specializes in Internet and computer addiction, believes that, in the future, gaming addiction will be declared an official mental disorder. She also believes that 12-step programs to help gameaholics kick their habits will be commonplace. Until then, she says widows have a particularly difficult battle.

"Right now video gaming is sexy and cool and it's the up and coming fun way to live life," she says. "So it is very hard to get people to see it for what it is as an addiction."

Meanwhile, with a dearth of support, the widows deal with their loved ones' addiction the best they can. Some try to nag their mates into quitting, some beg and plead. Some break game discs, install key loggers, or sabotage the computers all together.

Quintana draws comic strips.

She started drawing the "Widow's Revenge" strips and posting them to GamingSucks.com as a way to vent her frustrations and poke a bit of fun at gamers and their compulsive behavior.

In one cartoon, a "WoW" addict can't understand why the electric company won't take gold from the game as payment after the power to his home gets cut off. In another, a game widow gets all dressed up for date night with her husband only to find that his idea of a date night is playing a two-person video game together.

"Finding some humor in it has really helped," she says, explaining that her husband is playing less these days. "You get into a rut and you start nagging your spouse and that doesn't help the situation. Putting humor into it made it less painful for me so I was able to discuss it better with him."

Gamers don't get it
Of course, the gamers out there haven't been entirely understanding of the plight of the widows. Quintana has dedicated a section of GamingSucks.com to show the often vitriolic response her site has inspired.

Writes one: Instead of acting like a cranky old skank and bashing your husband's hobby why don't you pony up and buy your own PC and actually play it with him?? 

Writes another: Your man likes video games. Why the hell are you with him then? I'm sure the hobo in the dark alley way in the middle of the city doesn't play WoW; he's just your type!

"I think they all think we're nagging horrible luddites and that's not true," says Quintana, who was a web designer before becoming a stay-at-home mom. (Myrow has a degree in computer science and Newberry works as a programmer.) "We're just normal people who are begging for a little normality in our relationships."

The widows say that, even more frustrating, are the people who tell them that they should simply leave their gamers and move on. While it seems many a divorce has come from homes divided by gaming, many of the widows say it's not that simple.

"They say 'why don't you get a divorce' and 'why did you even marry a gamer?'" says Quintana. "But I didn't marry a gamer, I married a man. I married somebody I loved."

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