[Visioneer]

Does anyone else have a problem with their significant other playing an online game like City Of Heroes or World Of Warcraft?

When I first met my boyfriend, we were going out all the time - long walks, a social drink at the bar and playing pool, spending quality time talking. A couple weeks in he tells me he plays CoH. I'd heard of it. I assumed he meant once in a while or a couple times a week. But I found out soon that he meant "every day, and all night, all of my free time goes into CoH." He actually felt a sense of accomplishment from the game, as though his "achievements" meant something, and afer some prodding, admitted that any "friends" he had through the game wouldn't remain his friends if he stopped playing.

Once we moved in together he basically ignored me and spent every waking minute playing the game - it was the first thing he checked when he got up (without saying to much as "good morning" to me), the first thing he checked coming home from work, and then would spend all the hours from getting home until going to bed playing, leaving me to go to bed alone every night. He'd wander to bed around 4am. I could lie in front of him naked and he wouldn't even notice me if he was playing. I tried talking to him about it, and eventually got him to understand how all this was making me feel. He played less and less, realizing how much time he had wasted over the last few years, and then stopped.

Things were fine until about three weeks ago. Apparently there was an offer of a free month of play, and for whatever reason, he accepted it. Since then it's back to the same old thing - playing every waking moment. I asked him how long this is going to go on and he said he's thinking of stopping in the spring - so obviously the free month was just the beginning. Who knows what will happen come spring, whether he'll be once again so deeply mired in this garbage that it will be a never ending battle to get a half hour of his time.

Does anyone else have this problem? How have you dealt with it? It makes me so upset I don't even know what to do. I consider it an addiction, and I'm left sitting here alone.