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I'm 40, married with a couple of younger children. Tabletop gaming is my primary hobby, but not my only hobby or interest. My wife and I do things together that we both find enjoyable. Gaming is NOT one of them. She has no interest in it, and I'm perfectly fine with that. In fact, I'd find it a little odd, if I were being totally honest. I'm of the opinion that spouses should have time to themselves. My hobby is my opportunity to have some "me" time, either painting in the basement man-cave or hanging with my friends, playing a game at the FLGS.

Do you have a gaming significant other? How do find that "me" time if your wife/husband/gf/bf are also interested in the same thing you are?

My fiance loves to play 40k. I'm happy that she's into it, I enjoy doing things with her. I get my alone time when she's away on shoots. When she's here we pretty much do everything together and I'm ok with that. Of course, it's only been 2 years so maybe when I'm 40 I will want more alone time.

My wife will play occasionally play a game, but mostly to humor me. She's not THAT into it.

However, she does enjoy painting alot and we have had many nice nights drinking wine by the fireplace, soft music, and painting minis while we sit on our bearskin rug.

My wife isn't into gaming at all really, although she plays the odd game of X-Wing or Armada if I ask her. She will also play Magic with me although we are both beginners. To her credit, she is coming with me to Salute this year, fully prepared and aware she will be in close proximity to nerd musk all day.

Ha, no risk at my end: she says watching gaming is like watching paint dry (rather fascinating watching paint, I do not see her point...).

She loves to read all kinds of romantic supernatural novels, I can comment little on the grim-dark of 40k.

She does see the positive impact on mood so does appreciate the need for hobby time and tries not to trump the time, unless I go out of control...

I would say enough of daily life keep us apart enough during the day, a break is not really needed.
I think I would appreciate having her involved in the hobby time.
I try to do that when she is involved in other things... she just took-up being a goalie, I had no idea just how insane she is...

My wife plays RPGs with me, but has no interest in miniatures (beyond choosing one for her RPG characters) or miniature wargaming.

Nothing wrong with it either way. So long as neither spouse feels neglected or dismissed over the hobby and everyone's happy with the situation, there's no problem.

"Me time" is usually a depressing affair so I'm glad to be married to a woman who enjoys everything I do.

I've never had a girlfriend ridicule or berate me for it. Typically they enjoy helping me - clipping stuff off sprues, painting something with my neat brushes/paints. They enjoy buying me kits as well because they see the joy it brings me.

I do take advantage of them, though. They're usually really enthusiastic and I'll be like, "I'd really love for you to take all this stuff off the sprues, there are a lot of them and it's a pain for me to do,"

"Okay I'll do it!!" *an hour passes* "Aren't the edges of everything so smooth and clean? I did like you said!"

Faaaaaaaantastic babe.

I once had a girl do all the rivets gold on my Baneblade. LMAO. She was more than happy to do it!

You do rivets nao!!

My wife will play x wing or dice masters with me once every blue moon. She rather read her murder mistery books and sip tea. She works to many hours so when she gets home she usually just likes to read and maybe watch a little TV.

My wife understands that I love my hobby. She has no desire to play, paint or go to the game store.

And that's ok. I don't want to spend hours in her studio painting canvases either.

On the bright side she has a ton of paints for me to play with and lot's of things I can turn into bases etc.

My wife has always been a gamer, it was actually our hobbies and common interests that brought us to together. We also work at the same place, so I can understand the importance of "me" time. It however has never really been an real issue though. There are quite a lot of various topics to talk about in gaming but that doesn't mean its our sole hobby, it also doesn't mean that games I like, she likes. She is very particular about her games and we both have the ones we like and don't like. At work, work is work and she has her own desk and duties and I have my own. We sometimes take breaks or lunch together, but not always it just really depends on the schedule or what emergency I have to deal with.

Just because she is a gamer, it doesn't mean I'm required to spend all my available time with her. Most of "our" time is usually in the evening, after the children have been put to bed and we watch a movie or some anime for a couple hours. Weekends are usually game days, so nightly "our" time might be playing WoW, Heroes of the Storm, WildStar, or Shadowrun Chronicles. The computers are in the office, so "our" time isn't always spent playing games together. Sometimes I'll be playing an RPG or single player game, she'll play something online or listen to JPop/KPop music.

Finding "me" time isn't that hard at all. She doesn't like to fly so a lot of the time when I travel to conventions to work, she doesn't come with me. She also doesn't have an issue with me setting aside a day for gaming, I used to do Saturday gaming at the local game store instead of gaming at home. There are times when I simply just want to work, paint miniatures or play my own games and she does her own thing.

When she wants to do something together, she'll normally let me know or ask if we could run a dungeon or play a game later. Otherwise we just do our own thing. All that really matters is communication. She communicates if she wants more "us" time and I communicate if friends are coming over to play some games. I have an idea and know which games she likes to play so she's always invited when we're playing games she likes. Sometimes she joins and other times she works on her own projects.

I'm 39 and my wife (and kids) know that i do love my plastic soldiers and strange games, so much so that she even watches out in the local second hand stores for goodies.

We still go out together for meals and drinks on a regular basis even though we both work on opposite shifts.

My new girlfriend took a full army box of Mantic Dwarves home to build and paint for me. She's loving it. She then informed me that Mantic has a ton of other stuff and wants to know more about them. No joke.

She wants to learn the games. She absolutely loves splendor and Ticket to Ride. She's very interested to try Small World. Yeah...she's in. Lol

Most of what everyone has posted sounds healthy to me. I think it is extremely important that whoever is in your life, they respect the hobby from the perspective that it's something that makes you happy. They don't have to "get it" or "understand it". However, I do feel pity for the GFs I see at the FLGS just sitting there, staring at their phones for hours, whie their BF plays a game of 40K. Why would you subject someone--or allow yourself to be subjected--to that?

My girl is into board games and card games (meaning, like, Uno, and rummy etc), but not minis etc.

My son is really into gaming ; Pokemon and Magic, but he's shown interest in mini gaming. He's 7 now, so i will probably teach him a skirmish game soon, but will wait on stuff like 40k and Fantasy that's pretty complex for later.


Video / Mini gaming are my "me" time, and she gets that. I make a few trips to the shop a month with the guys, and take my son most times unless Pokemon is not going on with card players that day, or he'd rather hang out with his buds.

Met my partner through table-top gaming itself. I was travelling the country playing Heroclix and working as a demo gamer for Wizkids UK.

I now have learned the wargaming hobby, industry and scene (through the 1970s to current day), purely through osmosis, spending time with my partner.
It's been nearly a decade's crash course in the hobby, and through no fault of my own, I can now name more figure sculptors and companies than I can remember Pokemon.
We can navigate the country using waypoints of either where gaming and modelling stores used to be (usually before I was born) or where they currently are.

I used to have shelves, man. Shelves! Ones that were for storing things other than lead, tiny people and RPG books.

I was happy in my ignorance. Now look what happened.

Weirdly only one of us enjoys videogames. It's like slipping on a second skin for me, but other than RTS, puzzles and tablet games, I can't get any long-term interest from the pet chemist. Ended up not buying a second controller for the Playstation.

My own wife is a DnD gamer, who also plays the occasional Skyrim or Elder Scrolls game.

Because I also paint all of our DnD minis, her only real interaction with minis, aside from playing is when she is selecting a mini for me to paint as her character. Otherwise she's out of that part of the hobby. I also have console gaming and a host of other hobbies to partake in so that I can still get "me" time

My wife does not play 40k, but she is into a lot of other games and nerdy hobbies (comics, anime, video games, RPGs, etc.).

She thinks the game and models are cool, and is very supportive of the time I spend on it.

Like many others, we have things we do together, but things we do own our own - always need your own "thing".

It will be interesting to see where our kids fall into the hobby mix ...(my daughter likes playing on my terrain boards with her "my little pony" toys).

NOTE: This is not a 'coincidence" or be being "lucky". I deliberately married a woman who was nerdy enough to be compatible with me, but secure and independent enough to not have to have us do 100% of our activities together.

My wife is a Pathfinder fanatic, so we play a lot of that.

She collects and paints eldar and daemons for 40k, but never wants to play.

Ditto her gatormen and cygnar for wm/h

Also LOTS of Bones minis.

TBH I'd be happier if she didn't collect wargaming minis just to leave them on the shelf. It would be easier on my psyche if she was completely disinterested in them. Ah well..

And she out paints me by several orders of magnitude

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2585

Episode 76 of The Independent Characters addresses the topic of Cheating on your spouse with 40k! We all know someone who has a significant other who is Gamer Intolerant. We go over some tips and tricks to keep your love affair with Warhammer 40k going while keeping those closest to you in the dark!

My wife loathes 40k.

I think it's important to have 'me' time, but also important to have 'us' time. 40k can fall into either category, but there are plenty of other things you can do to pick up the slack on the other side. (My wife and I play Deadlands and D&D together, we also do gardening, and have a number of television series we are avid fans of.)

My girlfriend doesn't like 40K at all. She considers it a huge waste of money, especially with my inability to stick to an army and losing cash on ebay sales all the time.

When I stop doing it for a long period of time she does notice and she'll ask me why, so I think she knows I love it.

timetowaste85 wrote:
My new girlfriend took a full army box of Mantic Dwarves home to build and paint for me. She's loving it. She then informed me that Mantic has a ton of other stuff and wants to know more about them. No joke.

*snip*

ttw85 - She is clearly a keeper. Wait til she sees some half decent stuff!

PrehistoricUFO wrote:I've never had a girlfriend ridicule or berate me for it. Typically they enjoy helping me - clipping stuff off sprues, painting something with my neat brushes/paints. They enjoy buying me kits as well because they see the joy it brings me.

I do take advantage of them, though. They're usually really enthusiastic and I'll be like, "I'd really love for you to take all this stuff off the sprues, there are a lot of them and it's a pain for me to do,"

"Okay I'll do it!!" *an hour passes* "Aren't the edges of everything so smooth and clean? I did like you said!"

Faaaaaaaantastic babe.

I once had a girl do all the rivets gold on my Baneblade. LMAO. She was more than happy to do it!

You do rivets nao!!

Spoiler:

I have a suspicion that you're really a lonely old grognard, living in his ex-wife's new husbands brothers basement, pushing this fantasy of an awesome gaming life in the hopes that maybe, JUST maybe... it will happen.

Only joking, of course - it's hard to get the intention of humour across with Ork smileys...

My wife likes to get involved, though her hobbies are gym classes, talking about work and and generally just talking.

She hated Bloodbowl ("rules for rules sake - why can't we just PLAY?!"), wasn't overly keen on Dreadball, likes Dungeon! the boardgame, and really quite enjoyed Infinity. I think it helps that her dad was a DnD nut when she was younger.

My girlfriend will play the odd game of magic with me and she enjoys boardgames specially when we get a few friends together. However she has little interest in the wargaming side of things, though she indulges me a little and has been to the occasional show.

The best part of the hobby as she sees it is that i can never moan at her for spending to much on clothes or make up etc given what i spend on my 'toys'.

My wife isn't into geeky things even remotely, she tolerates mine and the kids hobbies and will accompany us on events, days out, etc. She knows that the hobby is a big part of who I am, I support her in her activities and she supports me.

When my kids were younger they played MtG semi competitively (I remember one comp where my then 8 year old daughter beat a ~16 year old boy and made him cry), board games and 40k with me at various local stores.

As they got older (they are 14 now) and what your parents do became less cool they stopped. Now and again my daughter will paint something cool for me or we'll play a board game but that isn't often.

The kids have kept up with other geeky stuff like comics, manga, film choices etc. Its meant that many a meal time conversation will be around something geeky, leading to my wife feeling excluded. Not an easy thing to sort...

Yeah my Mrs doesn't like gaming at all. She doesn't understand it nor makes any attempt to. She tolerates it as something less bawdy than Rugby and that's about it.

Her usual position is that whatever I spend on gaming she should also get as spends, so if she was into gaming as well it would cripple me financially as she doesn't have a fething clue about the costs!

And that's just the way I like it.

We spend most of the time that I'm not working together so having something else (quieter!) is good.

My 6yo daughter has just started playing X-Wing after watch Star Wars Rebels on Holiday; that's fun but I can't imagine how painful it would be to run the Mrs through something as simple as X-Wing - 40k no chance!

Just remember " happy wife, happy life".

Sounds expensive.

I'll stick with the grumpy one I have.

My wife just laughs at me and tells me to have fun playing "war dollies".
She has her hobbies, I have mine. Some of them we share. NBD.

 monders wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:
My new girlfriend took a full army box of Mantic Dwarves home to build and paint for me. She's loving it. She then informed me that Mantic has a ton of other stuff and wants to know more about them. No joke.

*snip*

ttw85 - She is clearly a keeper. Wait til she sees some half decent stuff!

Yup. That's pretty much what I'm thinking too!