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I did a bit of searching, but couldn't find a specific thread about how our significant others react and deal with our obsessive, time consuming, $$$ consuming hobby.
quick edit: My title sucks, but please post anyway!

But I'd like to hear your horror stories and happy stories. I'm sure the war gaming scene has so many stories about off girlfriends and what not...

I know my lady just goes off the deep end when I come home with new kits that she doesn't know about. Like, just recently, she noticed that the Space Marine Codex was underneath a different book on the bathroom floor. She came out of the bathroom looking perplexed and sort of angry holding the Eldar Codex and very forcefully demanded to know how long I've had the Codex and how I plan to pay for the army and what models I am going to get

I've also had the side of her come out and completely ruin tournaments for me.

What about you? What have you got for happy/horror stories?

My hubby just groans and rolls his eyes whenever he sees me walk in with bags of stuff from the game store...

like this weekend, he saw my three bags worth of models and started to bitch at me.. till I reminded him I received large commission.. then he got happy.

Of course I didn't tell him about the 9 Valkyries i preordered

We mostly get along with each other's gaming, he spends way too much on Video Games, and I spend proper ammount on table games

I am lucky. Not only does my S/O not nag me about my hobby, but she is perfectly content in letting me do my own thing by playing/painting/whatever as long as I dont neglect her in the course of it.

I am one of those people who beleive that this hobby should be seperate from my relationship and haveing a S/O that shares the hobby might not be the best idea. Though I have seen it work for others quite well.

I dont bug her about her shoes or how many horses she has, she doesnt bug me about dollies. I think she is getting the better end of the monetary deal myself.

I even asked her to help me curb my hobby by mentioning when she may think I am going over board. Normally she wouldnt remark at all about the hobby. The only time she raised an eye brow was recently when I spent $1500 on casting materials for my Space Hulk project, but she also knew that I am out of town a lot and I need a distraction during those trips. (that and she just spent $4k on a frisian gelding 6 months prior)

I'm lucky to have a wife who is actually very supportive of my hobby

She even tries to help keep me on track. If I get too distracted on the computer or with whatever, she'll say something like, "I thought you were going to try to get your guys done tonight'. Not in a nagging way. Just as a reminder.

As far as money goes, we've given each other 'allowances' so that we don't overspend and go crazy. She's a scrapbooker, which can be just as expensive, if not more so, than miniature gaming. So she can relate to expensive purchases.

My lady wants me to teach her 40k. I'm actually apprehensive about it though.... While I'd love to have my girl be completely competitive with me and have fun painting and modeling with me, I'm worried that if things go sour, she could ruin the game for me, or worse, a conflict over a game or something could turn things sour for us.

MrTrain wrote:a conflict over a game or something could turn things sour for us.

This is pretty much how I see it for my own personal relationship.

She gets crabby when she loses a game of Fjords, let alone getting all invlved ina wargame.

YMMV of course.

I just got back into the hobby about 5 years ago, not long after I met the girl that would be my wife. She dosn't get it all, she dosnt understand even the concept. I tried explaining it as a hobby, just like her hobbies, which are makeing jewelry, watching mind numbing,spirit crushing reality shows, irritateing me when I want to work on my hobbies and neglecting her share of the housework. She says stuff like " I wear my jewelry, whats the point in your little dudes? " To whitch I usually reply " Wanna wear my hobby knife? " or her personal favorite, " Shut up and get me another cup of coffee. " I would divorce her if I could find another 22 year old whos into heavily tattood,balding, 30 something game dorks. Also she recently adopted my son by a prior, and would prolly get custody of him if the courts learned how much I spend on GW stuff!
All kidding aside, my wife is realy cool about my mania for "little dudes" and she even inspects my paint and conversion works and gives me real, honest input. I have a room set aside in our house where we work on our hobbies together, and with my son, who is ten now. We chill out, pop in a dvd, and spend all day saturday tinkering together. I couldnt dare hope for more. And she is doing her share of the housework as I type this!

My wife enables my gaming. She makes time for me to go get games in. Encourages me to take time to paint and model. Keeps her family and their "favors" off my ass, since I am the only able-bodied male in the family who seems to be worth a gak.

So long as rule Number One is not violated, she is happy and all is well. Rule One is " NOTHING and NO ONE gets more attentions than me." Fair enough I say.

My girlfriend is surprisingly supportive of my hobby. She's always enthusiastic about my "little guys." Sometimes she'll surprise me by asking about not only my Orks, but the specific units themselves. She'll point to one and say something like, "I like the blue on that Loota. It's different from the Shootas you painted last week."

I suppose I'm just not used to having a committed, supporting girlfriend. It always catches me by surprise, and I always feel like I should be guilty over the amount of time and money I invest in my hobby. However, we both have our pastimes with their own inherent geekiness, but we spend lots of time sharing with one another.

I don't think that I'll ever try to get her into 40K. She told me once that she always had a fantasy of going to a tournament and beating some geeks down and winning, but I think maybe we'll try another game instead.

Sometimes I tell her I love her more than a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field and Power Klaw. That's about the only time I'll get a groan out of her.

If you are confident that the amount of money you spend on your hobby is reasonable given your other financial commitments, and that the time spent on you indulging in the hobby is reasonable and doesn't mean your Significant Other spends long, long times on her own in the evenings and weekends, then pretty much any girl worth knowing should be cool about it.

Of course you have to sit down like mature adults and discuss it as her definition of "reasonable" and yours may differ.

Look at it this way: How would you feel if she walked in one day and had spent £200 on a pair of shoes or a new handbag? You'd possibly want to talk about it right? Particularly if that money came out of they budget for the new car. Also, if in the evenings when you wanted to talk to her about something she spent all her time on the phone to her friends instead of talking to you, would you feel ignored?

There's quid pro quo.

If you are committed to someone then you've got to convince them you don't take them for granted and work out what level of compromise you both feel comfortable with when it comes to matters you have differences in opinions on.

Personally my wife has no problems with me spending as much time as I chose to on my hobby, even though she isn't remotely interested. But that's because over the years we have discussed what it means to me, why I sometimes need time on my own for a wee while, how much my boys enjoy doing stuff with me, how much stuff costs in comparison to the stuff she would like to buy with our spare money, etc.

I try not to take advantage and she knows I'll put down my stuff in an instant if she asks me to, and she appreciates it and doesn't nag me. In turn, I'm OK when she wants to watch some boring girly crap on tv, or pay what I consider a stupid amount for a pointless spa bath. Its about trust. If you haven't got trust in your relationship, then there are deeper problems than any gaming message board can resolve!

A good relationship is all about "give and take". Generally the man gives and the woman takes... But you get used to it!

i was luckily enough to get my girl into the game
so now if i come in with new stuff she simply orders more stuff for her slaanesh CSM

Gaming my other half is cool with - its my other hobbies that cause the problem .

Re-enactment she doesn't want me to do because it involves weekends away (I've had to agree to a limit on how many I do in a year) but she knows it means a lot to me so has 'accepted' it.

Airsofting she hates with a passion (no guns in the house!!!) so I may have to give up on that. But hey, it means more money to spend on gaming....errr, I mean my lovely wife...

My bloke is ok with it, he dosen't mind what i'm doing as long as i'm on standby to complete sections of his computer games that he cant do on his own. LOL
He dosen't understand it but he dosen't complain to much Unless i have done something stupid like spend £50 on jet bikes when i was suposed to get food, then i get wrong but thats understandable
Its all easy fixed though...as long as i have a Blu-Ray or game in my hand as well as the GW bags then hes always a happy bunny.

Airsofting she hates with a passion (no guns in the house!!!) so I may have to give up on that. But hey, it means more money to spend on gaming....errr, I mean my lovely wife...

i can hear you on that one
allthough, my girl wasnt too happy when i brought back my new MP5K
i needed a new CQB gun, and it was perfect (and only £140)
allthough, as paybacks she went out and paid £200 to get her hair done, so i think thats enough to put me off buying new guns every few months

My wife is mostly supportive. She really does kind of ignore the hobby itself; but understands that it's my hobby and doesn't give me crap about it. She did however sigh really heavily when I started the Waaagh Cast. Oh well...

As far as money; we don't share money. We've been married for 5 years but still have separate bank accounts. That way I can't see how much she spent on clothes/shoes and she doesn't have any idea how much I've spent on mini's. We split the bills and as long as we both get them paid; no biggy.

High point... Getting my Dwarf army for Adepticon ready. I was running behind and she offered to help paint. Normally this would've ended with me laughing; but I need help and hadn't even worked on the bases yet so she flocked and painted all my bases for me.

She complained later that she had gotten paint on her hand and didn't notice. A guy she works with is also a gamer and recognized the color of paint on her hand as bleached bone and gave her crap. She said never again. LOL!

My wife really wishes I wasn't into table top gaming. She does not try to stop me and even puts up with models and paints being left on the kitchen table for a day or two, but she will not set foot through the GW door or be seen with me if I'm carrying a GW bag. She loves nerds (fortunately for me ), but she really dislikes the hobby. A favourite line of her's when discussing the issue is that her brothers used to play GW, "but they grew out of it".
The price of the models isn't really an issue (since I don't tell her how much they cost!), but I did almost get skinned alive when my Heirodules arrived from FW (for the love of God why do they have to put the price on the outside of the package!!!!!!!!).

That said though my wife is lovely and she has said if it makes me happy playing 40K then that's what is important.

My wife has no issue with my 40k hobby, so long as I don't choose painting over spending quality time with her. With her going for her Masters right now, it gives me a lot of time to sit on the sofa beside her and paint while she does homework. She gives me feedback on what I've accomplished, helps with color choices, and makes dinner for my brother when he comes around on Thursdays to work on his Tau/play a game.

She had an issue with it when I wasn't doing my share around the house, and generally being a craptacular husband (which, I'm fulling willing to admit, I was). She also had an issue with me playing World of Warcraft. Once I started helping around the house and quit WoW, things quickly feel back into line. I once had her so pissed off at my general apathy, that she kicked my army bag, and my metal dreadnought flew across the room, and went all smashy. Can't say I didn't have it coming.

She's got her own squad of Dark Angels floating around my army bag, because she's always willing to try something I enjoy. One day (so she says) she'll finish them.

As a caveat to this: One of the nice things about her trying anything I like is that now, when we're doing our separate things in the living room, she'll flip on a hockey game for us to listen to, because it quickly became her favorite sport soon after we started dating.

As long as I keep my saturdays free for her for "date night", my GF has no problem with the hobby. she doesn't quite get why I like army men, but she'd rather have me doing something creative with my time rather than turning into a video game zombie or hanging out in strip clubs. She even offered to come to games day with me when I was thinking about going but that's probably just because I told her we'd get all you can eat seafood at Phillips afterwards..

My GF thinks all of my geekery is cute... which is good, as there's a lot of it. So she'll come along sometimes to mock us and get some work done, and has even offered to help me paint some of my dudes in the future. As for the money aspect, as long as I don't go too overboard (i.e. don't let it interfere with being able to participate in normal activities) she's fine, though I'm sure there will be plenty of making fun of me and the money that I spend on dressing up the little dudes, which to be honest is perfectly legit.

Stupid warhammer... the crack cochaine of geekdom. Got a free snort at first, and now I'm hooked. Stupid enabling friends... *grumbles to self and pulls out more guardsmen to put together*

My wife likes the models. She likes the fact that she can find FW stuff for me for gifts and that I appreciate them.

She likes rolling dice and moving models around a table too, but doesn't really think much about it, so she'll play games, but they're not very involved. Every so often, if there is a team tournament at a local store, she'll go with me, because I can tell her where her half of the army should be, and she can just concentrate on rolling the dice.

She even insisted that we get a glass display case in the living room for the best models. So, yeah, she's a keeper.

My girl friend is pretty supportive, she lets me use the spare room for my painting, (as long as I tidy up when guests are coming over).

She's also very supportive in telling me to get my little men to 'kill kill kill'.

She also buys me pressies of miniatures if i behave well, who says operant conditioning doesn't work!

My Wife enables me to play 40k on the weekends. She doesn't mind as long as I pull my weight and we aren't hurting for money.

She recently helped me get the garage in order so we could have 2 tables inside to play. Too cool. She likes that I can give her space and time to hang with the other moms in the neighborhood without me up her butt.

My fiance calls it my 'nerd game', but doesn't mind me going out and playing a game every once in a while or sit around painting. She's not to keen on it, but she has actually painted a couple models and has actually bought me a box of Eldar fire dragons once.

Probably the one thing I was most surprised of was back when I was playing the WoW tcg and she actually came with me and some other friends to a pre-release event. It was entirely her idea as well. I told her that she may not have fun and it may not be as interesting as she might think it is, but came along anyway. Didn't actually turn out to be bad, but I don't think it was what she expected either.

My wife understands the gamer geek she married. Thanks to kids and other social commitments, I have 2 nights every 2 weeks for gaming.

EO Friday - board games, cards, or RPG with the same group of guys I have been hanging out with since 1988.

Alternate EO Fridays.. date night.

Alternate Mondays - 40k

On the other Alternate Mondays, she has knitting with the gals (yep.. knitting).

My gaming budget is my Paypal account.. whatever I sell/make on ebay/etc is my gaming fund.. no physical change to the family checkbook..

-Porkuslime

Wow, this is a great thread, I loved reading everyone's stories. I am usually single, like it better that way to be honest, and this gives me hope that when the day comes that I finally do have to get married, my hobby/obsession wont be a serious problem.

When I do have a girlfriend, and they inevitably find out about my army men, they are really sweet about it...until we break up! Then, when you are just friends with no relationship presure, they make fun of me for it mercilessly just like my non-gaming buddies do! I don't mind though, I know I am a nerd.

The most embarrasaing moment, was a time my girlfriend came over with two of her girlfriends in the morning (we were all going out to brunch). I was still asleep, and I hear three girls come in my room but I didn't really wake up. I hear my girlfriend's voice and then her friends' and think, yeah, this is the beggining to an awesome dream!

Then I opened my eyes to see her showing her girlfriends my Imperial Guard army in my closet (all lined up in formation for extra geek factor, of course!) and I quickly realized that this was no great dream, but in fact a waking nightmare!

Needless to say, I was the butt of every joke that morning at brunch!

We're both big geeks in our own way. My SO actually loves that I play 40K, she's told me that she sees how happy it makes me and when I'm happy, she's happy. Stereotypical I know, but I believe her because she's actually taken some initiative to learn how to play and we've played a few games together. She's even excited to go to Games Day.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to beat her, because I stopped letting her win months ago.

No matter how you look at it, this hobby is a major time-hole.

To really get the most out of it, you have to:

1 - Paint,
2 - Design an army (on paper) usually a new one every time you play
3 - play

Any one of these can blow an entire evening. But when you're in full swing, playing once a week for example, this will shoot three nights a week right there - one to paint and assemble new models, one to plan, and one to play.

Is it any wonder that many SOs object?

That leaves aside the fact that the hobby is expensive. But for careful hobbyists who but on the net or a little at a time, it is not too bad. I mean, have you seen the price of a child's 4-inch tall action figure these days? It is $10 or more. So if Daddy wants a $30 box of models once a month, is that really all that bad?

It is the $200 per month or more that breaks up marriages.

$200 or more on hobbies is bad news? Haha, I would be screwed! Between my love of books, bicycles, comics and army men, I blow way more than that.

But then, I don't have nearly the overhead of a family man either.

My wife actually wants to get into it. I think mostly for modeling but Im sure she will play. Specially when she kills something real good.

My girlfriend accepts my dollies. Every once in awhile she busts out a "pew pew pew" to which I say "quiet, you"

The worst was a couple weeks ago when I was getting clubbered by Orks wth my Dark Angels and I had her joining in with all the smack talk aimed at me. I was a bit sour with the above average dice my buddy was throwing. Only to hear laughter and you suck in the background. To hell, I say

Anyways, she is very understanding and accepts my hobby. It helps that I go to stores on weekends and bring her along. She usually corrects papers, as she is a school teacher. We go out to eat with a couple friends and all is good. It's just when a good discussion of theoryhammer starts that I hear "so you ready?" Alot of work to be done, lol.