Had a talk with the hubs last night about gaming addiction. He says he knows he's an addict and has been one since he was a child. We pull teeth to get his undivided attention. For instance it took 8 years for me to get him to eat at the table 4 days a week, and he still tries to get out of it. But those half hour visits at the table is all we get from him on a consistent basis. Sometimes we'll go for a bike ride or have a picnic...All told the time he gives his family is a fraction compared to the time he spend gaming. He thinks talking to the kids while they watch him play video games is the same as spending time with them. In fact, both my children became gamers themselves so they can associate with their father. Forget the rejection I feel when I have to twist his arm to spend time with me. And when he does spend time with me he jumps on the first lull in the conversation to go back to his game. He doesn't make much effort to keep the conversation going. It really sucks.

I have wanted in the past to get a divorce because he was even worse during my children's formative years, but to this day I lack the wherewithal to leave. Even if I did decide to leave now, I'd have an impossible time gaining custody of the children. I'm bipolar and jobless and he said he would sue for full custody of the children just so he wouldn't have to pay child support. He would win, too. And there the kids would be, dirty and hungry and lonely for attention...I don't feel I have a choice but to stay when I consider them.

But sometimes he'll give me attention. We'll go on a mini vacation together and have fun. Then I don't want to leave. He'll help out while I go to college, cooking dinner and eating at the table even when I'm not there. He'll supervise the kids as
They do their chores so I can study...so it's like living with a functional alcoholic who needs the drink but can perform to the extent that he can hold a job and involve himself in other things, but his involvement is minimal and usually on his own terms. I don't think he realizes how selfish it is. I'm sure if I tried to point it out to him he'd get defensive and angry and start yelling.

He hurts the people around him. He bought a ps3 with his mom's debit card, making her payments to other things bounce, after telling her he wouldn't use it, just so he could play dust since it hadn't come out on the PC yet. He snaps at the children when he's playing and not winning and puts us second to the game. We always have to wait until he's done leveling up or whatever for him to get away from the computer and when he does he's not happy.

He's an angry person in general. We have had a lot of problems I. Our marriage and he had a lot of mistreatment from his father and his peers that he never dealt with. I think his escape into gaming is just a cowardly cop-out. He doesn't want to face his life. Either that or he's grotesquely self-centered. Is there any cure for that?

People on this site say there's nothing a loved one can do a about it. I'd like to know how to live with it. He didn't act this way in the beginning of our relationship. We really did a lot together. It's when we started having children that he abandoned me to the game. I have all kinds of negative feelings surrounding that. It's hard to forgive.

So I'm sending a message in a bottle. Is there anyone out there I can email or talk to? Any insights?

Thanks.