By Joel Smart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 11, 2012
Couples that play together stay together, the common mantra goes. It makes sense, but it seems that things may not always be as clear cut – sometimes gaming together can make things worse. However, by keeping certain guidelines in mind—and carefully avoiding the downfalls—couples can maximize the positive potential of gaming. Doing so can have an especially positive effect on a long-term relationship, so it’s worth keeping in mind.
While gaming together seems like it would always be a positive alternative when a couple is sitting around bored, it turns out that it really depends on whether both partners are enjoying the experience. The Journal of Marriage and Family published research in 2002 that followed 73 married couples over a 13-year span. What they found is that couples that played together were more unhappy if the activities they participated in were those that only one partner enjoyed. The study also found that female partners were the most willing to participate in shared activities that they didn’t enjoy themselves.
Duane Crawford, one of the researchers, explained how this could actually unintentionally sabotage the relationship. “Although women may do activities with their husbands that their husbands like but they do not enjoy, the more time they spend in those activities, the more likely it is that they end up being less happy with their marriages,” she said. “This may be because wives find themselves doing activities that they dislike, or it may be a reflection of how well the couple gets along during these activities, or both.”
Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that partners need to be open and clear about what they like and dislike, and sticking to it, rather than “sucking it up” and having a bad time. In other words, if your partner loves Call of Duty and you don’t, it’s not going to benefit the relationship to sit there with the controller and wish you were doing something else the whole time.
That said, it is worth experimenting to see if you can find something to share together. Maybe Call of Duty isn’t the best one to play together, but Mario Strikers is. If you can’t seem to find something, don’t give up – your happiness as a couple may depend on it. Howard Markman, a psychologist who co-directs the University of Denver’s Center for Marital and Family studies, was adamant that it is worth the effort.
“The more you invest in fun and friendship and being there for your partner,” he told USA Today in 2008, “the happier the relationship will get over time.”
However, as warned about in a Gizmodo feature last week, sometimes a reliance on gaming within a relationship is even more dangerous than it is positive – even if it seems like the gamers’ ultimate dream. For Brent Rose and his partner Frannie, it was all about Halo. The two couldn’t stop playing together, and it really brought them together as a couple. But after finishing the campaign, all that was left, it seemed, was to play against each other.
“Her victories were my defeats, and vice versa,” Rose explained. “She was competitive. I was competitive. We would size each other up and try to get into each other’s heads. We picked apart the other’s defences and strategies. We started fighting.”
But it didn’t stop there. One time he beat his girlfriend so badly that she threw the controller in frustration. From that time on, he started letting her win. It was just the type of dishonesty that, while intended to help, only pushed the two apart; sure enough, after a bit of a fight Rose played his best – decimating Frannie over and over in the game. She accused him of having let her win, and when he admitted to it with a meager “sometimes,” the two were as good as done.
Yet, Rose wouldn’t give all the credit to gaming. “Halo wasn’t any more to blame for the destruction of our relationship any more than it could be credited for the building of it,” he wrote in reflection, “The holes were already there, Halo just shined a light through them.” Indeed, while there was clearly a lot more going on than just the gaming, it’s clear that it did act as a catalyst, both in how they got together and in the way they split up. Perhaps the two used the game as a bit of a crutch – relying on the enjoyment they felt in the game to bring them together as a couple. Yet, when the game stopped being fun, so did the relationship.
According to a 2000 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, this principle seems to hold true; participating in exciting or arousing activities with a partner, causes the couple to associate those exciting and arousing feelings with their partner. Unfortunately for the over-reliant gaming couple, boredom and frustration have the same effect.
For Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, however, the key is set boundaries, and stay on the same side. “We play plenty of co-op games together,” Gordon tells Kotaku. “It’s a fun hobby that we can share … I do have some on my own, my NBA game, but we mostly play together.”
Cooperative gaming seems to be what works best for married couple John and Di as well, according to Kotaku. “I actually love these co-op games, and it’s really good for us,” explained Di. “We’ve been married for seven-and-a-half years now, and he still loves to hang out with me while we’re playing!”
“We’ve picked up Portal 2 which is a great co-op game for couples,” explained John, “and incredibly satisfying when you have to nut out all the puzzles together.” But for the couple, one of their rules has been moderation—playing just one to two hours at a time—as well as ensuring that they don’t put the game first.
“It’s all about dignity and respect,” writes Kotaku’s Patrick Stafford. “Dignity and respect for yourself, your health, your parnter and your social life. Once you have these elements in balance – there is no reason couples can’t enjoy games together for decades to come.”
As obvious as it sounds, finding the balance that works for you and your partner is of utmost importance: stay honest, stay respectful and stay together.
