We know that severe financial difficulties, terrible communication and infidelity can lead to marital breakdown, but video games?

According to this study, conflict over video games, and media generally, can play a significant role in relationship conflict.

There is even a website, www.gamerwidow.com, full of stories of those who struggle with the addiction of their spouse or partner to computer games such as the online, multi-player game, World of Warcraft.

The gamerwidow website contains anecdotes such as this one:  

“My fiance [sic] and I have been living together for 2 1/2 years…. Today I asked him to get off the computer because his grandmother made arrangements days ago to come this afternoon for a visit to bring by baby gifts…. I told him to get off the computer and he got really mean with me. I was so upset I left…. I came home after a few hours and gave him the Great Ultimatum—me or WoW [World of Warcraft]. I wasn’t too surprised when he walked out.”

The study found that the more time men (it’s usually men) spent playing video games, the more there was relationship conflict between them and their spouses or partners.

“Specifically, the more time men spent playing video games, the more often they argued with their romantic partner about the amount of time spent consuming media and its content. Conflict about time spent consuming media, and its content, in turn, was related to physical and relational aggression for both men and women.”

Unsurprisingly, women play substantially lower amounts of video games than men, and therefore their video game playing rarely reached problematic levels.

The study also found that, while both the time spent playing a given game, and its content could give rise to relationship conflict, it was the time spent which tended to cause more difficulties.

Mind you, you can as easily have golf widows, or maybe even knitting widowers.

The point is, the less time you spend with your spouse in self-absorbed activities the more you’re asking for trouble,