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You don't know the history. You just have your own experience which, by what I can see, has made you extremely bitter towards women.

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You don't know the history either. And, no I'm not at all bitter towards women. I just understand how they work.


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Well I can speak as a married man

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So can I.


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You said at the end of your post "NEVER acknowlege that her demand for you to stop playing poker had anything to do with your change in behavior" This statement alone tells me that you have no idea what you are talking about.

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Ohhhh....so knowledgable. So sensitive.

The reason you change your behavior, but refuse to acknowledge that her demand caused the change is because her demand had nothing to do with the real issue. Why would you ever reward someone for trying to hold your enjoyable hobbies hostage? If the issue is truly that you are neglecting your girlfriend, then FIX IT. The poker playing is a red herring so there's no reason to bring it to the bargaining table.

Relationships are about learned behavior. All men and women are, to an extent, trained by their partners to learn behavior patterns. If you want your wife or girlfriend to learn that the best way to get what she wants is to hold hostage the things that are important to you, then just go ahead and do the sensitive enlightened male routine each time she makes a demand.

What you seem to miss here, in your rush to show us primitives here how much more sensitive and caring you are, is that I'm not arguing for brute force ALL OF THE TIME.

There are times to communicate and empathize. In my opinion, this isn't one of them.

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I agree with Hobbes. It is one thing to be insensitive to how the woman is feeling. Nobody should blow someone off like that.

HOWEVER, neither men nor women should change a behavior or hobby of theirs at the request of their significant other, UNLESS it is something they want to change themselves. If the OP truly feels as though he plays poker too much, then perhaps this is an easy thing to give up.

But, my reading of the OP was that he looks at poker like it's his job, and he does not want to change that. If he said to himself, prior to her bringing it up, "Hey, you know...I think I want to play poker a little less and start hanging with my girlfriend more," I don't think anyone would begrudge him that, because that's HIS choice about what matters most to him.

But, her saying what she wants him to change and him changing it is not about love or "the relationship" or anything else...it's about POWER.

Where is Dr. Al when we need him?

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If you read my posts, you will see that I have NEVER advocated him giving up even ONE MINUTE of poker.

Here is the thing - if, after he has attempted to be understanding and attempting to work things out in an open and communicative way, she replies with "well, that's all well and good, but I still want you to only play 3 hours of poker a week", THEN and ONLY THEN, would I say that she is being controlling and should be sent packing.

See, my problem is that so many guys just assume that it is how it is and go from there - all I have been saying is that the FIRST step should be to attempt to understand where she is coming from - the FIRST step should be to be understanding and to try and address the underlying issues.

If that attempt doesn't work, then at least you know that you TRIED to work things out.

And Hobbes - I hope you don't think I am some pushover pussy or something. I'm not. I just believe that there is usually more to what people are feeling than what they are saying - and for a relationship to work, the first step has to be to accept that you probably don't really know what is going on inside your partner's head until you really try and work it out with them.

I think that you and I probably would agree on more things than is apparent.

Maybe this is the sort of discussion that should be more appropriately be had over a couple of shots of Jack.

Respect.

E