My girlfriend wants me to stop playing!

[Farfenugen]

She is taking a hard-line stance with him, why not return in kind? I certainly don't advocate an insta-breakup but it is quite clear to me that this is an attempt to control him. Regardless of how neglected she feels or how legitimate those feelings are, trying to direct his actions is inapropriate.

It shows an utter lack of respect for her boyfriend. There is a problem. Who has the problem: her. Who has to make the sacrifice: him. Why doesn't she make a change to spend more time with him?

There is not enough information to say whether he should break up with her but it is clear he should take a stand.

[TomCollins]

It's simple. Get her intentions.

She has 3 motivations that I can think of:

1) More time together
2) Afraid of gambling/afraid he'll lose/wants to help him
3) Controlling bitch

Figure out which of these three you are dealing with, and the answer is obvious.

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There is a REASON why she wants him to play less poker.

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Yes. And that reason is that she is a woman.

Maybe our hero here is neglecting his girlfriend and maybe he isn't. If he is, then he needs to correct his behavior immediately. But for all practical purposes, this is completely irrelevant to how he needs to deal with the demand that he stop playing so much poker.

The relationship advice you read in books like Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus is not useful in every situation. Sure, we'd all like to work things out through communication and understanding, but quite honestly there are things women will do simply because they are women. Making ever escalating demands on your time is one of them, and no amount of communication will stop this in the long term.

Poker is very important to our hero, therefore his right to spend time playing it should be defended with relentless zeal. There must be no compromise ever.

Perhaps his woman is really trying to communicate something else with her demand that he quit playing. It doesn't matter. She needs to know that our hero will not allow his interests to be used as relationship bargaining chips and that every complaint about time playing poker will be crushed mercilessly.

My advice on this stands with one addition: If you truly feel that your girlfriend's demands have been brought on by your neglect of her then you still need to draw the line and make no compromise. After you have put out this fire, however, proceed to shower your girlfriend with the attention and quality time she is seeking, but NEVER acknowlege that her demand for you to stop playing poker had anything to do with your change in behavior.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There is a REASON why she wants him to play less poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. And that reason is that she is a woman.

Maybe our hero here is neglecting his girlfriend and maybe he isn't. If he is, then he needs to correct his behavior immediately. But for all practical purposes, this is completely irrelevant to how he needs to deal with the demand that he stop playing so much poker.

The relationship advice you read in books like Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus is not useful in every situation. Sure, we'd all like to work things out through communication and understanding, but quite honestly there are things women will do simply because they are women. Making ever escalating demands on your time is one of them, and no amount of communication will stop this in the long term.

Poker is very important to our hero, therefore his right to spend time playing it should be defended with relentless zeal. There must be no compromise ever.

Perhaps his woman is really trying to communicate something else with her demand that he quit playing. It doesn't matter. She needs to know that our hero will not allow his interests to be used as relationship bargaining chips and that every complaint about time playing poker will be crushed mercilessly.

My advice on this stands with one addition: If you truly feel that your girlfriend's demands have been brought on by your neglect of her then you still need to draw the line and make no compromise. After you have put out this fire, however, proceed to shower your girlfriend with the attention and quality time she is seeking, but NEVER acknowlege that her demand for you to stop playing poker had anything to do with your change in behavior.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude - this is a relationship - these are two people who have chosen to be together and be partners - though its college, so who knows how serious it is - but nevertheless - its a simple fact that relationships only work when both people communicate.

Read what the guy says in his initial post:

"I admit, she is correct; sometimes I am less attentive to her than I should be, etc, etc... "

and she says

"Adam, I want you to play 3 hours/week or less!"

She doesn't threaten. She doesn't go into hysterics. She merely expresses her opinion.

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.

Well I can speak as a married man - I went through something similar with my wife - and after many arguments and fights, it finally dawned on me that rather than defending my right to my space and time, that I was basically neglecting her - I wasn't treating her the way I wanted to treat her - I had started taking her for granted.

And the thing is that as soon as I stopped doing that - as soon as I made sure to make time for her and made sure I was always respectful of her - the demands on my time basically stopped - so much so that she now encourages me to go out and spend time with my friends.

The simple fact is that if you CARE about a woman, you do not treat her like she is a controlling bitch - and if you feel that she is, then why bother continuing at all? I mean seriously - what is the point of "laying down the law"? If she is as you describe her, then just break up with her.

But if there is more to the story, then yes, the only tools you have are communication and understanding.

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.

If he resolves this issue correctly, he should wind up playing the same amount of poker OR MORE because he will have addressed her underlying concern and she won't care at all anymore.

[guaranteedBluff]

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What bothered me about the responses is that people are all advocating taking some sort of hard-line with her - and to me, that is just not how you treat a woman who is your girlfriend.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is most certainly more to it than her not wanting me to play poker. Results soon...

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She is taking a hard-line stance with him, why not return in kind? I certainly don't advocate an insta-breakup but it is quite clear to me that this is an attempt to control him. Regardless of how neglected she feels or how legitimate those feelings are, trying to direct his actions is inapropriate.

It shows an utter lack of respect for her boyfriend. There is a problem. Who has the problem: her. Who has to make the sacrifice: him. Why doesn't she make a change to spend more time with him?

There is not enough information to say whether he should break up with her but it is clear he should take a stand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously - this is such primitive thinking.

Take a martial arts approach - don't respond with strength so that you are butting heads - instead, turn her strength against her.

Say to her

"look - I don't think the issue is really about my poker playing. I think that this issue is really about the time we spend together. So lets talk about that."

See? Simple. And at the end of the day, he doesn't have to change his poker playing at all because he decided to work on the REAL issue rather than getting into some stupid fight over a surface issue.

And I'd like to say to all of you that want to punish this woman for not having the guts to say what is really on her mind - you should all look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are ALWAYS able to express your desires in the way you want to your partners. I know that in my marriage, I often mistake what I think the issues are - and only when my wife says to me "is this what's really bothering you or is there something else going on?" that I am able to figure out the true issues.

If you allow your relationship to be about power AT ALL - whether its you who has it or her - then it is doomed to failure. A relationship is a partnership - and a partnership requires understanding.

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I don't think putting your foot down is "childish anger." If she wanted to tell him that she wants to spend more time with him, she did a terrible job of doing so.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right. She did a terrible job. So the question is whether we

a) punish her for doing so by focusing on this issue and taking a hard line

or

b) understand that she is human and, as such, sometimes misunderstands her emotions and makes mistakes - and then take this knowledge and try and address the real issues.

So many relationships end because both partners get so focussed on being "right" that they fail to focus on getting things to work.

[scrapperdog]

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I can't believe what I am reading here.

Do ANY of you EVER get laid? Or do you just sit drinking brews with your mates complaining about what bitches women are?

She is NOT a controlling bitch.

She is NOT making a power play.

She is NOT concerned with his poker playing.

In almost every case I have ever encountered like this, the situation is that she is feeling neglected by her boyfriend and is taking it out on the one thing that he loves most.

What this means is that he is probably not spending quality time with her. They may spend time together, but he is probably not doing special things for her, probably not making her feel like she is important to him, and probably not doing what he needs to do to keep his woman happy.

Lets face it - none of us is perfect and we all have our ego and our pride. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a woman to come out and say "I don't feel like you treat me like I am special" - that is very hard to do.

What you NEED to do is to sit down with her and talk about what is really going on for her. Is it really about the poker or is it about the time you guys spend together? Maybe try and sugges that you guys establish some ground rules - you will still play the same number of hours, but you will do them at specific times when she is not around - and then when she is around, you will not play poker at all - things like that.

If you want to move into the realm of mature relationships, it is absolutely essential that you understand that people often don't say what they feel - but when they say something, chances are that there is a real and legitimate feeling behind it. IF you truly care about someone and want to continue in the relationship, you will make an effort to understand the underlying issues and not simply blow up at her for saying something that, to you, sounds ridiculous.

So instead of reacting with childish anger, try to be mature and understanding.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but If you let this girl take something that you enjoy and make money at then you let her take away anything. For this guy to have a shot at happiness with this girl he needs to give her a reality check.

Or he can be a compete pussy and let her take stuff away, control his life, then go brag about getting laid on the internet. That is real mature. If there is some other issue involved here then she needs to spit it out. If she cant talk about what is really bugging her and needs to "take it out on the thing he loves the most" then he needs to dump her ASAP. Either she is capable of comunication or she is not, and if she is not that is a huge problem.

Fine he gives up poker. Pretty soon it is gonna be somthing else. Then something else. This has nothing to do with poker and everything to do with him not being pussywhipped and letting someone else take control of his life. How the F does she get off complaining about how he pays for their dates? How is she gonna respect him when he rolls over like a dog when she says to roll? Can you imagine if he had a real problem? One that did not involve making money for their dates?

Adam,

You've gotten so many replies I don't know if you'll have a chance to read this, but I had a similar conflict with my girfriend that resolved nicely.

If poker is important to you, like it is to me, you should NOT be prepared to give it up. Its important to know that many women have trouble understanding how important poker can be to a guy. Its natural that they start to feel like they might not be as important at times. I've missed dates with my girlfriend because of MTTs a couple times and believe me, this was a problem. But she is important so rather than break up with her, which I almost did, we decided to try working through it and have arrived at a very good solution:

The solution is to make her understand that poker is important to you (less important than her, of course) but something that you need to have control over. What works with my girl is that I always communicate with her about when I'm playing and I designate days I won't play -- days she has me to herself. But on other days I do whatever the hell I want, even if that means staying up until 4am playing. Right now we have a great relationship and sometimes she'll want to come over on poker days full well understanding that I will be glued to my laptop. She just hangs out with me and reads her book and talks with me between hands, knowing that on her days she has my undivided attention.

We even went to vegas together recently and it worked out great. We scheduled specific times for activites we would do together and the rest of the time she did her thing, mostly pool lounging and slots, and i hit the poker tables.

This is something that is working very well for me and I suggest any men or women out there in relationships with non players try out.

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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.