When Your Partner is Lost in the Game: A Guide for Supporting Your Partner and Yourself

You used to share hobbies, conversations, and a life together. Now, it feels like you're living with a ghost. Their attention is constantly elsewhere, captured by the glowing screen, the headset, and a virtual world you're not a part of. Loving someone with a gaming disorder is a uniquely painful and isolating experience. You may feel ignored, unimportant, and deeply lonely, even when they're in the same room.

Your feelings are valid. What you are experiencing is the fallout from a serious behavioural addiction. While you cannot "fix" your partner, your understanding and actions can play a crucial role in the situation. At Shaw Psychology, our Melbourne clinical psychologists, general psychologists, and counsellors work not only with individuals but also with their loved ones to navigate the path to recovery. This guide is for you.

When your partner is missing, the most important thing you can do is find your own direction. Your well-being matters, and waiting for the addiction to stop won't help.

Understanding the Impact on You, the Partner

Living with a partner who has a gaming disorder is not just frustrating; it can be emotionally damaging. Common experiences include:

• Profound Loneliness: You feel like you've lost your partner to the game. Intimacy, shared experiences, and meaningful communication may have disappeared.

• Constant Frustration and Anger: You may find yourself constantly nagging, pleading, or arguing about the time they spend gaming, leading to a toxic cycle of conflict.

• Neglected Responsibilities: You may be shouldering an unfair burden of household chores, financial responsibilities, or childcare because your partner is absent.

• Loss of Trust: Often, partners have been deceptive about the extent of their gaming, leading to a breakdown of trust in the relationship.

• Walking on Eggshells: You may feel afraid to bring up the topic for fear of starting another fight, leading you to hide your own feelings of hurt and resentment.

How to Help: The Three Cs to Remember

When you love someone with an addiction, it's vital to remember the "Three Cs," a cornerstone of support programs like Al-Anon, which applies equally here:

• You didn't Cause it.

• You can't Control it.

• You can't Cure it.

Accepting this is the first step to detaching with love. Your role is not to be their saviour, but to change how you interact with the problem. Pleading, threatening, or "punishing" them by hiding a console rarely works and often leads to more conflict and deception. Your power lies in setting healthy boundaries.

A First Step You Can Take Today: Defining a Boundary

A boundary is not a threat or an ultimatum; it is a clear, calm statement about what you will and will not accept, and what you will do to protect your own well-being.

1. Identify One Area of Hurt: Think of one specific way your partner's gaming negatively impacts you. For example: "When you game until 3 am, I feel lonely and the next day you are too tired to help with the kids."

2. Define Your Need: What do you need to happen differently? "I need a partner who is present and engaged with our family. I need you to be able to wake up on time and focus on the kids each morning."

3. Create a Boundary Statement: Frame it using an "I" statement. For example: "I feel lonely and unsupported when you game late into the night. I am no longer willing to have our family life suffer. I will be going to bed at 10 pm, and I need to know we can have dinner together, screen-free, at least three nights a week."

4. State the Consequence (What You Will Do): "If that's not something you can commit to, I will need to book a therapy session for myself to figure out how I can cope with this situation."

This shifts the focus from controlling their behaviour to taking control of your own.

An example:

Chloe felt like a single parent. Her husband, Mark, would come home from work and immediately disappear into his home office to game with his online friends, often missing dinner and leaving her to handle their two young children alone. Fights were constant. After speaking with a psychologist, Chloe set a boundary. She calmly told Mark, "I love you, but I feel like I'm doing this alone. I am no longer willing to have family dinners be optional. The kids and I will be eating at 6 pm every night, and we need you there with us, with no phone. If that doesn't happen, I will be taking the kids to my parents' house for dinner on those nights, because we need family time." It wasn't a threat, but a statement of her needs. The change wasn't instant, but it was the first time Mark was faced with a tangible consequence, which started the slow process of him recognising the problem.

(Please note: This is a fictional vignette created for illustrative purposes only.)

Your Recovery is as Important as Theirs

You cannot pour from an empty cup. It is absolutely reasonable and helpful that you seek your own support. Individual therapy can provide you with a safe space to process your feelings of anger, grief, and loneliness, and help you build the skills to cope and protect your mental health, regardless of the choices your partner makes.

Whether your partner decides to seek help or not, you can start your own journey of healing today.

Contact us on (03) 9969 2190 to learn how we can support you, or book a confidential consultation for yourself here: https://bit.ly/bookshawpsychology.