Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Admitting an addiction is the first step...

I think the first step in dealing with a problem is admitting it.  And since he won't, I will. Because, that's how I roll. My husband has an addiction.  It's serious.  It takes up a lot of his free time.  A LOT.  And, I can't find one positive thing about it.  Well, I guess one.  It's not an expensive addiction.  That's something, right?

My husband is addicted to this.


Yes.  Seriously addicted.  He can't put the thing down.  I'm surprised he can set it down long enough to go to work.  Honestly surprised.  It all started a year ago.  For some reason he encouraged me to get it for our oldest daughter - she was 7 at the time.  Now I realize he actually got it for himself.  He had a slight problem putting the thing down last year after Christmas, but then somehow he forgot about it between working, going to grad school, and being a parent.  

He found it again and hasn't put it down for over a week.  Seriously, a lot of free time is spent on this thing.  He even went as far as to finally google how to solve it.  He solved it.  But, then he felt like he cheated so he has continued messing with it sure he can work it out on his own.   Sophia even came to him and asked for it back saying it was hers.  He refused.  Outright refused to give his daughter her toy.  Like I said, he set it down long enough to go to work and she took it back to her room and hid it behind a picture.  

Chris went down last night at 11pm and found it.  Pour kid.   I think I'm going to have to take it away and give it to some family that can handle the responsibility of owning it.  This is not the first toy that has caught his attention.  Exhibit B. 

Sophia won a little rubbery boomerang toy during a fundraiser two years ago.  Chris was obsessed.  He couldn't put it down.  I finally had to hide it on top of the fridge and eventually threw it away.  He mourned the loss.  Even a year later he remembers that thing fondly. 

So, I need some advice guys, how do you break your husband of a crazy addiction?  Do I hide the thing?  Give it away?  Solve it myself and put him in his place?  Just kidding -- not worth my time and I'm not big on solving those kind of puzzles!  Or just let him literally waste hours of his life on it?  What would you do if it was your husband? 

3 comments:

  1. A happy man is an occupied man...give the boy his toys!!! : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. I completely understand your dilemma, Mary. Unfortunately, I don't believe it will get any better. My husband will be 50 next month. A couple of years ago, we finally hooked up to high speed. My old boss introduced me to facebook and the wonderful game of "Farmville"! He became jealous of my new-found love until I convinced him to open his own account--Big Mistake!!! He became competitively obsessed! He was up all night planting and plowing, friend and neighbor requesting, moving up faster in level than anyone else. He even got to the point where he would ignore my requests for items so I could not advance. That's if I was lucky enough to get on. He would actually throw a temper-tantrum if anyone else was on the computer. I tried everything from reverse psychology to passive-aggression--nothing worked. So I started playing "Frontierville". Same thing. Finally, I just gave up, saying it was taking up too much time and it wasn't fun anymore. I blocked my games.

    Buy Sophie another cube.

    Getting him to admit to his addiction will not solve the problem: It only leads to enabling-(You know I have an addiction, so why do you keep bugging me about it? It's MY life.)lol

    I don't know if this helped. Maybe somewhere the Good Lord will give you some insight on what to do.

    God Bless! Robin Hockanson

    ReplyDelete
  3. P.S. He doesn't play games anymore! haha
    RH

    ReplyDelete