Now, the frustrated spouses have formed their own online support group. The mostly female spouses call themselves the "Coalition of Air Warrior Widows." On Wednesday evenings, they kick their husbands off the computer and take it over for online chat sessions, a kind of high-tech party line. The grounded Air Warriors must cook dinner for their spouses of face the group's collective wrath.
The wives' web page, http"//members.aol.com/ssnif/caww.htm, asks: "Are you lonesome? Have you been making desperate, futile attempts to get your man's attention? Are you begging him for sex? Then you must be an Air Warrior widow!"
Shirley McCulloch, 34 years old, of seattle, co-founded the group last year along with two friends, because her husband "was staying up playing Air warrior all hours of the night," she says. "I've realized it's not just my husband who is an addict to this stupid game," she says. Michael mcCulloch, 34, thinks the group has brought some peace- or at least some humor- to his family life.
Across the country, in Thompson GA., 28 year old Clint Yarborough, is an assistant district attorney by day and an Air Warrior at least two knights a week. He says he encouraged his wife, Patsy, to join the group a few weeks ago. "I definitely feel the urge to be understood," he says.
Patsy, 26, says she feels less isolated knowing that others share her fate. And a few of the group's suggestions have been helpful. Now she and her husband have a deal: He can play uninterrupted on some nights as long as he takes her out to dinner on others.
"He could be hanging out at the bar," she rationalizes. "I had him move from the upstairs room to the downstairs so that I can at least watch the back of his head while I'm watching a video, occasionally I can interrupt him."
Willard F. Harley, a psychologist in Whit bear Lake, Minn., who writes about addictions online at marriagebuilders.com, says spouses should make joint decisions and take a break for a couple of weeks if a game turns into an addiction. |
