Making allowances at home

[Five_Inch_Heels]

That's largely generational divide. Kind of like tattoos. And piercings.

And clowns on unicycles.

 

[MrPixel]

Us oldies don't really fully understand the gamers. That's largely generational divide. Kind of like tattoos. And piercings.

Bingo. I didn't understand the appeal then and still don't, although I was somewhat into board games in that chapter of my life. Risk, mostly, though my group played a corrupted version of one we called "Triple Deal-Out Slaughter Monopoly." Combine three sets, deal-out all the deeds and all the money evenly at the start, replacing the acquisition phase with a trading session. It could be brutal, as the name suggests.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I had a Dal. It didn't understand me.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I mostly write on my phone, so I can write whenever.

 

[WCSGarland]

My wife and I have been together for 48 years. She doesn't understand why I like to write erotica, though she will read my stories, except the R/NC items. Sometimes, I can't figure out how we got together in the first place. She's a morning person, I'm a night person. She likes to go to bed around 8, and I will usually go to bed around 12. We work at the same company, since 2021 we've both shared the office. I try to write while she binges TV programs and knits in the evening.

We try to make allowances for each other's idiosyncrasies. Some times it works, some times not, but can't see it changing.

 

[MrPixel]

I mostly write on my phone, so I can write whenever.

I recall you saying that. Most of your stories are one or two LitE pages, but I'm curious how much of Babalon's Curse you wrote on your phone.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Sadly, my writing has become a point of friction. "All I ever see is the back of your head!" is the current catchphrase. I keep insisting that she pursue her hobbies... fuck - we have a 3000 square foot building for them... but she refuses to leave the house. Right now she's into the third hour of her usual "brief" nap, an everyday occurrence she blames on the dog for waking her up too early. I need to wake her up to get dressed for lunch.

Depression will do that.

Sadly I also make writing time from the 'dead time' around my spouse's illness. Some days are better than others but it never feels good.

 

[Erozetta]

Benefits of gaming with a spouse:

• Increase in effective communication techniques. We learn how to talk to each other based on what's going on in game. If I tell him something and he doesn't understand, but I think I've laid it out quite clearly, we get killed in the game. From that, I learn better ways to tell him what I need him to know as quickly and efficiently as I can.
• About the same amount of a time sink as watching a movie, but we get to do something interactive together and work towards a common goal. Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we game together. And when Is ay together, I mean together, not just by each other in the same room, but playing the same game on our own systems with each other in a co-op game.
• When I'm sick, he plays single player games for me to watch between passing out. I do the same when he's sick. We get to spend time together without risk of getting each other sick, and we get to bring a little joy to the sick partner.
• We can argue without getting mad. Puzzles in games are our nemesis. I love them. He likes them but can get frustrated by them. Sometimes he disagrees with my solution, we talk it out and can logic any issues together. We always solve the puzzle, usually my way, but sometimes he points out something I overlooked.
• We learn about each other. He's learned I'm a really great shot in games so he always gives me the sniper rifle even though he's also a great shot. He's also learned I'm more confident when further away, and the sniper rifle lends to that. I've learned he's really good at strategizing. When he has an idea on how to defeat a tough boss, I listen, he's usually right. I've also learned he is a fucking health potion hoarder, so when I'm in trouble because I decided to charge in with daggers, he has a potion ready for me. He's also learned that I'm really impulsive. These things help is IRL to tackle issues that come up. A big deadline we're facing? He strategizes, I enact the strategy and keep us in line. I'm not doing the best at taking care of myself? He readies snacks and drinks for me. We learn each other's weaknesses and how to assist each other better.

In the end, when we finish a game, we finish it knowing we helped each other through difficult situations and maintained course even when we got mad and struggled with each other. We finish it with an accomplished feeling of being entertained, completing a goal, and realizing that we work really fucking well together. It makes it much easier to face challenges in our marriage because we know from experience that there's very little we can't overcome together.

I mean, we could go out to dinner or watch a movie, or do other things together, but how much do we get to learn about how the other functions when doing that stuff? I can figure out what foods he likes or doesn't like. What style of movie, which stories, or which actors he enjoys, but that's not really going to help me understand how to interact with him.

Gaming together genuinely builds up our relationship by requiring us to work together to get to an end goal. It's fun, like having an active role in working a story to the end and doing that with someone I love and like spending time with.

But even when we are in the same room and he's gaming while I'm writing , we are still connected. It's no different than me laying my head on his lap and reading while he watches a TV show or movie. We're having individual moments together, which still builds our relationship, just in a more physical way of just being present for each other and supporting the other's hobby.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I recall you saying that. Most of your stories are one or two LitE pages, but I'm curious how much of Babalon's Curse you wrote on your phone.

All of it. I have Word on my phone and I write in Print View. My story layouts are mostly written on my laptop, and the ones I started on my phone as an idea, I bluetooth the file to it and flesh it out there. It might not make sense to some folks, but it's easier to work on two screens, I read the layout on the computer as I type it on my phone. Word mobile can only open one file at a time. The laptop came with Libra, and I have not tried to see if it will let me place two files side by side like Word will.

Most of my stories on this account(or planned) are no longer than a novelette or novella. For the most part, I don't want to write a high end novella or novel for free, while fanfics might be the exception on either pen name. That long incest story I forgot the name of, that I started(and need to finish) on my Jax Rhapsody account, before I made this one, was also written on my phone.

 

[SimonDoom]

Us oldies don't really fully understand the gamers. That's largely generational divide. Kind of like tattoos. And piercings.

And upspeak and vocal fry. And the insistence on always playing music, and of constantly checking the phone.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I will grant you the rolled eyes comment was being somewhat judgy. Also note that I was one of the teletype RPG players in a similar timeframe to the ones he was rolling his eyes at. So, if anyone here, that was directed at me. And it was a joke, not much different than someone here would say they rolled their eyes at the mommy sat in my lap crowd.

Us oldies don't really fully understand the gamers. That's largely generational divide. Kind of like tattoos. And piercings.

What's not to understand? it's just another form of fantasy and escapism. For some it's revenue either by contest or from streaming.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

When I write, my wives just chat among themselves. It's fine. Unless of course I've deflated them all.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I do almost all my writing on my phone. Often in the lounge on the sofa with the spouse, while he chats on the phone to someone or watches Doing Up A House/Car on TV. I enjoy some of the house ones,.mostly for betting on how much they'll go over budget by and what dramatic event will happen (either the windows don't fit or she gets cancer, usually), as after a.decade or so they do get predictable.

We used to do a fair bit of gaming together but mostly point and click stuff. We tried a console game once we got an Xbox, but after two hours we still couldn't get past the tutorial, so we decided they weren't for us. Mostly we play board games (lots of Azul, Patchwork and Dominion atm).

 

[MrPixel]

I will grant you the rolled eyes comment was being somewhat judgy. Also note that I was one of the teletype RPG players in a similar timeframe to the ones he was rolling his eyes at. So, if anyone here, that was directed at me. And it was a joke, not much different than someone here would say they rolled their eyes at the mommy sat in my lap crowd.

Us oldies don't really fully understand the gamers. That's largely generational divide. Kind of like tattoos. And piercings.

Thought about this, and I was accurately reflecting my attitude at the time (50 years ago). I was being judgy. I went to a really nerdy college, and the gamers on the Teletypes were nerd's nerds. Signup slots for terminal time on Friday and Saturday evenings were owned by gamers, "Oh. So you want to work on that physics assignment due Monday? Tough beans."

Amazing after all this time I all-too-vividly recall the frustration. I had a life outside of school including the ability to commute home on weekends. So that particular scenario hacked me off because I'd be stuck at school, held hostage by homework I couldn't even start without computer access.

 

[alohadave]

And clowns on unicycles.

No one understands clowns.

 

[ElectricBlue]

No one understands clowns.

This person does:

https://www.literotica.com/s/ms-bonkers

 

[WCSGarland]

On a whim, my wife booked a cruise for the week of Halloween... so there's that too. A week unplugged. A week unable to write. A week we reconnect and rebalance. A week to make allowances. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[DeMont]

Until a year ago, I had a shift-work job that left me oodles of time to write. Then things changed and I was back to the Mon-Fri 9-5 and that all changed. As a married fella I struggled to get my creative time without neglecting my wife and our life together. I married a pretty smart gal and she began to see my frustrations and recognized them and made some suggestions.

My hobby room was also my computer room and it meant when we were both on the computer we were across the house from each other. So, an additional PC desk was bought for the bedroom where her PC is and my wife decided to get involved in PC games again. Something we had both given up as a time-sink.

Now, weekdays we each spend an hour before bed on our PCs, a few hours Saturday morning and then as we want on Sundays. The agreement has done wonders for both of us. She has missed her gaming and I my writing and now we do them within feet of each other and there's no neglect of each other or our lives.

Has anyone else made adjustments within the home to get your smut time and still maintain the peace between you?

@Rob-Royale,
Good evening my dear colleague, it would seem that you have discovered the perfect balance that allows for RL and not, that, in itself, is an achievement indeed no matter whether married for 5 months or 50 years. The key, to my mind, is recognising that each individual NEEDS time for individual pursuits so that they feel their own needs are being met.

As far as the number of writers here of whom their S.O. has no immediate knowledge of the activity they are engaged in (e.g. writing erotica) I think that speaks more to a "distance" between interests, perhaps once shared, that have crept into relationships over time.

There are, of course, other issues that influence this - as @MrPixel noted, "Right now she's into the third hour of her usual "brief" nap, an everyday occurrence she blames on the dog for waking her up too early. I need to wake her up to get dressed for lunch. Depression will do that. " I would agree with him 100% that writing in the 'dead time' around that situation would never feel too good.

I also think that being human beings, and individuals, with our own needs, cares, stresses and so forth forces us, at times, to become judgmental in ways we wouldn't normally be, or, if we are normally judgmental then we are a product of our environment/upbringing or whatever. Looking at a simple statement made about being judgmental can't lead to a mass reaction because that means WE are being judgmental about the very statement about "being judgmental". It truly is a lose/lose situation.

It is possibly the old adage that I hate the most in this world, "Judge not lest thee be judged thyself."

Now, having said that I do my writing when everybody else has gone to bed. Do they know that I write, amongst other things, erotica for a sex oriented website? No. Is that something I wish to share with them? Not particularly but if one of them were to come across any of my work on my computer (I don't have triple level, twin bypass, redundant security systems in place) then I would simply explain what it is and why I do it. Yes, there may be some real judgmental angst there but I would expect them to allow me the right to pursue my hobbies as I insist that they have the right to theirs.

The only "judging" I take on board is the judging, and most times the comments, of my colleagues here about my writing.

** Climbs down off soap box ** There, I said it.

Deepest respects and no insult nor criticism of any herein intended.

D.