Married to the computer?

It was interesting that several of the responses to last week’s post on tech-addicted kids were about spouses who are also hooked on the computer.

I’ve heard this complaint from several of my girlfriends, who say their husbands would spend every free moment online playing games, chatting or just watching YouTube videos if their wives would let them. Often, the wife has to nag the husband to step away from the computer, which only makes the husband resentful.

I’m fortunate enough to have married a man who realized that being married and having children means he doesn’t get to play the computer games he used to or spend his free time surfing the Internet.

But I think many men just don’t get that. And it’s not just the men. Some women are equally addicted to social networking sites and other Websites. One man that I know jokingly says that the day his wife signed up for Facebook was the day their marriage ended.

So it doesn’t have to be Websites that are clearly dangerous, like pornography or online gambling. It’s simply any Website that is luring a spouse into the online world at the expense of the real one. Such Websites often lead to men and women having more regular relationships with strangers online than with their spouse and children.

Have you had to deal with a spouse that is married to the computer? How can you reclaim your spouse from cyberspace?