I just want to point out that a number of games, particularly D&D and Pathfinder, have organized play.
Check your FLGS for ‘D&D Encounters’, usually on a week night. Those are short 2-3 hour sessions where you play (typically) one encounter from a module, sometimes a bit more depending on how slow your group is (larger groups take longer, or those ‘oh its my turn, let me start thinking about what I want to do’ people bogging things down). The Pathfinder Society for Pathfinder (OGLS D&D 3.75, basically). Here in Minneapolis, I could play Pathfinder 12-20 days per month through the society, or play D&D Encounters several times a week.
While I’m a bit out of it for various personal reasons right now, I was playing Pathfinder twice a month, second and fourth Sundays 1-5pm, through Pathfinder Society at a FLGS.
Then negotiate some time with your spouse. Or bring her along, since about 1/3 of the Pathfinder Society players in my area are women.
I was in the Army and I still found time to game. When I was in college I still found time to game. When I became a father, was in college, and starting my own business I still found time to game. It may not be the gaming marathons it used to be when I was younger but I always find time to game. Luckily my wife (and now my daughter) are gamers too so it makes it much easier.
One of our RPG group members has a gaming wife. He has no trouble showing up every week and if we are playing board games instead she’ll join us and kick our ass. Looking at them the secret seems to be to have cats instead of kids, that still leaves time for gaming.
I’m married with kids and a full-time job and still game. Spend time with my wife in the early evening and don’t do much gaming while the younger one is up (or, hey, game with him! Lego co-op games are great). After he’s in bed, I might play something in the evening while my wife is watching reality shows or British history documentaries. On Friday nights, she knows that if we’re at home I’ll probably be playing Battlefield 1 with some friends and blowing off steam from the week but I wouldn’t cancel plans for it. Every other Saturday night I play a bi-weekly D&D game. Again, I wouldn’t skip a wedding for it but she respects that twice a month isn’t much to ask and is glad I’m getting out of the house anyway.
Likewise, I have no objections if she plans a karaoke night with “the girls” or wants to spend Saturday after a tough week vegging on the couch with endless Jane Austen movies or take up a dance class. For us, it’s a question of making sure we have time for one another and stay accessible but not necessarily spending every moment together.
Also depends on the wife. I recall when some friends finally had children and the wife quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom.
By the time she had the second child, she was furious at any activity that took him out of the house (including our long standing once-a-month game), because after all, he was out and about all day while he was working :rolleyes: and so he should always be home when he wasn’t working so that she could have a chance to leave the house.
I parted ways with them during that time because I got tired of being bitten by their dogs and struck by their toddlers and then having her scream at me about it. But that demand that he be home every waking moment that he wasn’t at work clearly went by the wayside as he developed some outside interests and joined a few clubs.
Yeah, I’ve encountered a couple of couples with lesser versions of this. It’s double-absurd in the pair where both parents are absolutely required to be home to put the kids to bed every night, in spite of the fact that BOTH of them work. You’d think they could work out some arrangement that would allow trading off, but I suspect that since she doesn’t have much going on in the way of a life except for martial arts practice that he also attends, so I guess she figures if that’s all she needs, it’s all he needs.
