Today is a special day for me. It's my wedding anniversary. What makes this more special than ordinary you ask?? Well for me , the game of WoW helped my relationship grow and prosper rather than causing a rift between myself and my spouse. Let me tell you the story:
It was back in 2006 when my wife and I had been living together and in a steady relationship for about 2 years already. I had stopped working at the bars as a part time job and she was getting adjusted to her new job. We were looking for something that we could do together as my interests in volleyball and softball and her friends who like to go out partying did not really mesh all that well. She had mentioned that her ex and her had played together on consoles before but I am not that big of a console guy being that I played alot of FPS on the computer. So we went to the local Best Buy and got some demo CD's . WoW was one of those CD's.
We installed it , got on a server and made our first two toons. Like any new WoW players , we were complete noobs, we both made 2 warriors because hacking up stuff was so much fun but found that maybe one of us should be able to heal the other , so I rolled a paladin and off we went a questing. As we got further along , she decided to roll a priest and so then we had tank / heal combo to use depending on our mood.
This lead to a server transfer and we found our first raiding guild. We started raiding Kara together and the challenge of the instance provided many nights spent together raiding and time away from the game figuring out how to beat encounters and things of that nature.
Since we had tank and heals , we quickly found that we could form a group and thus we established our own raiding group in the guild and we were clearing Kara regularly. We then moved to a bigger guild to get into the T5/T6 raids and at this point it seemed that we grew closer in the game and closer in real life.
We realized that as in the game , our roles in the relationship in life were quite similar . I was the tank , I stood the brunt of the assault , I would quickly assess a situation and take action and provide a safe haven. Her role as the healer let her heal any emotional or physical needs and provided a natural outlet for her desire to nurture. Together we made a great team both in game and out of game.
After grinding away at T5/T6 content we decided that our guild was not progressing as we liked and took a short break to wait for WotLK to come out . I waited in line at a local Gamestop on the release day for 2 copies of the game and we played till about 4am that morning.
About 1 month into WotLK , we apped to the #1 Alliance guild on our server and we got accepted. We just stepped into the world of progression raiding hard core style. Our new guild raided from 630pm t0 11pm , Sunday thru Thursday and expected you to make every raid. We were excited about the opportunity because all the people in our old guild said we were not good enough to do it. We became hardcore raiders , so hardcore that on our wedding nite , we were in our honeymoon suite raiding Naxx 25!!! (Now that is hardcore!!)
We progressed thru Naxx racking up achievements . We got our Twilight Vanquisher titles before they nerfed it. We achieved our 6 minute Mally fight before that nerf as well. We became engrossed in the race for server firsts achievements and beating the other guilds. It slowly became a destructive cycle that we started seeing in our relationship that a bad night of raiding usually meant we would fight later. Additionally the pressure from the guild came in that Ulduar was coming out and more raiding time was going to be needed. Suddenly though , life threw a curveball at us , my wife's health took a turn for the worst and she had to step down from raiding.
We stopped hardcore raiding and moved to a more casual raid schedule. We bounced around a couple of different guilds during that time trying to find somewhere that fit our schedule. In our relationship I think and felt we did the same thing , trying to find a balance with each other and figure out how to handle each other emotionally. We have had chaos in our lives this past year but we have learned that together we can weather all. Together we are better than we are individually.
This has lead us to where we are now. Currently I am a raider in No Quarter Given. She has moved one of her toons the guild but is casual. She is content to level her druid up on our old server and get it to 80 before she starts to play again. Additionally her job has taken off , she got a promotion and new responsibilities and is going to be traveling. She has worked very hard to be where she is and I know she will be successful. This has cut into her WoW playing time. This has been hard for me as well as I miss my playing buddy. We spent alot of time together in game and we achieved alot of accomplishments TOGETHER, and that made both of use feel our relationship was stronger.
We still play together as I help her level the druid , we sometimes do randoms , but for now she does not raid and listens to me tell about my raiding times. So for all the stories you hear about how WoW has ruined relationships, this is one that it has made stronger and help prosper.
Happy anniversary , Divaheals, without you , I would not be the person I am today.
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