This excerpt has been taken from a dissertation on the Gamer Widow. Thanks to Texas Tech University, Jason C. Northrup:

Being a gamer widow means experiencing considerable change. You see your husband change. You change. Your marriage changes. Almost nothing is as it was before. Your husband’s addiction affects nearly everything in your life.

Your husband’s behavior stops making sense. He isolates himself from family and friends, trading these relationships for those with strangers he has met online. He defends his gaming fiercely, firmly convinced that it’s not a problem. “I have tried to explain how much this habit hurts our family, but he just doesn’t get it.” He will argue with anyone who tells him otherwise. And yet he neglects important facets of his life like work, or childcare to facilitate his playing. He suffers personal consequences for his long hours of game play, like developing an angry temperament or letting his health decline. “He has turned into a different person I no longer relate to.”

Of course, the effects of your husband’s addiction are not limited to just him. It affects you too. You suffer emotionally, feeling things like resentment, stress, and loneliness. “I feel rejected and tossed aside.” Your experience informs how you conceptualize addiction. “I would define it as something that takes over your life, something that the addict sees as more important than anything else in life and sacrifices anything to get/do more of the addictive behavior or substance.” Often you develop a strong hatred for online games, believing them to be too habit forming. “I believe that they should carry warning labels, just like tobacco and alcohol.” You start to ignore your husband to simply avoid fighting any more. 

The differences in you and your husband mean that the marital relationship will look different too. Suddenly you are the one taking care of the house and the kids because your husband is playing all the time. You grow more and more distant from your husband, partly because his time is eaten up by the game, but also partly because you cannot stand what he is doing. “I think I have built a wall between us so that even when we are talking, I always have anger and resentment for the game hovering in my mind.” You stop talking to each other, sharing your emotions, and even having sex. You socialize without him and stop doing things together. Even your finances are affected by the addiction, as your husband either spends too much money on his habit each month, or his income is reduced because he would rather play than go to work. But still you stay in the relationship, though your reasons are different depending on your situation. Most likely it is for the kids’ sake. It could also be because you do not work and are financially dependent on your husband. It might even be because deep down you still love your husband and still think he has the ability to change. Maybe.