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Groom spends $11,500 of wedding money on gaming PC

A woman has turned to the internet for help, accusing her fiance of spending all their wedding money on a distracting new purchase.

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A woman has turned to an online relationship advice forum after her soon-to-be husband allegedly spent all their wedding and honeymoon money on a new gaming PC.

The woman, 27, posted her account on Reddit sub-forum r/relationship_advice, where millions flock to seek advice on their relationship or reassurance that at least it’s not as bad as some of the toxic partnerships chronicled on the site.

She said she and her fiance, 25, had both been saving up for their wedding and honeymoon after getting engaged in December.

“In six months we saved around $8000,” she said.

Assuming that money is in US dollars, that equates to around $A11,500, not that it matters: the money is now gone.

“My fiance spent all the money that we were saving for our wedding to buy a gaming PC and now all he does the whole day is play video games,” the woman wrote.

“He has totally ignored me and he has forgotten that I even exist in the house,” she wrote, adding that he'd also stopped doing chores around the house and was ignoring the work he was supposed to be doing from home.

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Gaming PCs can cost considerable amounts when the associated peripherals are tallied up. Picture: Jerad Williams
Gaming PCs can cost considerable amounts when the associated peripherals are tallied up. Picture: Jerad Williams

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The woman said her fiance had asked about buying a gaming PC after his friend bought one.

“I told him that he can play games on the laptop that he already has,” she said.

“He repeatedly kept asking me if he could buy a PC and I finally agreed to it,” she said.

“Now I regret it so badly.”

She said not only did the PC show up, but a new gaming specific desk and chair, as well as three 4K resolution monitors and “a very colourful keyboard, mouse, headphones and a microphone set,” all wireless.

“That night, I asked him how much it all cost and he was a little hesitant to tell me … I was distraught when I heard that he had spent our entire savings of $8000 to buy the PC.

“We had a very big argument that night and I scolded him for spending all our savings because it contained not only his money but my money as well, and we were saving it for our wedding.”

She said things had only gotten worse since the original purchase.

“It has been about two weeks since he got the PC and since then my fiance hasn’t gotten up from his new chair.

“Ever since he got the PC, he hasn’t even seen my face, the only time he talks to me is when he is hungry, he calls to me and tells me to get him something to eat/drink. I call him to watch TV and he denies it saying that he’s busy. I call him to sleep together and he denies it and says that he’ll sleep later,” she said.

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The man allegedly already had a laptop.
The man allegedly already had a laptop.

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She said that he sleeps while she’s awake and stays up gaming until 5am, making her feel “so lonely that it feels like I’m alone at home and nobody to even talk to”.

“He is ignoring me so much that I think he has absolutely forgotten that I even exist in his life,” she said.

She also noted he didn’t appear to be doing any of the work he was supposed to for his job, and feared that he’d been fired or quit to spend more time gaming.

The advice she received from forum commenters skewed largely towards a general sentiment of “dump him” (sometimes succinctly expressed through the posting of mango fruit emojis, as in “let that man go”).

Some thought the man’s behaviour was a manifestation of desire to get out of the relationship, arguing that he spent all the money so that she would call off the wedding.

Other commenters raised concerns that the woman’s fiance might be struggling with gaming addiction.

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Participants game during an event in Germany. For many gaming is a harmless hobby, but some can face issues. Picture: Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
Participants game during an event in Germany. For many gaming is a harmless hobby, but some can face issues. Picture: Jens Schlueter / Getty Images

Gaming addiction was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s manual for diagnosing mental disorders when the most recent edition was published in 2013, but the organisation notes “there was not sufficient evidence to determine whether the condition is a unique mental disorder or the best criteria to classify it at the time”.

The Association proposed the symptoms of gaming addiction as experiencing a preoccupation with gaming, withdrawal symptoms when it’s taken away, increased time playing, an inability to reduce time playing, the loss of interest in other activities, continuing to game despite the problems, deceiving family or others about the amount of time spent gaming and the use of gaming to relieve negative moods such as “guilt or hopelessness”.

It also identified losing or risking losing a job or relationship due to gaming as another symptom.

A person who experienced five or more of those symptoms within a year could be diagnosed with a gaming disorder.

In 2017, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced its International Classification of Diseases would identify gaming addiction as a new disorder.

In some countries including China and South Korea, seemingly addicted gamers have notably died after marathon sessions, leading to treatment programs being established in those countries.

Originally published as Groom spends $11,500 of wedding money on gaming PC

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Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/gaming/groom-spends-11500-of-wedding-money-on-gaming-pc/news-story/50fb90fb8e5450a47923756c6db1b769