I went on a 35-40bi 6 week downer when I was going through the grossnasty breakup with my gf of almost 3 years.

lifetilt sucks.

i had the first P5er wedding this weekend. :) OT owns. this is really a dating site and they all tricked you into thinking it was about poker lolz

If poker is a big part of your life, your significant other will have to be supportive for a relationship to work. That said, it is still a two way street. If your spouse, gf, etc makes an effort to support your poker career, you should be putting forth a little extra effort to support your relationship. Spend more time with them, buy them gifts, surprise them, etc. The reason I say this is because I don't feel I did this in my recent relationship. I let my poker playing consume most of my time and didn't set aside nearly enough time for my long time girlfriend. Its one of the few regrets I've ever had in my poker career, and I would gladly trade some of my most profitable nights to go to dinner and catch a movie with her instead.

In my opinion if you do something in your life as a hobby or a careeryou should be able to enjoy doing it and never feel guilty when you doit. But with poker thats not always easy. I think the biggest strainthat poker puts on relationships is how much free time you leave foryour partner. If you have a job and also play poker semi-seriously as ahobby it can take up a lot of your time and if your partner wants moreattention then your willing to give its gonna be hard to convince themthat they are the most important thing in your life. If you can giveyour partner the attention they want then you can have a clear headwhen you play, if your gf is on your mind your results will alsoreflect your lack of focus, as you guys have already said.

Heres my quick story: When I first started playing I was prettyaddicted. I would play for 12-16h a day and neglected a lot ofrelationships in my life. After a couple months of this me and my gfbroke up and i really didnt care cause that left me more time for pokerthose nights that i knew i HAD to do something or she'd be reallypissed. This was about 3 years ago and looking back i see how stupid iwas and i was really addicted to poker. These days I still playlots of poker but I no longer have that addicted feeling in me, I dontfeel the NEED to play i play because i WANT to play. You might notunderstand this unless you have an addictive personality and have hadand dropped a few addictions and can still enjoy them on occasionwithout overindulging. I finally found a good balance in my life withpoker, work, excercise, my relationships with the opposite sex, friendsand family. Took me 3 years but with a clear mind I play better poker,I can focus much easier and bad beats are never that bad cause I haveso many other things in life to feel good about.

I guess what I learned from everything I have been through is thatpoker can really take over your life if you let it and everyone isdifferent. If you find someone who plays and is supportive you canspend more hours playing because of that support. If your partner doesnot like poker and considers it 'gambling' or has other negative viewson poker, perhaps because of an experience in a previous relationship,then I think you really gotta cut your poker hours down a lot or therelationship will get too hard to work through in the end.

Last note, if you play as a pro online and can make an income playing6-8h/day 5 days a week and show a consistent profit then it would mucheasier to make a relationship work. You can play the same hrs yourpartner works which leaves you lots of time any day to spend timetogether. That's just not possible if you have a full time job and wantto play full time.

my gf > poker.
She doesn't mind my playing so long as I give her plenty of attention as well. She's pretty supportive, & even bought me a pokerXfactor subscription for Christmas. Ya gotta have proper priorities & make sure your S.O. knows what they are. If your wife/gf < poker, maybe ya'll have bigger problems than a card game.

Cmoney, I had this problem too. It was so bad that I ended up getting a real job. I realized screw other people because they dont have to do this crappy job that pays less then poker for 40+ hrs a week. F them and if they dont like it tough sh%$t

edit: the job only lasted 6 weeks :)

Since, most of the people who write on these blogs seem to be no older than 22, I sometimes feel old at 36. but this is my feeling of poker and relationship. I do not think you need to find someone who understands for feelings or love for poker, you just find someone who will understand that you have a passion and you need time for that. The easier way to figure this out is to start with you. You first need to decide how often you want to play poker, if you want to play 12 to 14 hours a day then you need to find someone who will accept that, if you only play a couple of hours a day, you need to find someone who will fit that. If you end up dating someone who wants your consistent attention it is not going to work. Remember, as in poker, there is always a price to pay. Not too many people can have their cake and eat it too. I do love to play poker and sometimes it takes up more time in my life than it should. But, I understand it is more important to have a good relationship with my wife and children then increasing my sng roi. I do not want to pay the price of divorce, losy marriage and no friends to become a better poker player. It is not worth it too me. But if your life long goal is too become a pro player you are going to have to make some sacrafices.

My wife understands that I need time for my own interests whether is it golf or watching sports or playing poker, Because she understands this, I only do it in moderation, because it is more important to have her in my life than poker.

The only issue I have been having is relating too people who do not play poker, most of my friends play poker, so when we met up we would end up talking about poker, Well we went to a Diner party and this guy knew nothing about poker and I knew him for a couple of years but after a while I felt if I could not explain my bad beat with AA on a PL NL game then what was I going to talk about.

I understand your pain in terms of feeling old. I agree that most of these guys are no older than 22 (I'm 29). Hate to say you were graduating College when I was getting my driver's license...and these kids were getting their driver's license when I was graduating college, but that's besides the point (sorry man).

Conceptually speaking, if you worked a 12-hour/day job (real job) and were never home to be with your family (ie: doctor), you're getting divorced unless your relationship with your S.O. is iron-clad. Likewise, if you played poker 12-hours/day and never did anything with your S.O., same situation here too.

On the other foot, if your S.O. demands all your attention all the time, then you're not going to be able to work 12-hour workdays or play poker 12 hours/day. (In short, you can't do your job).

The S.O. has to understand that this is your job. You also have to understand that it can't always be about poker. She needs some time too. If she accepts you playing poker for a living, and you can keep time balanced between poker and him/her, then its smooth sailing (for the most part).

im fortunate enough to be a cold hearted sociopath. I'm more happy when im single. maybe someday I'll find myself a degen girlfriend

the way it works for me is my girlfriend doesn't seem to get the whole plaing poker thing. I have to pick my spots very well as to when I can actually play. I work alot of nights and get the day time off and she is vice versa. so the only time I usually play is during the day while she is not here. I have tried playing while she is around in the house but I find myself playing much worse when she is talking to me about shit or trying to get me to spend time with her. So basically only when I got the house free for myself works for me where I can just relax and play a good tournament.

i didnt read any of the post or the replies but tell her to stfu and go roll the dutch / make you some food.

obv brag post

congrats!

I was dumped from my first significant relationship a week before this Christmas (I'm 23 as well), and it stopped the biggest upswing of my poker career. I played too many cash games and above the bankroll and more or less played like I didn't want money anymore. I should be thankful that I only lost a third of my roll. Now that the holidays are over I've been feeling better and playing better and staying away from cash games.

Women are the rake!!!

but in all honesty look how much happier mike mcdermott was after his girlfriend left him.

It's 10X harder being a MTT player than a cash player w/ a relationship.

My new gf loves poker and likes to play a lot (freerolls, micro stakes) and it's obviously really cool. The other day she had off work and I wanted to hang out w/ her but she didn't end up coming over until 1am cuz she was playing tournaments all day. I didn't really mind, but it was a little annoying cuz I didn't know what time she was coming over, if I should start something else, etc. It was good though cuz it makes you think about what other gfs probably were thinking on days I told them I was playing and we could 'hang out later' without any specific time.