"Ok, I am a former EQ & EQ2 addict. I played EQ1 for over a year(this was way before I met my husband), I was even in the beta. 4 years after I quit I played EQ2 for about a year. If my husband tried to take me away on a romantic getaway while I was mired in my addiction I probably would have gone along but the ENTIRE time I would have been thinking about playing the game. Spend your money more wisely and get yourselves to marriage counseling. In my case, I played EQ1 because I was in a very controlling relationship with a man who would not let me leave the house alone among other things. When I finally escaped that relationship I quit EQ1. I went back to my addiction because I was missing something in my marriage that I thought I could find in fantasy land. I was lonely, had low self-esteem and was using the game as an escape from my husbands short temper. I finally left him while he was at work. I packed all my stuff in a U-Haul and headed across the country. He caught up to me halfway across the next state and begged me to come home. I logged on to EQ once after we got back to give away all of my items and say goodbye then I deleted the game from my system. We are BOTH working on our marriage now. I can bet you that if your partner is addicted to EQ it is because there are other issues that need to be addressed. And I'm not saying its the wids fault either. Just look deeper than the addiction if you want to try and solve the problem.

Also, you may want to try to replace EQ with an equally entertaining but FAR less addictive game like Morrowind. When I get the itch to play EQ (which is probably twice a month) I load my last save game of Morrowind and the game world is exactly as I left it. I don't have to obsess over it because when I'm not there, the world stops. One of the biggest problems with EQ is that it keeps going after you log off and you don't know what you might be missing out on. With an offline game you don't miss anything and if you die or screw up you can just load your last saved game and everything is fixed. There is also less pressure to keep leveling up so that you can continue to play with your guildmates because you are the only one there. And... brace yourself now... you can -pause- the game. I get all the saticfaction of hacking a monster to bits without all of the unnecessary stress."