[edited topic title to reflect actual intent of this thread. The original title was "How do you ignore your wife", to which the answer would obviously be "you don't, but you can do so and so to manage your family/work time". I believe this is known as a loaded question (thanks hodgman), not intended to be answered on its face.]

So my wife doesn't have a job even though she has a college degree (v. high unemployment rate in our country), we don't have kids yet, so she pretty much has nothing to do all day. I return home from my day job, but I'm finding it pretty difficult to sit at my computer and work for any considerable length of time without it causing her to become upset. I've talked with her repeatedly and I feel she understands and tries hard to not be demanding and let me work in piece, but the truth is that it's not working, and she always ends up feeling lonely, sad, and ignored. I don't feel it's her fault, but I do know it's seriously getting in the way of me working on my indie project. It's not that I don't want to spend any time with her, because I do, but it seems that as long as I'm at home, I'm expected to spend ALL my time with her.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a story about a failed kickstarter project that ended up costing the developer his marriage specifically because he worked too hard on the project at the expense of spending time with his family. It caused me to worry. For people who work on projects after their day jobs, how do you ignore your wives?

Quit your day job :lol:

Seriously though, it's the same with any hobby. If you played golf every afternoon it would be detrimental to your personal relationships too. Every relationship is different so you need to discuss how much time is appropriate to spend on personal hobbies / "me time".

Is it impossible to let her join the project? Like suggesting ideas or designing items? most girls are great at color-matching and such, and I bet you have some design in your game, would it be cute to ask for her opinion? maybe moving to the kitchen table and drinking tea together while working?
If she has "nothing to do" you could give her little tasks on topics she might enjoy so you could both get passionate about this maybe (:
Like researching the specifics of stuff such as the history of a particular object you would like to insert in a game, or how she thinks a player will feel after trying your game (girls and feelings work great together!)
if she feels left out and you love what you do just as much as you love her, and she does love you as well, why not trying sharing this thing? you may not have kids but every game becomes like a little kid, and growing it together is awesome!
I'm not married yet, but I do this with my partner, we share little projects, he's a programmer and I do designs and animations. He doesn't particularly like games but he enjoys doing some coding for me and I think it's super-sweet! We exchange ideas and solutions and I'm always impressed at how smart he is.

It might occur that your project is not the kind of project she enjoys, it happens, so you may consider starting a new project together. something small, but something that will fuel her imagination and make you both feel like accomplices again.
Then you could get home and hear what she thought during the day and reserve a couple hours for that, and then dedicate time to your main project.

I know it's not what you asked for but I love how you care about this to even ask for some kind of opinion and wish you the best of luck with solving it (:

Quit your day job :lol:

Seriously though, it's the same with any hobby. If you played golf every afternoon it would be detrimental to your personal relationships too. Every relationship is different so you need to discuss how much time is appropriate to spend on personal hobbies / "me time".

Setting hard limits did not work in my case - apparently the sight of me sitting at my computer doesn't register with her as actual work, especially since the project has yet to generate any income.

Is it impossible to let her join the project?

Great idea, but unfortunately yes, it's impossible in my case. She has no technological skills that can be even remotely useful to the project.

I mainly posted in order to hear people's experiences and ideas with this matter in general, so a suggestion that doesn't work for me may well work for another couple :)

Nobody said she had to deal with the technological side of things though... there's playtesting, there's suggesting ideas, there's helping point out obvious flaws, there's quite a bunch of stuff that could be done. This is precisely where you should be creative =P And if she could get a college degree she probably can manage to learn something complex if needed, so don't underestimate that too.

Great topic, and something that can be really important for developers...

Relationships can be a massive time sap in general (and wait till you have children!!), but they can really be a problem when the other half resents the time spent on a computer (hey, he prefers to spend time with the computer than ME!!). Most non-nerds cannot comprehend the idea of why someone would want to spend time working on something that is merely 'data', and see it as a waste of time. :rolleyes:

If you can, a possible help would be for you to somehow work 'away from home', so your other half thought about it less.. one of my friends does this. I work from a home office, and in the end had so much grief from my former partner, I ended things with her and told her to move out. In your case I would in the first instance try and get the wife interested in her own hobbies / try and get a job, because it is unhealthy having her life focused solely around you. :blink:

Ultimately I am with the nikola tesla school of thought, and prefer to keep relationships on the side burner and instead spend time with the true love of my life, my PC. I find it easier to not live with a girlfriend, that helps the separation.

A good quote from Conan illustrates the situation, but replace the steel with the computer:

The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts.

[Points to sword]

Conan's Father: This you can trust.

we don't have kids yet, so she pretty much has nothing to do all day

I see a couple of alternatives here.

1. Have her make you sandwiches and bring them to you while you indulge yourself in your self-actualization.
2. Make a baby on her so she can stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while you indulge yourself in your self-actualization.
3. Turn off the computer and work on your social skills, maybe try to save your marriage.

Consider if your project is more important than your marriage and decide on one of them.

I had the same issue when I moved in with my girlfriend (fiance now). I determined she was more important than my hobby project, so I'd limit myself to 3 hours a day max working at home.

In my case she doesn't work because I make enough money where we don't have to worry about it, but I helped her start a candle making business to give her something to do with her time. From her perspective she's bored all day while you're at work, then you come back from work and ignore her for 5+ hours.

Setting hard limits did not work in my case - apparently the sight of me sitting at my computer doesn't register with her as actual work, especially since the project has yet to generate any income.

That's an honest conversation you need to have with yourself -- are you working two jobs, or do you have a job and a hobby?

If you decide that you are working two jobs, imagine for a moment that it's something mundane, like stocking shelves at a supermarket. Now replay one of the discussions with your wife in this alternate reality -- "Amr0, I never see you! That damn supermarket keeps you there all night! Why can't you just quit, we don't need the money that badly?". Find out if you really do have a good reason to be trying to work two jobs or not -- one of which is an unpaid job at a risky startup company who are only giving you equity instead of salary.

If you decide that you have one job and a hobby, imagine that it's something else, like golf. Is it really appropriate to play golf every single day?

P.S. the way you phrased the question ("how do you ignore your wives?") reminds me of the famous loaded question, "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" :lol:

The answer to that is to un-ask it and correct the line of questioning.

The reason I started this thread is because I love my wife and would like to find ways to make her happier, hopefully while being able to find a few hours to work on a project that I'm hoping will eventually help us financially.