$12 is very little for the amount of entertainment you can get from WoW, even on a very small budget. That’s like a meal out for one person or one movie ticket at some places, which is only going to last you a couple hours at most. As some others have said, I would wonder if she really had a problem with the money or if it was more about something else and she didn’t want to say it outright.
I’ve played the game for 5 years, and it’s been a problem between my wife and I at times so I’ve cancelled a few times, but almost always go back to it. I’ve now found a much more happy medium where I can play and not cause a problem, also she’s realized that it’s ok for me to do something I enjoy on my own sometimes and that we don’t have to be together 24/7. She kind of realized every guy has his “thing” whether it be video games, movies, sports, drinking, making furniture, racing something, and on and on. At least with WoW or other games I’m at home and available and not out getting drunk and screwing other women or making a jackass of myself.
And the times I did quit playing we still had disagreements at times and the times I was playing we still had plenty of good times. When I wasn’t playing she would sometimes encourage me to play again because she could see that I still wanted to play it and she was taking something I really enjoyed away from me. WoW is not some sort of magical marriage-ending game. No more than any other activity is.
If you asked the same question but about what some of the other answerers were passionate about, I’m sure they wouldn’t be so quick to say throw out the game and spend every waking minute making your wife happy. They may enjoy building model cars or smoking cigars or knitting, but since they don’t see the appeal of a video game themselves it’s very easy for them to say toss it out and spend all that time and money fawning over your wife instead.
Also, seems like some women would take offense to what some of you are saying that they can be so easily wooed with a few flowers and shiny things put in front of their face. My wife doesn’t like flowers and buying her trinkets to try to apologize or substitute for spending actual time together never works. Maybe other people’s wives are different but that would be insulting to my wife to imply that if you just spend $12 on something shiny for her that she’ll be happy.