Girlfriends and wifes, how do YOU cope?

I learned many many years ago from a pro...my father. My dad just turned eighty four a couple of months ago and I swear to God he's still sneaking equipment into the house! I don't want to sound disrespectful to my wife because she excels in so many other areas, but she really doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the equipment. That's not to say that an entirely different set of speakers wouldn't turn her head, but if you change out an amp that looks similar or stay in a particular style of speaker albeit a more expensive one in the line, it makes it a little easier to slip it in the house. I once traded in my Spectral DMC-10 preamp that we had for many years for a Spectral DMC-20II that looked almost identical except the power supply was as large as the main unit. I told her that I bought a new power supply and that was the end of that discussion. Most women would commit their husbands to an asylum if they ever knew we'd spend some crazy money on a power cord. I'm thinking that she's thinking how much could a power cord cost? Twenty or thirty bucks tops...Speaker cables and interconnects are no brainers. No one other than us fanatics would consider paying the tidy sum equal to the price of a decent second car for a few feet of wire. I better get off this thing pronto. I think I hear my wife heading this way right now and I don't want her to know what I'm up to. Oh hi honey..

I use to sneak the stuff in. Hide the receipt. Tell sales people never to call under any circumstances. But that never worked. Her not knowing became much worse then knowing. Now I fess up when I buy something. I always try to sell something soon after to help off-set the cost. Half the time she has to recieve the item ups when I'm not at home anyway. Better off confessing early.

You folks are great : )

Besides Lorne's "suggestions" making me chuckle, i especially liked the "return rate" on Dekay's audio expenditures. He gets $100 of tubes, she gets a $1 "toy" !!! I bet other guys wish they had the same 100:1 "exchange ratio" !!!

I guess i'm just "lucky". While i'm not married, i've lived with my girlfriend for about 5 years now. Once our common living expenses / bills are paid, my money is my money and her money is her money. This way, we are both happy and responsible for our own actions and expenditures. The fact that she makes more money than i do and i end up paying for most of or a larger percentage of our meals somehow hasn't gotten fully figured out yet, but i'm working on it : )

In terms of electronics / audio gear though, she does "get on me" once in a while. If she starts making comments about how much i just spent or how much "junk" i have stacked up everywhere, i just tell her "let's compare the resale value of ONE of my amplifiers to ALL of your shoes or clothes". She usually shuts up REAL quick... Sean
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I consider myself lucky in that, while by no means rich, my wife and I have separate incomes and checking accounts, but we share a "household" account. I feel sure that this system has spared us a LOT of anguish.

Also, like Vegasears above, she'd much rather see me involved with the seemingly harmless hobby of high-end audio rather than smoking, drinking, doing drugs, and general carousing and hell raising in our community. You can get 2 CDs for the cost of a carton of cigarettes (I'm not trying sound self-righteous here as I smoked for 19 years, and also quit 19 years ago :>). Cheers. Craig

My girlfriend doesn't care ...... But my wife moans once in a while!