My wife is so uncool!

This is not always true. I have been to MANY symphonies with various girlfriends over the years. They are/were usually the ones who arranged these outings. One arranged a surprise attendance to a symphony in Poland (Krakov) and another in Hungary (Budapest). Most also really enjoy hifi (well, listening to it at anyway). If this if is your hobby, you better work on making your better half a part of it. I see customers go through HELL because their damn nagging wives/girlfriends won't accept their hobby. The $8K wedding ring they can accept, but $500 interconnects? Forget it (went thought this with a customer on Saturday, uh!)!

Story: We sold certain brand of black spkrs to a customer about a year ago. He wanted rosewood, but he bought black. Why? Because he figured he could swap the new spkrs with his old (about the same size) while his wife was out and figured she wouldn't notice. Did it work? Yes.

so I finally get this huge 1250 sq foot apt with a huge living room with wall to wall capeting unparallel walls and in the right dimension ratios. I start setting up my Infinity reference standars and my girlfriend starts shrieking nonnono can't we just use your little AR powered Partner speakers! Broke up with her the next day.

My wife doesn't mind when I buy stuff (of course I lie about the cost, I know she lies about the cost of all those shoes) but she is a pain when I want to listen to it.

Who isn't a pain when you want to listen? Probably everybody in the world is, especially if you're comparing a mole's worth of cables, get to a critical point, and then all of a sudden it's bedtime...