What not to do if you want your spouse to support your MR Efforts
OK guys and gals here’s your chance to share your mistakes with other MR wannabe’s, ustabees and gonnabees and how not to impress the one’s you love!
For me it happened four weeks ago when I was isolated in the high Canadian Arctic, on a ship, and got an e-mail entitled “busted!”
Yep Fergmiester got caught, and good, ordered 2 Sound decoders after I was told not to and the supplier called home to verify imformation. Wasn’t pretty! and I couldn’t weasel my way out of it. The whole crew wore it as I was a miserable bear!
My wife doesn’t ask me how much I paid for a new loco and I don’t ask her how much she paid for her new shoes. It’s an unwritten law, and it keeps the peace.
What is wrong with you people? Do not, I repeat, do not **** off your wife!! Under any circumstances!!
You must, at all times, make sure that your wife is ecstatic that she married you. For verily I say unto you: if mama’s not happy, thou shalt dwell in the 9th circle of hell. Play thy cards right and good things shall come thy way. For surely, thy wife will, as mine has, go out of her way to supply thy hobby with some necessary implement or bauble. In this case, it was one of those illuminated magnifiers that clamp on to the workbench. Tiny parts were lost but now are found. Was blind, but now I SEE!
You might want to reconsider, Oklahoma, at 14 you have to keep your parents happy, good grades in school, getting your chores done, and all that good stuff to get mrr time or goodies. Since I’m already divorced, I don’t have to worry about it. The only person I answer to is ME. [:D]
my wife really doesn’t care. just so long as the bills get paid, the yard work gets done, and i spend an equal amount of time with her (if i spend all my freetime during the week down in the basement, then I get NO train time during the weekend) I can do what I want. I’ve even managed to get her interested in it, just because she gets bored and wants to be with me.
All 14 year olds: TAKE NOTES NOW or life will deal you many unpleasant moments! Fergie it is much too close to the holidays to not follow directions, I suspect there were some plans that you MESSED UP. Wives are a strange breed which we must observe and follow their directions carefully.
Will
Just remember the post the other day about the exwife bashing all the trains to little bits while removing her things from the home. ( I think I mighta had to visit her car in the middle of the night after that! )
Many times it’s not the content of the message, but rather, how it is presented.
For example: Say I go to my LHS and buy a few RTR tank cars for $40.00. I could hand my wife the receipt immediately when I get home [we keep all our receipts for budgeting purposes], in which case she’ll say “What - you spent $40 on that!?”
But if I wait a few days, pick up some of my many prescriptions, make several trips to the gas station, etc. - let the expenditures accumulate until she says “Honey, have you been saving the receipts?” I say “Oh sure, here they are!” and hand her $425 worth of expenditures. Now the $40 is less than %10 of the total, so more than 90% of the money was spent on ‘legitimate’ stuff. Changes the perspective dramatically, without my having to ‘change’ the facts![:D]
I have sought agreement from She on every single loco purchase. I have not sought her agreement for other things such as the odd piece of rolling stock, tools, Digitrax SEB, and other odds and sods. But my choices in locos tend to be pricey (steam and sound), so She gets a say.
There has to be a balance. My wife does not keep tabs (apparently), but I do. I know when I am beginning to accumulate the lion’s share of the discretionary spending, so I always back off. At Christmas, there is a huge catch-up for her. She gets the big gifts, but in the spirit of the Holiday, I make sure they are meaningful. Last year was a nice sewing machine because I knew she was becoming interested in quilting. She has commenced classes, and I am happy for her. When she revealed to me that she was concerned she could not afford to take the classes due to my spending, I immediately assured her that she WOULD take those classes. Our communication is good that way.
What not to do? Lie, renegue on an agreement, sneak, or otherwise dishonour her trust in you. You’ll never get 100% of it back…never.
(“…don’t have to worry about. such things…” Tch!. You funny guy!!) [(-D][(-D][(-D]
My wife passed away 18 years ago and I have been fortunate enough to evade getting remarried. (No woman that I would be caught dead with is stupid enough to get hitched to me) Now when I was Married we had two seperate checking accounts. Hers, which she got to use for things we absolutely need for the house like new pillows on the couch, flower arrangements, clothes and other such stuff. The other checking account was “OURS” that was used to pay for the house mortgage, utilities, gas, cars, food and stuff like that and since she did most of the shopping it was always kept in her purse. I was not allowed to use it unless she was staring over my shoulder. (A year after she died, a mutual friend asked me if I was having any trouble with my finances as my wife was very concerned about my ability to balance the checkbook. My answer wasn’t very nice! I only have a Masters Degree in Education!) Anyway, that was when I learned how to do some scratchbuilding with most anything that I had on hand.
Now having said that… All married men should learn the three rules to a happy marriage. Now repeat after me:
I’m sorry!
It’s all my fault!
It won’t happen again!
Got it? Repeat it again… until you get it right. Now altogether…
Reminds me of my old “expense account” days when I was a sales/tech rep in the audio/video biz; sneaking in the occaisional mrr purchase, like benchwork wood as “demo/display building materials”, or 500’ rolls of 12’ or 14’ stranded as “audio or video cable”. In a month’s worth of buisiness expenses…
Got it? Repeat it again… until you get it right. Now altogether…
Thats exactly what I try to tell my 2 sons. But will they listen? Nooooo. Dad doesn’t know what he is talking about. I also tell them that after she is gone you can say what you want just don’t let her hear. Also one more thing to add to list. I was wrong
Q: How much did that locomotive cost?
A: Less than one pair of shoes.
Yeah, the roundhouse costs more than a shoe rack, but if she she had only one pair of shoes for each locomotive I’ve got, she wouldn’t even need a shoe rack.
My girlfriend worries about my train addiction and what it is costing us. (She worries about everything else, too!)
She observes how much stuff is delivered in the mail, and the postal carrier helps her keep track. I often hear “you get something every day!”.
Every once in a while, I order something for her. It may come addressed to me, but I have her open it up. Then I can say “see, it’s not always something for me!” Just today, we received a package. I started to open it, realized what it was and handed it to her (in the presence of the postal carrier, too!). It was a Penguin salt and pepper shaker set. She was very pleased, I got a little kiss, the postal carrier thinks I’m neat and NOBODY asked me what came in the other box!!!
Now, is that being dishonest or thoughtful?
Keeping the peace is a matter of diplomacy (and the occasional bribe/gift!). When my girlfriend saw an ad for a ceramic figurine in the shape of an egg that opened up to reveal a jewel encrusted “stairway to heaven”, I got online and ordered it for her right away. I was her hero a week later when it was delivered (and, once again, the postal carrier thought I was really considerate!). And she didn’t question a single package delivered to me for two weeks after that. (The egg was a little expensive, and she was happy that I ordered it for her.)
But she doesn’t know how much all this stuff is really worth. We have talked about it, so she knows there is value to it. She just doesn’t know HOW MUCH value!
Darrell, mums’ the word, which is why I’m quiet…for now