Women

[HO Brian]

My wife told me it was either "her or the train layout".  Man, I am really going to miss her.

 

Brian

[selector]

I wouldn't suggest for a second that my marriage is perfect, but neither did I ever idealize my wife or our circumstances.  We tended to grow together after we were married, and we have influenced each other.  She still bugs the you-know-what out of me at times, and I accept, without regret or guilt, that I do the same to her.  We still can laugh and kid each other.

The secret is to not let it get the upper hand.  Treat each other as individual humans with separate histories...all you share is what happened after you met.  My youngest brother's wife is a real pistol, sharp as a tack, computer science grad.  Now that their youngest is in university, she has wondered what became of all her dreams.  She wants "her life" back!  I suspect all of us feel 'ripped off'' in some ways.  If you are not prepared to do your share, to give your share, to take your share, your marriage is doomed.  Any such friendship is doomed!

(Reminds me of an old Andy Capp cartoon where Flo is obviously angry at Andy for something, and he intones, "Flo, marriage is all about give and take.  Yer the one who gives."  Most of us can appreciate the humour and irony, but we all should feel a little twinge of guilt for the times when we knew we were looking out for ourselves first.)

I spend too much on my hobby, but I feel I owe it to myself to find some happiness and excitement to keep me motivated in general to deal with other realities.  I have other interests, and so does She.  I try to keep it even-handed without keeping scrupulous records.  When I know she really lusts after something, I try hard to get her to accept it as a fact of life and I will buy it for her if she walks away.  Did that with a nice purse last spring, and she carries it everywhere.  Victory for Crandell.  Same for a $40 sports coat marked down considerably in Vancouver recently.  She loves it!  If the house bills and taxes are paid, and an emergency fund of some kind is kept, enjoy some of...not all...some of...the rest.

I do worry, to close, about how easy it is to be highly acquisitive in this hobby.  A new promising engine that is announced is really tough to stave off, and so is cruising the auction sites looking for easy pickin's.  I stay away.

-Crandell

[jguess733]

Though my wife doesn't share my love of trains, she does accept it. The first hunting season after we were married she laid down the law that she WILL not be a hunters widow next season. I came up with a great solution. One that shares my love of the outdoorsm, and her passion for photography. She started to accompany me on my hunting trips, and would sit in the blind with me, or in her own tree stand and take very remarkable photo's of the wildlife, though i did all the hard work by calling the critters in.

Her only stipulation was that I couldn't kill anything when she was with me. So I hunted in the mornings, while she slept in, and took her out in the evenings. I guess the moral of the story is find some way to compromise, or get her involved in something that you are interested in, be open and honest, and you shouldn't have any problems.

 I actually got her pretty good that year too. She had been eyeing a very nice Cannon DSLR camera, so I scrimped and saved all year long. I bought myself a new bow, and the camera. I put the camera on her pillow, and showed her the bow when she got home. When she got mad and stormed off to our room it was like she was a five year old on Christmas morning.

[Ulrich]

selector

I wouldn't suggest for a second that my marriage is perfect, but neither did I ever idealize my wife or our circumstances.  We tended to grow together after we were married, and we have influenced each other.  She still bugs the you-know-what out of me at times, and I accept, without regret or guilt, that I do the same to her.  We still can laugh and kid each other.

The secret is to not let it get the upper hand.  Treat each other as individual humans with separate histories...all you share is what happened after you met.  My youngest brother's wife is a real pistol, sharp as a tack, computer science grad.  Now that their youngest is in university, she has wondered what became of all her dreams.  She wants "her life" back!  I suspect all of us feel 'ripped off'' in some ways.  If you are not prepared to do your share, to give your share, to take your share, your marriage is doomed.  Any such friendship is doomed!

(Reminds me of an old Andy Capp cartoon where Flo is obviously angry at Andy for something, and he intones, "Flo, marriage is all about give and take.  Yer the one who gives."  Most of us can appreciate the humour and irony, but we all should feel a little twinge of guilt for the times when we knew we were looking out for ourselves first.)

I spend too much on my hobby, but I feel I owe it to myself to find some happiness and excitement to keep me motivated in general to deal with other realities.  I have other interests, and so does She.  I try to keep it even-handed without keeping scrupulous records.  When I know she really lusts after something, I try hard to get her to accept it as a fact of life and I will buy it for her if she walks away.  Did that with a nice purse last spring, and she carries it everywhere.  Victory for Crandell.  Same for a $40 sports coat marked down considerably in Vancouver recently.  She loves it!  If the house bills and taxes are paid, and an emergency fund of some kind is kept, enjoy some of...not all...some of...the rest.

I do worry, to close, about how easy it is to be highly acquisitive in this hobby.  A new promising engine that is announced is really tough to stave off, and so is cruising the auction sites looking for easy pickin's.  I stay away.

-Crandell

 

Very well put.. there's give and take and one shouldn't even attempt to keep score. Funny you should mention the purse..my wife too buys purses...and when she drops five or six hundred bucks on one I don't worry about it anymore. Back when I first met her though it was quite an adjustment for me...As for the hobby, I don't spend more than I have to...I'm sure the hobby shop I visit on a regular basis thinks I'm a poor sod..I usually go in ...I browse..and I leave. Once in awhile I will buy a book or a magazine...maybe a length of track or a boxcar. Most of the fun for me isn't in the acquisition.. it is more in developing my ability to put together a nice layout... in large part it is an artistic undertaking..  In some respects the easy availability of so many super detailed models takes away from the hobby.. once upon a time if you wanted a super detailed model of anything you pretty much had to make it yourself. Now its more or less a question of how deep your pockets are and go and get it.

[reklein]

I been married 38 yrs. See This? No lips, No tongue. Bitten off years ago. Also have no guts and no ambition. Actually we have a pretty good life. She always knows what I spend,she keeps the books but I make the money. She doesn't participate in the hobby,she reads and uses the library mostly,and always goes along to the swaps meets adn so on. I usually bounce a big purchase off her mostly just as a way to ask myself out loud,"do I really want this?   BILL

[selector]

I just realized, Bill, that I do the same...I bounce off her the larger purchases.  Engines for sure because they all come with sound or will have it installed...either way it adds to a chunk of cash.  Oddly, she goes to the next large center and comes back with stuff adding up to way more and rarely consults me.  But, like in your case, she pays the bills and I am the provider of the fodder.  I guess she should be apprised of the negative cash flow generated by me so that she can anticipate tight spots.

-Crandell

[Arjay1969]

Truck

Do your wives ever nag you about how much you spend on trains?  No matter how hard I try to hide stuff I buy She still finds out.

 

My wife and I don't always agree on everything, but we found a solution to the "Hobby Spending Blues".  We both work full time, and get paid on alternating Fridays.  Each Friday, we each take $50, and that is our "Allowance" for the week.  And that allowance is for whatever purpose the holder of said cash sees fit to spend it on.  If a large purchase is planned, the cash is saved up.  Now, occasionally, things come up that are immediate (say a super-duper sale on a locomotive that I've been lusting after), so when that happens we discuss it first.

And I think that's the biggest key, at least in my relationship.  Communication.  We talk about things and get everything out in the open.  When we were just dating, I let her know from the start that model trains were something that I enjoy very much, and if I was going to be forced to give them up to be with her, to let me know right then and there so we could part ways amicably.  Likewise, she collects teddy bears, so if I had a problem with that, yadda yadda.  We'll celebrate our fourth anniversary this March.

Of course, it does help that she takes part in our modular setups and permanent layout open houses.  Heck, we even bought her two trains of her own...a Chicago Metra train and a Wisconsin Central freight.   And she has bought me a couple of teddy bears of my own.  One even wears an engineer's cap.

 

I also have a friend whose wife pretty much refuses to let him partake in the hobby, though I'll admit she has loosened the leash a bit in the past couple of years.  There, I see a man who has had no stress relief.  I would NOT want to be in his shoes.

[wjstix]

Phoebe Vet

I just have to ask.

What attracted you to these women to start with?

Well, my wife was a model...that is, she did lingerie and clothes ads for national catalogues, and live fashion shows etc....not that she was HO size.

Of course I didn't know that her family has a long history of mental illness / depression and such. I appreciate it's been hard for her. Without going into the full story, her daughter has some "problems" so we've been raising her daughter's son for the last year and a half (he turns 3 next month). When my wife gets anxious or depressed she gets very moody and frankly kinda nasty. I'm hoping things will eventually smooth themselves out.