Your guns & hiding them from the Mrs.

Accounts are still separate since we are still boyfriend/girlfriend rather than husband/wife.

God help me if that changes.

Very interesting situation you got there.

I think I learned my lesson through my NBA basketball card collection.
Basically, I was in a card collection binge. All hobbies are the same: Addiction.

I've learned to control the spending after looking at my Bank account. Lessoned learned.

Now I'm selling off my card collection to buy a new Glock....oh well.

Well...

Truth be told I'd rather be married than have a giant gun collection

So I do the here's five hundred for me and five hundred for you... Actually I save five hundred for me and then just give her every other paycheck that comes through the house...


It keeps her happy and if I go blow a grand she's ok with it. As long as I pay the bills and don't do it too often...

HONESTY

I've always been up front and on the level with the mrs. To get caught in a lie would destroy the trust we've built up over the years and get her to wondering what else I've been dishonest about. That's a road I don't want to go down. If I want to buy a new gun or anything else for that matter, I do it. A friend once told me it's easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission. In my case, I don't need permission but I might need forgiveness from time to time.

Give me a break. She buys so much stuff without consulting me, why bother? I come and go with so many gun cases, who cares what's in them? we travel and camp a lot. She has stated on many occassions she can always count on me to have a knife and gun should the need to use one occurs. Last year we had a bear come into camp and the first thing she did was get behind me. One thing I do need to do is let my kids know what they are worth so when the time comes and they want to sell them off they won't get burned too bad. Now what was the question?

"huh, what new guns?" or "I lost the key to the safe" works

I heard my wife say that I've too many for her to recognize a new gun. So I cleaned my new FAL and didn't say it's new, it passed. Then an 1100, nothing. A secound 1100, nothing. Or the Enfield. Or the increasing size of the surplus ammo I have stored. I love my wife and she knows a fair amount about guns, but I surpassed her memory storage on what I have. 2 more weeks til the next gunshow, what to get next?

Fun2Shoot, Right now your wife is on a jewelry forum asking the very same question.

Do any of you use a little "camoflage' with the husband/boyfriend about your jewelry purchases?

Communication

This can be a tricky issue for many a married man with a gun-buying habit. After you've got your HD weapon and your target pistol and your SHTF armory and your hunting gun and a couple of fun range guns (what's that, say, seven?), any additional accumulation can begin to smack of . . . well, obsession. To put it kindly.

In my view, though, Glassman is entirely right on this one. If you want to stay married, don't disguise your interests, and don't lie about your acquisitive inclinations when it comes to handguns. If she wants to stay married to you--and unless the differences between you are too great for other reasons--she will make a sincere effort to understand and to accommodate your hobby. Within certain limits. She may ask you to curb your impulses to some extent, and if she does, I think you should listen and try to accede to her wishes if they seem reasonable. Maintaining good communication, however, is always the standard. Don't hide your guns from her.

In my case, my wife doesn't really know guns well, nor does she much care about them, but she can handle a weapon properly, and she'll shoot with me from time to time. For some of us (like me), it may be our kids who are tougher to deal with in these respects. I had thought that my 16-year-old daughter would appreciate learning to shoot my 617 and my 41, but no. She can handle my dad's old rifle, a bolt-action Winchester .22 short, but that's as far as she'll go. Recently, I picked up a very pretty nickeled M 15-3 4-inch that I thought she might fall for.

Forget it. When I showed it to her, she said, "I think you should sell it, Dad. Sell it and buy a low-flow toilet." She may be onto something there. I don't think I could develop a low-flow toilet addiction.

For your anniversary, give her the new guns as a present and a testimony of your love.... with a weekend of shooting.








Well on second thought, I am not married so you probably shouldn't take my advice. Plus, giving your wife such an anniversary gift and a loaded gun may place you in the ER. :banghead:

My wife knows about every gun I have.
In fact, she was with me during the purchase of some of them!!

Buy guns that look alike ...

At a quick glance and from a distance, a S&W 5906 and a 4006 look identical. A S&W 342 and a Taurus 850 also look the same. A 3913TSW & a 4513TSW also look a lot alike.

... See?

My problem is not hiding them it’s being able to shoot them once I get them home. Go to the range with just about anything new between .22lr and .357 mag. and she’ll be shooting it as her new favorite gun until we get her next new favorite gun. Then I get to play with the old one. Not complaining, my wife (married 36 years) really enjoys going to the range or just out plinking and I enjoy her enthusiasm.

She could spot a new anything, including modifications, in the storage safe from 20 feet. I found the best thing if I want to play first is to either get something with a bit of recoil i.e. 44 mag. or a mini auto like my Kahr MK9 that’s a bit tough to rack the slide on.

I'm sure everyone has their own way of going about things, don't ask don't tell is one thing, blatantly misrepresenting facts may be another.

Also depends on ratios here, net cost of transactions vs total and disposable income. If someone in a relationship likes to buy a $5 fretalian coffee everyday, and the couple lives within their means making six figures combined give or take, maybe that's not a big deal, but that same $5 per day jolt of caffeine may be a problem if you're living in an apartment or a trailer on government assistance.

Is the net cost within reason after trades etc., or they collector investments that appreciate, are they needed functional defense purchases, are they hobby pieces for different types of shooting, or is it a hoard mentallity obsession? In addition to the bils being paid, are children's educations taken care of, retirement accounts well on their way? Rhetorical questions, of course... just to provoke thought.

I'm just saying we should all know what our limits are with respect to our situation. I know people in relationships that hide things from each other, because the spouse is unreasonable about letting the other person do their thing, but one friend in particular, I find they're both wrong, and they continue to push each other to extremes as a result of their irrational behavior. Her not letting him do anything, and him doing stupid stuff out of spite. Anyway, nothing against the OP, just commenting on how that kind of stuff can get out of hand.

The main thing that concerned me about the OP's comment regarding his son. Sounds like they have a good sense of humor, and his wife probably does too, but regarding that other couple I just mentioned, they do stuff all the time w/ their kids around and don't want the other parent to find out, which baffles me. If you take this too far, you will teach your kid to not respect your spouse, which is their other parent, thus undermining that other parent, and eventually undermining yourself, because as they get older, they'll lose respect for you, if they have any love for the other parent, they can feel slighted by your deception of the other parent, and again, they're learning how to ultimately decieve both parents when the time comes, dilluting their sense of loyalty to the family. That may sound kind of heavy, and again, nothing against the OP, coz I'm not going to judge anyone, certainly off of a couple paragraphs on the Internet, I'm just sharing my concerns over excessive use of that kind of behavior around kids, because it can hurt them, and turn around and hurt you in the end... JMHO

I don't want to be undermined w/ my kids, so I choose not to undermine my wife around our kid, I hope I can stick to that goal as she gets older. If I have an issue w/ my wife, I hope we can work it out together, where I don't feel motivated to go behind her back, but if I did want to say omit something to avoid getting into an issue w/ my wife, I would try to avoid involving the kid, and I hope my wife would do the same....nobody's perfect, I'm just stating my ideal opinion on that matter, as it's a pet peeve of mine, I'd rather try to keep it real w/ everyone if I can...

Regards,

Karz

hide something from MY wife. surely you jest.

I don't hide anything from my wife, she dosn't hide anything from me, it's worked well this way for 28 (almost 29) years. We don't allways agree, and often I don't get to buy when I want to, but remember the old truth, "when mom ain't happy, nobody's happy".

SAILOR

Ain't it the truth! Women lull you into a false sense of security and just when you think it's safe...WHAM!! My wife is smarter than I am (not hard to do) and doesn't miss a thing. She may seem oblivious but I know she isn't. She has that women's ESP and knows intuitavely when something's up.

I advocate straight-up honesty.

The only reason I fear bringing new guns home is my wife may like them and claim them as HER'S. She knows about every one I bring home. As long as I use money not in our budget, bonuses, tax returns, side jobs, she doesn't care.

I don't hide them...

In fact my wife saw a few adds for guns shows in the area and asked if I was going to go and buy a rifle or shotgun...

Do what I do - buy your wife a gun or 2!

It works for me - for both guns & motorcycles! Gets expensive though....