collection vs wife?

[voltron]

Anyone ever run into "issues" regarding their collection and their significant other? if so what is your issue, how have you solved it , eg, do they say your spending too much money, your buying junk, you love your collection more than me, there is no more room, etc. etc etc.

 

 

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I am not touching this one, I am sure others will chime in.

[+evg2000]

I'm very lucky, my wife is very understanding. We are buying a new house, and one of the considerations was a bigger game room for me. Currently I am using a very large bedroom, in the new house there is a bonus room that we will add a wall to make it a real room. It's 120 sq ft larger than my current video game room.

[IntellivisionDude]

[Dryfter]

No issues here. I have want I want. I actually started trimming down my overall video game collection before I was married anyway so it's not crazy atm. A lot os stored (nicely) the rest is displayed nicely in a bookcase.

 

The wife likes video games as well, but not like me of course.

 

I've never had any of the discussions you've brought up above.

[pimpmaul69]

well rev obviously made the smart decision of boobs over spare games.... :D my wife left in October, so......

[+save2600]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[8th lutz]

I don't have to worry about such a thing despite my age since I am single, but I was helped by a wife that told her husband not to buy a video game.

 

I mentioned that because last month, I bought a game that another person wanted according to the person who sold me the game. What happened was that person was wanted to buy the Atari 2600 version of Mr. do for $20.00, but his wife told him not to buy the game because of cost.

[Rev]

I must have it made! My entire game collection is in our bedroom! Nicely stored in bookcases. When I want to last longer I start to look at my colllection to see what variations I need. But then I get a glance of the mermaid on the fathom box and the ride is over in a few seconds!

 

Ahahahahhaaa

Edited September 18, 2012 by revolutionika

[Rev]

well rev obviously made the smart decision of boobs over spare games.... :D my wife left in October, so......

 

Seriously!

 

Those spare games? Adios! Take care of your woman and she will take care of you. I'm truly lucky to have my wife. She is great.

Edited September 18, 2012 by revolutionika

[jaybird3rd]

I've been a lifelong bachelor (so far), so my opinion is probably worth the paper it's not printed on, but I've never understood why women seem to have such a big issue with collecting. Classic gaming/computing collections seem to be particularly vexing for some reason, as evidenced by all the "my fiancé is making me sell my stuff" threads I've seen in the Marketplace over the years.

 

If any hobby has grown to the point where it's become unhealthy for you (if your house is stuffed with junk, if you're taking time away from work and other responsibilities, if you're spending too much of your income, etc), I can certainly understand someone raising an issue over it, but that's not so much a concern about the hobby per se as it is about maintaining a proper balance. That's a perfectly valid concern. But if your collection isn't taking up an inappropriate percentage of your time, space, and money, what's the big deal? Can't these complaining fiancés/spouses just be happy because their loved ones are doing something that makes them happy? It's only an innocuous leisure activity that doesn't hurt anybody. And shouldn't they at least try to learn something about it, even if they never quite learn to enjoy it, in an effort to have as much in common with their spouses as possible? Men are expected to do that all the time when it comes to their wives' interests.

[voltron]

I am not married, same boat, life long bachelor. My GF keeps asking me "arent" you to old to be playing with toys. I just laugh and point to the room with her shoe collection. Then I point to the other room with the purses and bags. Then another room thats all hello kitty. Then she shuts up

Edited September 18, 2012 by voltron

[shadow460]

Mine told me a year or so before we got married that my gaming hobby "was a concern". At the time, I wasn't too interested in marriage and she knew it. She'd told me some other things "she liked in a man", all things that didn't describe me. My response to those, and to her concern about gaming was, "Why are you telling _me_ this? It's a part of my life to stay, take it or leave it."

 

Now there's very little disagreement about it. I keep my games put away when they're not being used, mainly to protect them. It also keeps them out of the way. Some are displayed prominently like my CV Robin Hood cart which is displayed next to the laserdisc copy of the same movie. For a long time I had Super Mario Brothers on display where it got quite a few comments.

My wife, on the other hand, collects movies. I keep my mouth shut about that. If I didn't it would only be fair if she said something about my game collection.

[nukeshed]

I think I have said this before, but when I got married, I did do away with a lot of superfluous things, like a MtG collection collecting dust, some toys were ebayed, etc. The video games were not moving. Which was OK, so long as they werent in the bedroom or in the living room, save a few. Fine, easily done. I have an office.

 

When times were tough after she totalled my car, I sold one game, an extra CIB copy of Earthbound, and she was amazed at how much it raked in. We were able to have her off for the week, and the deductible paid on the car (she didn't make much), and she has never said a thing about my games ever again (save for the occasional 'Please take this to your office')

[+intvnut]

My wife has a portion of her yarn stash stored in my Keyboard Component. I think we've reached a mutual understanding.

 

(EDIT: Attached a photo, in case you thought the above was a euphemism for something else.)

Edited September 18, 2012 by intvnut

[Seob]

After telling her to get a hobby, she ins't complaining anymore.

She has 'approved' my hobby ever since i sold a few games and some 8-bit computers i didn't use and made some nice money out of it.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Seob

[akator]

I am very lucky. My wife is cool with my collection, even when it was completely unmanageable and took a whole other room in the house for storage. She's especially happy now that I got rid of literally tons of things... and she even plays many games with me, far more now than before.

 

That said, she's still a little bummed that I don't have all of the Atari 2600 systems anymore. We still have a 6-swticher, but she misses all of the other 2600 systems even though she never played all of them before. She misses the Coleco tabletops the most, just because she loved them.

 

But I'm happier because we play many more games together that we did when I had 9x more stuff

[oldjd]

As someone who has been married a very long time,I will share this with you.

If your hobby is taking money from the budget,to pay for everyday needs=thats bad

If your hobby is time consuming/demanding/controlling=thats bad

If your girlfriend/wanna be wife/is making demands now,before you get married=thats very bad

 

What you have to decide is what part of yourself are you willing to give to make the marriage work

And whoever your going to marry has to decide the same thing

 

If you think you can get married and continue to do everything that your doing now,its going to be an issue.

Because at some point there will be an argument,and in the heat of the moment,all the bad,rotten,unthinkable

things your doing now,will come back to bite you in the ass

 

Marriage will only work if its a 2 waystreet,and who knows,maybe once you get past the first 25 years,you may have a chance

[Seob]

As someone who has been married a very long time,I will share this with you.

If your hobby is taking money from the budget,to pay for everyday needs=thats bad

If your hobby is time consuming/demanding/controlling=thats bad

If your girlfriend/wanna be wife/is making demands now,before you get married=thats very bad

 

What you have to decide is what part of yourself are you willing to give to make the marriage work

And whoever your going to marry has to decide the same thing

 

If you think you can get married and continue to do everything that your doing now,its going to be an issue.

Because at some point there will be an argument,and in the heat of the moment,all the bad,rotten,unthinkable

things your doing now,will come back to bite you in the ass

 

Marriage will only work if its a 2 waystreet,and who knows,maybe once you get past the first 25 years,you may have a chance

No just build a house together, survive that, and you will survive in marriage. And of course you have to work on it both. Just get the balance right between, marriage, kids and hobby and all will be alright.

[DZ-Jay]

I am very lucky, indeed. My wife respects my hobby and understands my passion and nostalgia. I get to indulge in my Intellivision stuff and old video games, and she kind of gets a kick of watching me play and enjoying them.

 

Sometimes we play a game together, though not the Intellivision ones (she hates the disc controller!).

 

At times, I feel guilty for spending too much money on toys and stuff, but then I just play the "nostalgia" card on her.

 

-dZ.

[+wood_jl]

Pertinent considerations, in this regard:

 

(1) How [ridiculously] large is the collection, vs. the [inadequate] allotted space?

 

(2) Is this stored [relatively] neatly, or does it look like an episode of Hoarders?

 

(3) Is your [ever-growing] collection well-within your budget?

 

(4) How well are you getting along, in other regards?

 

(5) What reciprocate transgressions do you allow for?

 

Even if everything's great in those regards, one still finds oneself running to the mailbox first or attempting to intercept the mailman, and conceal at least part of it. I think that part's normal.

[IntellivisionDude]

Oh no, your wives have found out about this thread and.......

 

I sure hope those aren't video games.

 

 

 

 

[Fushek]

I joke around about my wife and collection, but in all actuality, she's pretty cool about it. I have a "man cave" in the basement that displays all of my Intellivision games and a few Commodore 64 items. I actually get more grief about "stuff" that I bring home to resell that ends up getting piled up in the basement. Then, when she sees that she has money in the Paypal account, she stops complaining about it. Since I'm making money AND enjoying my hobby, she doesn't complain unless it takes way too much time from her and her needs.

[Binth]

This is a tricky one! In my case my wife is cool with it but then again I have not shown her an auction of Spiker and said it is one of 125 games I need to get to join the 125 club As much as I would love collect them all I am trying to teach my children about living within their means and not spending every last cent they get on stuff they really don't "need". So I have scaled back on most of my collecting because I have other priorities now and lack of space/time and due to guilt for spending money on myself that could be going to pay down debt, college funds etc.

[Bad Man Jose]

Originally I bought some Intellivision stuff at an auction here in town without my wife really being aware of it. I got a Sylvania INTV and 50+ CIB games for a very good price. We have been in the process of paying off her car and some joint bills as well as buying a house so she thought that may have been a bad purchase at the time. To avoid a fight at the time, I sold the system and a number of the games (Still have some left in the Marketplace) because I didn't have anything that couldn't be replaced. One buyer on this website got a hell of a lot of stuff for what I felt was a very good price.

 

When my wife saw how much I paid and how much I got for the games I sold, she greenlighted me to buy other stuff if I was going to sell it for more. I don't really want to go through the effort of reselling stuff as I'm a gamer, not a game store. I will sell what I have and in the future when finances are different, see if collecting is what I want to do.

 

That said, if I ever find one of the rare games, you can bet I'll buy it and get it to someone here for a lot less than what they're going for on EBAY.