It's really quite simple. Don't make this harder than necessary.
Similar to training a dog, ok? When you train a dog, you do the same
thing over and over till they understand.
With an xyl, what you do is this:
You bring home a boatanchor borrowed from a friend. She will say,
"What is that?" You say, "Oh it's an old radio I am fixing for my buddy,
Joe."
Then, (and this is the extremely important part) you MAKE SURE SHE SEES
YOU TAKE THE BOATANCHOR BACK OUT OF THE BASEMENT A FEW DAYS LATER.
It might be most effective if you do it during dinner hour, right through the
kitchen.
Repeat the above a few times.
I guarantee, after 3 iterations, she won't ever ask again.

Rick K2XT

Rick wrote:
It's really quite simple. Don't make this harder than necessary.
Similar to training a dog, ok? When you train a dog, you do the same
thing over and over till they understand.
With an xyl, what you do is this:
You bring home a boatanchor borrowed from a friend. She will say,
"What is that?" You say, "Oh it's an old radio I am fixing for my buddy,
Joe."
Then, (and this is the extremely important part) you MAKE SURE SHE SEES
YOU TAKE THE BOATANCHOR BACK OUT OF THE BASEMENT A FEW DAYS LATER.
It might be most effective if you do it during dinner hour, right through the
kitchen.
Repeat the above a few times.
I guarantee, after 3 iterations, she won't ever ask again.



You're right!!! I'll get thrown out of the house for messing up the kitchen!

/s/ DD, W1MCE

"Oh it's an old radio I am fixing for my buddy, Joe."

What happens when she sees you do this three times and says "you are
spending a lot of time helping your friends but you do not have time to
paint the house, repair the front door lock or fix my vacuum cleaner", what
do you say?

COLIN LAMB wrote:
"Oh it's an old radio I am fixing for my buddy, Joe."

What happens when she sees you do this three times and says "you are
spending a lot of time helping your friends but you do not have time to
paint the house, repair the front door lock or fix my vacuum cleaner", what
do you say?

It's far better to foster a relationship of mutual respect, and trust.
I could never live with a woman that scrutinized my every move. Nor
would I ever think I had the right to scrutinize my wife's every move.

Respect and trust. It is the only way. Trickiness and deceit will only
result in a divorce.

-Chuck

"Respect and trust. It is the only way. Trickiness and deceit will only
result in a divorce."

So, when your wife asks you what you think of the new recipe she slaved 8
hours making, you have no problems telling her it tastes like crap?

Or, when she comes back with a new hairdo she is proud of, you tell her the
old one was a lot better.

When your wife just turns 50 and asks you how old she looks, you tell her
the truth?

Sometimes wives do not want to know the truth. My wife would cringe when
she saw the checks I wrote for helicopter rental. So, she asked me to
create a helicopter account and keep it from her. I did. Soon, it became
the expensive aircraft and radio account. She has been happy since.

Honesty is the quickest way to tick your spouse off and get a divorce.

K7FM

COLIN LAMB wrote:
"Respect and trust. It is the only way. Trickiness and deceit will only
result in a divorce."

So, when your wife asks you what you think of the new recipe she slaved 8
hours making, you have no problems telling her it tastes like crap?

No, I wouldn't tell her it: "it tastes like crap", I'd tell her something
didn't work out quite right, and then I'd tell her what. My wife is a great
cook. She knows when she gets good results, and when he has gotten a bad
result.

Or, when she comes back with a new hairdo she is proud of, you tell her the
old one was a lot better.

No, I can tell how she feels by the look in her eyes. If she is happy with
the result, then I am happy. It is called being aware of your spouse.

When your wife just turns 50 and asks you how old she looks, you tell her
the truth?

We are both over 50, and she looks great. Neither of us are buff 20 YO's anymore,
but I see her physical beauty, and her spiritual beauty... It works for me!

There is one other thing you need to know, a wife that constantly asks land mine
questions is trying to provoke a confrontation. You had better find out what
is wrong, and help make it right.

Sometimes wives do not want to know the truth. My wife would cringe when
she saw the checks I wrote for helicopter rental. So, she asked me to
create a helicopter account and keep it from her. I did. Soon, it became
the expensive aircraft and radio account. She has been happy since.

My wife is my best friend, and my partner. There is no way I would try and
shield her from my expense account. Nor would she me from hers.

Honesty is the quickest way to tick your spouse off and get a divorce.

The little lies you tell will build up to a crushing point, and one day you
will discover how wrong you were.

-Chuck

"The little lies you tell will build up to a crushing point, and one day you
will discover how wrong you were."

Well, actually, I have been happily married for almost 30 years. I am
faithful to her and she knows it. I am a collector and she is not. I fly
and she is frightened of flying is small aircraft. She golfs and I do not.
She tolerates my radio junk. She does not like it and thinks I have more
than I need, but she tolerates it because she loves me. She spends money on
some things she likes and I could care less and do not even know what it is
for. I have a separate building full of my junk and she has no problem
with that - she just does not like it when it starts accumulating in the
house.

So, the only problem is the things she knows about. One of the bedrooms is
my Search and Rescue room, where I have everything I need all over the
place, where I can quickly grab and go. She knows about it and does not
like it and considers it clutter. But, she tolerates it because she loves
me. She would much prefer that I move it somewhere else. Many of her
friend's husbands are neatniks - but they are also boring. In the end, she
prefers me to someone like them.

And, she does not want to know how much I spend on radio junk or flying.

Colin K7FM

COLIN LAMB wrote:
"The little lies you tell will build up to a crushing point, and one day you
will discover how wrong you were."

Well, actually, I have been happily married for almost 30 years. I am
faithful to her and she knows it. I am a collector and she is not. I fly
and she is frightened of flying is small aircraft. She golfs and I do not.
She tolerates my radio junk. She does not like it and thinks I have more
than I need, but she tolerates it because she loves me. She spends money on
some things she likes and I could care less and do not even know what it is
for. I have a separate building full of my junk and she has no problem
with that - she just does not like it when it starts accumulating in the
house.

So, the only problem is the things she knows about. One of the bedrooms is
my Search and Rescue room, where I have everything I need all over the
place, where I can quickly grab and go. She knows about it and does not
like it and considers it clutter. But, she tolerates it because she loves
me. She would much prefer that I move it somewhere else. Many of her
friend's husbands are neatniks - but they are also boring. In the end, she
prefers me to someone like them.

And, she does not want to know how much I spend on radio junk or flying.

Colin K7FM

Explained that way, your relation ship seems to be a good one.

It isn't dishonest to withold information from someone that wants
to be left out of the loop.

But, that isn't what I was clucking about. The stories that went prior
to yours about how to train your wife by lying to her about repairs
on friend's stuff, or sneaking it into the house, are the ones that
are trouble waiting to happen. We are mostly all adults here, we should
act like adults.

-Chuck

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:07:05 -0500, Chuck Harris
wrote:

COLIN LAMB wrote:
"Respect and trust. It is the only way. Trickiness and deceit will only
result in a divorce."

So, when your wife asks you what you think of the new recipe she slaved 8
hours making, you have no problems telling her it tastes like crap?

No, I wouldn't tell her it: "it tastes like crap", I'd tell her something
didn't work out quite right, and then I'd tell her what. My wife is a great
cook. She knows when she gets good results, and when he has gotten a bad
result.

We are both retired and both busy. We eat a lot of TV dinners ...and
salads.

Or, when she comes back with a new hairdo she is proud of, you tell her the
old one was a lot better.

I usually forget to say anything.


No, I can tell how she feels by the look in her eyes. If she is happy with
the result, then I am happy. It is called being aware of your spouse.

If she's not, I don't say anything, or course I usually forget any
way.


When your wife just turns 50 and asks you how old she looks, you tell her
the truth?

We both turned 50 so long ago it's hard to remember. OTOH she's more
trim now than even back then. Turning 40, 50, and so on has never been
a traumatic occasion for us. Actually, I think I told here she looks
pretty good for such an old gal. OTOH I also told her that yesterday.


We are both over 50, and she looks great. Neither of us are buff 20 YO's anymore,
but I see her physical beauty, and her spiritual beauty... It works for me!

Both of us were probably in the best physical shape of our lives
through our 40's and into our 50's.

Now I'm the one who needs to lose the weight.
She bicycles several thousand miles a year and works out about 3 or 4
times a week.

I try to work out a half hour to 40 minutes a day on a Nordic Trac and
fly airplanes. Flying does give your legs quite a work out. My
profession was Computer Science and I keep our computers running and
up-to-date along with our own network. That results in far too much
"chair time" which is why I'm the one who needs to lose weight.


There is one other thing you need to know, a wife that constantly asks land mine
questions is trying to provoke a confrontation. You had better find out what
is wrong, and help make it right.

At our age, we both try to avoid asking things like that.:-)) Learned
that "long ago". We still have a sense of humor, know our own
weaknesses and each other's. We make light of our own and never make
fun of the other's.

Sometimes wives do not want to know the truth. My wife would cringe when
she saw the checks I wrote for helicopter rental. So, she asked me to
create a helicopter account and keep it from her. I did. Soon, it became
the expensive aircraft and radio account. She has been happy since.

That's fine as it's what she wanted.

It's not uncommon to hear her say, "It's such a nice day, why aren't
you out flying?" She knows what flying a high performance, complex,
retract costs.
My wife pays the bills. She knows where it all goes. I do the
investing. She says I also do the spending, but it pretty much evens
out.


My wife is my best friend, and my partner. There is no way I would try and
shield her from my expense account. Nor would she me from hers.

We each do our own thing such as biking and flying, but we do things
together as well.


Honesty is the quickest way to tick your spouse off and get a divorce.

There is brutal honesty and common sense honesty.
9 times out of 10 diplomacy works wonders with the truth but it may
take a careful approach. After this many years I also know when I
shouldn't say any thing (usually)


The little lies you tell will build up to a crushing point, and one day you
will discover how wrong you were.

A friend said she and her husband never had an argument. One day she
came home and he was gone. Some people might have to think about that
one for a while but the reasoning is quite evident.

-Chuck

No one is perfect. You know there is, or are going to be problems
when one or both of a couple think the other is perfect. If a couple
never has an argument it means one of them just gives in with out
saying anything.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com