Little white lies to the other half

mcjwalters:

Is it only me but my other half cannot grasp the real price of things so I find myself being economical with the true cost of items I buy even to the extent of the cost of my daily sandwich lunch, cost of magazines and the monthly price of the gym. I have also invented a white van man that comes to my business with knock off cd,s etc so when the goods I buy online, have to be sent to my work address, or buy in town, I can take them home without hiding them and can inform her of the amazing price white van man was offering. I take it for granted that for audio visual equipment and boys toys it is a fact of life to understate the price. But surely weekly shopping and mundane day to day expenses are expected and known by everyone.

I've massaged the cost of my Sonos system and my TV (although I think she knows the full price of that one now), the cartridge I bought for her turntable at the Bristol Show on Friday was only £72 but I just told her "it wasn't expensive" (I'd handed her 100 quid before I went into the show anyway, so she can't really complain about that one).

She buys CDs herself so knows what they cost and with Blu-Rays I can demonstrate that it's cheaper to buy them online than in Tesco anyway, so that one's fine.

Thinking about it I didn't tell her how much the blu-ray player cost though...

The only magazines I buy are on subscription now anyway, so they're cheaper than buying in the shops as well. 

Agree with hammill, same here, joint accounts with my wife for 18 years, wouldn,t hide anything, would like to think she is the same.

Oh and she earns much more than me. When you start lying about money to the one person you trully love and trust, then it,s a sad day. That,s only my opinion but.

In my case it's a natural reaction to having lived with my mother. Anything that appeared in the house got the reaction "What's THAT? HOW MUCH DID THAT COST?!!" with any further conversation taking place at increasing levels of volume and pitch. So, like Pavlov's dogs I'm now conditioned to automatically lie about these things.

As far as a joint account goes, my missus had one of those with her previous partner. He tried to leave her holding a 30k overdraft after he stopped paying any money into the account whilst hiding the statements from her, so she's less than enthusiastic about that idea.

In my defence, I pay all the bills, so if I've still got any money left over afterwards as far as I'm concerned I can do what I want with it.

I would never lie about costs of things to MOH, eventually she will find out about the costs from bank or c/card statements, and that would destroy trust in our relationship.

I have however sort of told white lies about technical developments, to justify my spend.  For example, I have an amp that has no HDMI in and got my Kuro screen last year.  I part justified buying my new BDP-S760 on the grounds that I (sorry we) needed m/channel outputs to feed the surround sound to the amp, and that these would be getting less and less common on anything but "really expensive blu-ray players" as time went on and that the £300 price tag of the player in the RS sale was a bargain.

BTW the Sony serves gorgeous pictures to the Kuro 

The only thing I keep a little quiet on is my hifi costs, otherwise everything is transparent. I don't lie as such, I just forget to tell her some things. Like my DAC upgrade in a couple of weeks, I've forgotten to tell her about that, I've even forgotten that she's on holiday in Egypt on the day that I have to take the CDP to the shop to get the new DAC board fitted.

I feel like a very very bad man now.

But in my defence ............

We have been married for over 25 yrs and we have joint accounts etc, .... however, I still (often) buy a cd (or two or three) and just place it on the shelf when my wife is not around

Whenever I browse on ebay, my wife pops up and sarcastically asks: 'What are you buying now?'

Women can be 'tempermental' and sometimes things are best when you just 'keep things quiet'

There's no joint account in our household but I never disguise the cost of anything. I'd just forget what I said and get caught out... And I'm reasonably certain she takes the same approach.

Joint account but we have seperate spending accounts that get fed equal amounts from the joint.

She doesnt care what I buy with my money and I dont care what she spends hers on.

We are always honest about the prices of things, why wouldnt you be?  

She cannot understand me spending £130 on a cable and I cant understand her spending £130 on boots but live and let live.

dim_span:

Women can be 'tempermental' and sometimes things are best when you just 'keep things quiet'

It all went downhill when us girls were given the vote, eh lads? 

Clare Newsome:

dim_span:

Women can be 'tempermental' and sometimes things are best when you just 'keep things quiet'

It all went downhill when us girls were given the vote, eh lads? 

Clare Newsome:

dim_span:

Women can be 'tempermental' and sometimes things are best when you just 'keep things quiet'

It all went downhill when us girls were given the vote, eh lads? 

To counterbalance the argument my other half works in fashion retail and comes home with a new pair of shoes at least twice a week. Not only does she not tell me how much they are, she hides them in her wardrobe so I don't notice. Until she wears them anyway...

True Blue:

Joint account but we have seperate spending accounts that get fed equal amounts from the joint.

She doesnt care what I buy with my money and I dont care what she spends hers on.

We are always honest about the prices of things, why wouldnt you be?  

She cannot understand me spending £130 on a cable and I cant understand her spending £130 on boots but live and let live.

Yep, similar for us.

don't think its an issue if its your money and you've earned it, spend it - I never tell my other half what things cost unless she asks and then normally tell her she doesn't want to know as she would just think i was wasting my money as she would be happy watching an old 28inch tv listening and listening to an alba stereo!

i have most of my parcels delivered to work and quite often recycle stuff as will sell old on ebay and replace with new when arrives

i never ask her what she spends, not interested and usually encorage her to buy wants she wants - I'm not one of those ppl that if I have the money sits and thinks well really should i, if i want it i buy it! - she earns it and i know she is far better with money than me, so trust her not to run up a load of debt to our address