Tales of slowly winning the wife over...

Yeah...I got rid of mine.  Problem solved.

 

Any other stories of spousal victories out there?

Wife likes BNSF. I'm the Self-Appointed Information Minister of the Isle of Denial. She wants me to buy and run a set of BNSF "Swoosh" Diesels. If I concede, she'll be happy, but I'll be removed from office. Such a conflict.

Bribery! 

"Before you build anything..." definitely sounds like implied consent to me. Fix up the closet, then start on the trains.

When my wife and I bought our house we where going through how much space the trains would get. She said I should take the ten by ten spare bedroom, after all how much space do you need she argued.

 

Well, I had my brother over and we where talking about what the house needed done to it. When my wife was walking into the room I told him to go with what I was about to say.

 

As soon as she got into ear shot I started to describe the hole I wonted in the ceiling so my trains can run down from the spare bed room so as to reach my shelf layout in the living room. At hearing that she banished me and my trains to the basement and the rest is history.

Winning her over seems to be a much better solution than running her over...probably only room for a small trolley layout in a prison cell--and your cell-mate might be a narrow gauge fan....

 

Jeff C

Remodel the master closet.  After that a 20 by 30 is fair game!  Then do it.

Of course while you're remodeling the closet, you'll want to save the "extra" lumber and shelves you'll have to buy  so they can be repurposed for the train room.

 

J White

My wife thinks I am crazy, but its a good crazy and I do what I want when I want! Love her!!!!

I bypassed the wife and went straight to the 4 year old. Now I just wait for her to want to run some trains, and set up a temporary layout on the living room floor. I will have the layout one day, but it will probably be after we buy a new house and have more space. 

This reminds me of how I got hooked on O Gauge.  When I was a kid, every winter I tried setting up an HO layout.  Could never get it to work.  One year I got a lionel NYC Flyer set to go around the Christmas tree, now married with 3 kids.  I was like, wow this really runs great!-  I'm going to build a layout.  2nd layout in.  She actually has always supported the endeavor.  I actually held back till I joined this forum and realized I'm not alone.  Build it, run 'em and have fun.  Good luck with your spouse.  Rig up a train to bring her margaritas maybe.  

Build her closet then play cause you know it ain't going to stop just there with her honey-do list just as your train list

 

Good luck!

My tale begins last year. The layout in place at the time was almost never run, was awkward, hard to work on, unattractive, etc. etc. I was only able to purchase a series of modules when I pointed out they could be stored out of the basement, in the crawl space, when not in use. They were first set up under my ownership at last Christmas's Holiday Festival of Trains at the B&O Museum. Wife, daughter, and grandson came and saw the show. (photo, but at a module adjacent to mine). She saw the response of grandson and other kids. At home, she asked: "could you use that module at home instead of what you have?" BINGO! down came the old layout. New layout is underway with module (removable) as center, turn-around loops at each end. Tied in with this was total basement re-do, painting, organization, etc. Things aren't "perfect" yet, but they are a good bit better!

 

B&OBill

LOL..... or model in HO!

If your wife says "I don't care, do whatever you want"; that does not necessarily give you implied permission to do anything. All that really does is give you enough rope to hang yourself.

 

The idea of doing her closet first is a good one. Buy "extra" materials. She won't notice until the closet is done and then she'll be wanting the extra materials "out of here". Another "don't ask why I know this answer".....

When a guy retires, a wife can be thankful for any hobby he might have to keep him from driving her crazy all day.

She says..."Well just promise me you'll finish remodelling the master closet before you build anything. Otherwise I'll go crazy."

 

Mine said the same thing...I tore the closet out

 

It actually was a good thing.  I built the closet back in the early 90s when we moved in, but I couldn't find a door to fit it that looked like the others in the house.

 

Plus it gave her more room for her hobby, collecting Sarah Coventry jewelry.

It all started some twenty years ago when we moved into our current home. The kids were all very little and I took the spare room for an HO layout. As the kids grew political boundaries changed and under my wife's insistence the train board was removed. I didn't mind though because I wanted O scale trains anyway.

 

Then about two years ago I decided it was time. So I began to purchase trains as I could. I even built modules that I could temporary put up and take down. Put up. Take down. Put up. Take down. There has to be a better solution.

 

Then a month ago it hit me. My wife has always said I should run trains around the living room valance. I like the idea too but never thought much of it. WHAT? All these years and now it hits me. I have her approval. Yes I got a current update on this approval. It still holds.

I think my wife's concerns were that I would neglect other household issues. 

This sort of situation fades over time, as sooner or later all spouses realize that resistance to a benign hobby is futile. Keeping my wife in the loop and making compromises at the start made a later expansion into a full room more palatable aka start small..and I demonstrated I can do household projects while holding off on layout work.as long as I do her pet projects in a somewhat timely manner, life is good. Retirement makes all this a much easier integration as Joe mentioned as I can attest to this personally.

Yep, got rid of mine also.  From prison to freedom, how sweet it is.  I believe it is not healthy nor right for one spouse to tell another to restrict his or her interest, especially when it involves a good hobby.  Once you see these restrictions instead of support, a relationship has problems.

 

TEX

Steve

I'm lucky,my wife is very supportive of my trains and " hobbies" in general we also enjoy boating. I kid around when I order a new engine, she usually just laughs, "another one"! That said I could  be doing a lot worse off activities and she and I both realize that, not that I would.

One other point is, what does it take to remodel a closet?  Some shelf material, some poles, a handful of brackets, etc.  Sounds like no more than a half a day on a good day, a whole day on a bad day.  Hang some shelves and move on.  A layout is a bit more work, and a lot more fun.   Don't forget your level.

My ex-wife had a non-train-related mid-life crisis and left me with two children still in  school , a business and a house. Excellent. I now have an around the room ceiling railroad in the dining room (Maerklin gauge 1), impossible under the ancien regime. I am revamping the back yard to better show off my garden railroad (LGB European trains), also impossible in the past. I revamped the basement to include a Super "O" display layout, integrated with an around the wall O-gauge layout. My (24-year old) son's HO layout waits his reawakening. In several decades, I never cheated, never went to the bars, never gambled, was always home and am a good provider. SO: FREE AT LAST! Never again will I go down the aisle.

 

I also took up gardening in a big way,revamping the yard. My son's girl friend visited yesterday and took pictures to show her family,  who are also interested in gardening, what I have done.

 

Ding-dong: The wicked witch is dead! No more slithering trains into the house. I actually get deliveries to my front door. The feeling is intoxicating, like listening to opera the first time.

 

Best,  Mark

My wife likes the layout and probably enjoys it more than I do. I've been building it for so long, sometimes it seems more like work than play. When I start a new structure, I do it on the kitchen counter and it might slowly make its way to completion sitting there for weeks. She doesn't object. Granted, we have a lot of counter space and it is not near her cooking/food prep area.

 

Likewise, she enjoys helping. When she is up to it physically, she'll ask if there is anything she can work on. She really enjoys weathering buildings to the max. She did my entire Atlas Engine house and paid a lot of attention to where metal window frames would create rust streaks and where water would run off the roof. She can only sit in one place for an hour or so because of her back surgery, but she enjoys lending a hand.

 

She also makes trees. Trees are her thing on the layout. She had made every last one of them. She'll tackle an entire box of "Super Trees" and has her own case of materials, including glue mixtures she does herself, and a clothes line for hanging them upside down with weights in the garage. 

 

She is also quick to show off the layout to non-trainhead visitors.

 

On the other hand, I do everything I can for her. Since my day starts at two or three AM and I work from home, it's easy for me to turn on the dishwasher and empty it long before she wakes up, and likewise the laundry. Couple of times a week,I'll throw in a few loads while my first cup of coffee is brewing and when she wakes up it's all folded and ready to go.

 

When spouses object to your interest in model trains, I have to think there is a whole lot more to it than her just trying to mean spirited and spoil your fun.

 

Marriage is a two way street and if you always try to give more than you get, you'll rarely have problems, unless you married Methuselah (I did that once) and then just head for the hills. 

A lot of great stories. Thanks for sharing. I'm grateful to say my wife and I have a healthy relationship. I should add she's not hostile to the hobby, she just doesn't understand my Fever for it.

I'm certain with a little patience and fun she'll pick it up too!

 "she just doesn't understand my Fever for it"

 

Do we understand their Fever for shoes and purses?

A few years ago one of my friends that I worked with joined the TCA and he has 2 young sons. His boys love trains and he already had the Polar Express set in their collection. Well he took his wife and the boys to the York show and they stopped by the Lionel display. There was a young boy operating Lionel's train on their main display with the Legacy system. Well this young boy let one of his sons operate the train which just happen to be the scale Polar Express. Needless to say his son did not want to give up the controls. 

 

He was telling this story at work after the show, but his real dilemma happened to be the fact that his wife had fallen in love with the scale Polar Express engine. She told him that he should buy it, and he was not trilled with the idea of buying it since he already had the set. I gave him some real advice, I told him that he should buy it. Especially since his wife told him that he should buy it, how often do you get permission from from your wife. I told him that if he didn't buy it he would never hear the end of it. That the next time he bought another engine and took it home, he would never hear the end of it. Well he did buy it and also the Legacy system.

 

Just like I know that when someone brings out something to do with aliens that I have to bring home to her. And at one York I had my 2 daughters with me and I took them to one of Lionel's demonstrations. Lionel was just introducing their Vision line and my youngest daughter saw the black steam prototype in action and told me that she really liked the black one. Now I had to get her a black one which just turned out to be the Pennsylvania CC2.

 

Paul

I was selling some items from my collection. I had discovered I just had way too many items I never ran.

 

When my wife discovered I intended to sell my post war 1656 steam switcher. "Not Herbie!!!! - He's my favorite!"

 

Needless to say, "Herbie" is still with us. He has a permanent spot on a siding right next to the Atlas Engine House she weathered.

The wife said to build a table to get the track off the floor.  She had no idea what she started!  I ended up taking over the whole 12 x 32 foot room.

 

Jim

Excellent job Jim Sandman.  Once you put the engineer hat on, you wear the pants in the family.  It is a natural progression.  You'll get there.  Keep the faith.

WITZ 41 (and all)...a few years ago (1994) my wife bought me a rather beaten up Lionel loco (I think a 2037)...and just like your story it all came back. Then, I ended up writing a book on Metro-North's history and we sell it twice a year at the White Plains (Westchester County, NY) Toy and Train show. I remind her that it is her fault. We do the shows together and if we sell a few books to pay for the next show's table that is great. Either way we enjoy shopping for ourselves (she likes stuffed animals like teddy bears or the small tiger on the table in the picture below...if this works).

 

We moved last September so, here (if all works correctly)is my current "layout" until we can unpack and get settled...

 

Tom

 

This has turned out to be a great thread!

 

I have gained some important insight on what and how to approach my wife about the hobby. While she is usually supportive of my goals, she has been more reluctant about trains.

 

The Forum is helping me catch up on many things and learn others. I think I will try to sign her up and have her start reading here. Maybe then she'll see, that my being home with something I enjoy and what having someone to enjoy it with means to me. I wouldn't want our daughter to interject on my behalf (even though she has in the past).

 

I want it to be fun for everyone in the house.

 

Henry J

When we built our retirement home we had one mutual requirement - house on the water in the City of Williamsburg. She had several unique needs and my one was a walkout basement...

 

She later discovered how much extra a walkout basement costs over a crawl space, but by then it was waaay too late. 

 

And then along came the electrical overruns for the train room...see all those can lights and...

Pete you have a classic & well done layout..

One of my vary favorite layouts. I sure to get to see it in person one day.

Pete...so, a walk out basement......and just how do you walk out the basement?  Looks like something is blocking the doors.

 

Fantastic job there, real nice!

 

There has to be a story with the duck up on the ceiling.

Tom,

The black bridges in front of the near set of french doors lift out for access to a patio,  the picture was taken from a "sitting room" my wife stole from the layout area once she discovered how large I planned to make the layout- cost me about 600ft2.  It's separated by the half wall in the bottom of the photo. BTW, she's nver used it - I use it to work out...

 

The duck: I saved him from some hunters one fall one the College Creek and he has been my faithful train room guard ever since.  He keeps a .410 hidden in one of the can lights hoping they'll try to break in the basement.  Great 24/7 security system and works for feed corn - except when good looking female Mallards occasionally wander into the backyard...

 

 BTW: this is what it is all about:

 

 

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread...