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Men learn to listen to their spouses on big purchases
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff *|* June 28, 2004
It is a bitter memory for Cameron Smith. He was 25 and newly married. While his wife worked one Saturday, he bought himself an $800 stereo with a credit card, set it up, and spent a blissful afternoon on the futon couch, listening to REM and the Grateful Dead.
But a thought occurred to him while driving that evening to pick up his wife: how to explain the stereo?
"We came in, and I said, 'Look what I bought, honey!' She took one look at me and said, 'That can go back, right?' Maybe it was more like, 'That can go back.' "
The stereo went back. "I learned my lesson," said Smith, a manager at LNS Communications in Cambridge who will be married 10 years in August.
"We were newly married with no money to be spending on stereos," said Gretchen Smith.
All men know it, though few will volunteer that they are under its spell: Wife Acceptance Factor.
Men like toys, electronics, sports cars, golf memberships. Then they get married, and wives have a say, even veto power. Torn between their own desires and preserving their marriages, the men of the new millennium are learning about WAF.
http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2004/06/28/waf_wife_acceptance_factor/
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff *|* June 28, 2004
It is a bitter memory for Cameron Smith. He was 25 and newly married. While his wife worked one Saturday, he bought himself an $800 stereo with a credit card, set it up, and spent a blissful afternoon on the futon couch, listening to REM and the Grateful Dead.
But a thought occurred to him while driving that evening to pick up his wife: how to explain the stereo?
"We came in, and I said, 'Look what I bought, honey!' She took one look at me and said, 'That can go back, right?' Maybe it was more like, 'That can go back.' "
The stereo went back. "I learned my lesson," said Smith, a manager at LNS Communications in Cambridge who will be married 10 years in August.
"We were newly married with no money to be spending on stereos," said Gretchen Smith.
All men know it, though few will volunteer that they are under its spell: Wife Acceptance Factor.
Men like toys, electronics, sports cars, golf memberships. Then they get married, and wives have a say, even veto power. Torn between their own desires and preserving their marriages, the men of the new millennium are learning about WAF.
http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2004/06/28/waf_wife_acceptance_factor/
