Girlfriends and wifes, how do YOU cope?

Basement, I can't imagine being in a relationship where my partner doesn't support my passions; or where I don't support hers. Music can and should enhance relationships and become a part of them -- the music, gear and expenses need to fit into the flow of your journey together. The gear is not the competition, it should be treated by both parties as a vital augmentation of the relationship. Keep looking and you'll find someone who feels that way and wants to support you as much as you support her; like Tim, I feel really great when my partner brags about the sound (equipment is the necessary evil to get the music right).

Slawney; I just took Detlofs' recomendation, first, I had to run for more salt, then I had to read it a few more times while I tried to get my brain to wake up enough to obsorb that level of intellegence.
I feel your pain. Sounds like quite a pickle you were in- while in the process of trying to upgrade your woman, your stereo got downgraded in the process.
And then while taking in your wisdom, I had a nightmere epiphany; what if, given that women are women, and given she was for me the wrong type, and she was an audiophile, what would happen if I tried to switch amps, or cables? would I be in for it? What if she couldn't hear second order distortion? What if her new component obscured detail? Would I be allowed to change VTA? Would I have to work overtime to try to get equipment that was so good, so expensive, that we could both live with it in order to try to save the sound AND the marriage? WOOW!
Whew, I'm back. I would like to retract my statements on points for being an audiophile, and comparing stereos to women. I'm with tireguy-how a woman reacts to our hobby is an indication of things to come. It's the interest in what we have created that is interest in us. The Ozfly hit the nail on the head, it is a two way street, and we should take their advice:
Women are not stereos. You can't upgrade them. We can't add or subtract resisters or change cables to get them to sound the way we want. When the system requires attention, tubes or adjustments, we can get to it whenever with no harm done. People and stereos both have thier advantages.
I'm curious, did you get them back? did they sound the same? How much damage was done?

Jeeze, maybe I am just lucky or I try much harder (If I am really working at it with much more effort that anyone else than I must be doing it subconciously or my wife is feeding me subliminal messages while I sleep). My wife enjoys listening to my audio system, but she does not care what parts it consists of. She just likes to listen. She does not give me grief when I want to make a change of equipment. I should confess however, that I do not change equipment often (No equipment neurosies here). I have only had four speaker systems since I began this audio interest in 1975. The first speakers being the KEF 104ab's.
Anyway here is the last week of my life, balanced between audio and my wife. The audio week began with the arrival of a batch of records from Acoustic Sounds. While we were listening to them my wife made the comment that we should get away for the weekend. The next day, without any further prompting, I made reservations for the weekend in Cape May, NJ. We ate, we shopped, we drank, we stayed out late ( caught a great band named "Black and Tan") returned to the hotel and made "UGH-UGH" noises. We both had a great time. She appreciated that I did something for her, namely getting away for a weekend. The moral here is to think (no!, not just about audio) and not to be selfish.
Oh and just to show that appreciation works, and I know some of you will love this and others will scratch their heads in amazement. As we were driving home from Cape May, on Rt 73, I was being a little devious and intentionally slowed as we approached DeSimone BMW. My wife looked at me and said "I wondered why you chose to take this route." She then said she had no intention of walking around the lot of a closed car dealership. As you can imagine I was a little dissappointed. My wife then said that if I was truely serious about a new car we should go back when they are open so we can do something about it. We are going back this week. Had my eye on a dark green Z3 for a while.

This is a very simple question. The answer has been shown to me dozens of times throughout my life. And, yes, I am still not married. The basic reason is that when you are spending time, money, and attention on the stereo system, you are not spending that time, money, and attention, undividedly, on her. It has nothing to do with the stereo system. I've had this result with car hobbies, sports hobbies,etc. The bottom line is: What's hers is hers, and what's yours is hers. You will not stray from this concept or she will find someone else who will "toe the line". Needless to say, I don't "knuckle under" to stuff like that very easily, so I remain unmarried. On balance, I'd say I'm lucky, because all my married friends are going through divorces and losing their houses, and everything. They adjusted their lifestyles and priorities to suit the wife, and in the end, they were told,"I think I can do better" by their wives. You may not think you can "upgrade" a woman, but the woman sure as hell thinks she can "upgrade" from you. And her eyes are open to it every day. But, not till she sucks every last drop of blood out of you, first. And, has the next "victim" firmly in the sights. And the older you get, the worse it gets. At least in the teenage years, you have the "off chance" that they might actually fall in love with you before they "get wise". By the time they are in their 30's and 40's, forget it. They're dating your bank account. They measure their control capability by how much they can swerve you away from your central "core interests and values". If you resist, you are in the dog house. If you continue to resist, you are out the door. Notice, that they never complain that you spend too much time cutting the grass, or painting the house(improving "her" assets). It's the ability to influence what YOU really want to do, that is the guage of her control level, and that is why it becomes the issue. In her mind, it is only one short step, from there, to losing control of the money, and that is unacceptable. That's it. You may consider it harsh commentary, but we're talking about some very harsh, cold behavior. Just look how often you see on the Audiogon threads about "If I get speakers bigger than a shoe-box, I'll have to get divorced. Is this rational? No. That is because the speakers are NOT the issue. The issue is control. Mercenary? Yes. Heartless? Yes. That is the root of this issue, that nobody really wants to talk about.

I love watching sports, particularly basketball. I used to think that it would be nirvana to find a woman who was as avid a fan as I was. I'm now happily married to a woman who is at least tied for Most Apathetic sports fan in the world - she not only couldn't care less about any sport, she has no idea what's going on in the world of sports. I realize now that this is, in fact, ideal. We interact on lots of topics and activities - there's no need for my passion to be her passion, and in fact, when I'm avidly watching a game Sunday afternoon, she's fine with giving the kids a ride someplace, or anything else that's needed.

Another time, I was painting a house I lived in when I was single. I was standing back at one point admiring my progress and I thought, "It would be really great if there was somebody here to share this progress with me." That was followed by the thought, "If there was, we'd probably argue about what color to paint it." It was precisely at that moment that I probably made the most progress in understanding the tradeoffs of relationships.

At this point, it doesn't matter a bit to me whether my wife has any interest in audio systems, music, or any other arbitrary pasttime I might enjoy. If she suddenly got interested, I would embrace that as well, but assuming she never does, that's fine. I don't care if she thinks my music is too loud for her tastes, or that I'm "crazy" for spending the amounts I spend on it. There's two sides to everything, and the other side to this attitude is that I don't have any obligation to understand, embrace, or spend time on any of her pasttimes that don't genuinely interest me. There's plenty of stuff that we do both enjoy to spend any energy torturing each other about the ones we don't mutually enjoy.