Model building not a substitute for video games? Need help!!!!

I see your $229 and raise you a dollar. Dude read the $229 post. You are really asking for some funny replies. Oh Manny can I sugesst an award here????

I hear the clicking of boots coming down the hall....

All kidding aside just do it when she is not around.

Easier said then done. Thing is we both have crazy schedules. When I am working she is 2 hours ahead of me. So if I am working say 8-5. She will work 10-7. So I have about an hour to model? That means it would take 20 days to finish something easy. 40 days something tough. Is this my only option? 

Is this how you do it around your wife? 

Congrats on being a newlywed!  I am not going to pretend I can speak for us married members here so I'm only going to tell you what works for me.

I got married at age 28 (I'm 40 now) and a couple of months after my wife and I got hitched, we bought our house.  The house, while only 2 years old, needed almost a complete rebuild of the interior because the previous owners pets pretty well trashed the place.  Anyway, I remember once grousing about how I had no time for my models and one day my wife snapped.  She truly reminded me that I am married first and foremost.  She loves my hobby and supports it 110% but the fact of the matter is that I had to stop living with my 12 year old mentality.  Don't get me wrong!  She loves my often child-llike mentality!  LOL!  But what she engrained in me was the fact that there is a time and place for everything.  Heck if she see's I'm a lttle grumpy, she'll just about toss me downstairs while telling me to go work on a model in order to find tranquility again.

But that's my main point.  My wife buys models for me from time to time and she's even given me some great video games for Christmas and whatnot.  The BIG thing to learn (at least in my case only) was to know the appropriateness of each activity.  Think of it from your wife's perspective.  She might wonder why you married her just to ditch her for five hours while you're working on something.

I don't know if this'll help or not but sometimes when my wife wants to (for example) work on the laptop for a while, while she's doing that, I'll bring a small kit upstairs so I can work on the simpler assemblies.  That way, even if we're doing two separate activities, we're both still together and we can still talk.  As long as I clean up afterwards, life is good.  It's a give and take.  Actually, I take that back.  When you're both giving, that makes it a "give and give".  You're both benefiting.

Good luck and best wishes!  Just remember when it's time to be a man and when it's time to be a kid.  Figure that out and you'll be alright.  But don't give up one for the other. 

Eric

PS. Get used to the "20 days if not more" to finish a model.  And if you're planning on having kids, well, it was a good year if not more before I ever touched another model.  I used to build maybe 12 a year.  Now I'm happy if I can get 4 done in a year.  But your priorities change.  Now I focus more on quality and not how many I can crank out in 20 days.

Auto,  Something that may help, is to maybe do some of the work at the kitchen table within earshot of your wife.  It's only natural that she wants you close.  Now if you could get her to take up knitting or a similar hobby, she wouldn't even miss you.  You do need to juggle family time and modeling time.  Your time is important, but throughout your marriage "Our" time is essential for an everlasting bond.  You're young,  it's more important to build your family than to build models.  Pick your times, you'll still get a lot done.  DoogsATX, chip in here and share a little of your experience juggling family and hobby.  You're around the age of my three sons.  My boys and I lived by this motto: "When Mommy's happy, we're all happy".   Rick

I am slow building to begin with but I would love to have somehting out in just 20 days. Those that followed my WIP P39 build will attest to how slow I work.

Finding time to build models can be tough.  I usually get an hour or 2 a night after work  (I get home at around 1:00am)  Then I get up with the family at 9:30am.  Family time until work then I go to the bench after work again.  Not much time an one clip but time nonetheless.  It may take more days to complete a model but the hours spent should be about the same. 

Gotta be some kind of compromise there. 

I am a rather independent person, so I do not think I would be a very clingy girlfriend...But I can see where the wife is coming from. I too would be upset if my S/O spent all his time locked in the garage or what-have-you. Maybe you can encourage her to take up a hobby as well, or spend a bit of time when modeling out with people.

But I see modeling as a better alternative to video games as well. At the end of 5 hours, I will have something concrete to show for it.....unlike video games where it's only a bunch of pixels.

Well your lucky she bought you a video game. Little story to go with the story. She dated a guy for 4 years. He played vids all the time. It got to the point were he was jobless and instead of looking for a job he would play vids. Its a complete turn off for her. She wont even come down if I am playing. She will make breakfast for herself and not even me. I know. She is not my mother. I am a big boy. So I understand that. 

So I bought models and started to do those this weekend. Try something new. Pretty much same affect. I think she just misses me. We have been married since 1-11-11. I know I cant  forget that date :) We never lived together. I think its culture shock for her? 

Instead of i make a mess and leave my underwear on the floor. I am actually a well mannered guy. I pick up after myself. clean the house. Do my own laundry. Hell I even do the dishes after she cooks.

But I think she wasnt expecting the alone time. I remember she said its nice to have alone time. I am now getting yelled at for too much alone time.

I guess there needs to be a happy medium and finding a hobby for her is not one..... hell she can go shoe shopping I dont care!!!!

autovomatic88

I dont know what to do.

I think I can help but it is gonna take a little bit of commitment on your part. 

First, find the thread: "How to get your wife to agree to the purchase of a $229 model...".  

Now, read it all the way through.  When you are done let me know and we'll pick it up from there...   

well we do work out together. She does like knitting. Last thing she knitted was a scarf for me that was really nice. I am a taller guy so she made it 7 ft long. But it took her 9 months to make it lol. I guess you can say that we dont have much time together cause our lives are so wrapped up in work. 

I can its going to take patients. It took me 3 years to complete that Mustang. 

autovomatic88

I can its going to take patients.

patients...you experiment on people?!

Not to be mean but are you serious..... thats 117 pages. ha ha ha that would take up my hole weekend.

From what it read its mainly compromise!

Let me know if I am correct? 

How about Patience? I

Dude, its all compromise and give and take. You justify it because its something you like to do and it isn't harming anything, except for say, spending a few more hours with the missus. In the end I think its more of a conversation you two will have to have. Express your interests and maybe she'll express her expectations. Hopefully you guys can meet in the middle. In the end, especially in marriage, building and maintaining a relationship is more important than building a model. Not every free moment has to be spent modeling [in a perfect world it would be], but not every free moment has to be spent with her either [gasp! ] Just find a happy medium...

  My misses is similar to yours. Loves having me around her and would not like it if I disappeared for hours at a time. So, here is what I did.

  We have a large Florida room. I placed a small flat screen, wireless router and a couple of recliners and a couch in the room. I then moved my modeling desk and paint booth out there, also. Now she can watch TV, browse the internet, use her laptop and speak to me during my modeling hours. She loves it...and to be honest, so do I. It allows us to interact and still do our on thing...just a thought...

Now thats an awesome idea. I dont think she will go for it but thats awesome. 

The thing is she is a very independent woman. She had a kid at 17. She moved out of her parents house at 18. She busted her butt off to get a house and to get a great job. At the same time being the best mom ever. So her hobby is being a mom. Cooking, cleaning running around. As crazy as it sounds. She loves to cook. She is damn good at it too. I had to join the gym cause she too damn good. lol

Now that she found me I take the stressors away in life for her and she needs me around to do this. I realize that I dont have me time anymore. but I am not going to watch Lifetime with her.... I will let you guys go on that rant. 

Maybe a 5 hour stint is pushing it a little,,  but, here is my view - - at 27 years old  there are a lot of things you could be doing that are much worse than modelling or gaming,,,   I won't even start to list them.

Modelling VS Gaming - to be honest, I like both as well,, BUT,, the huge difference is that modelling is an artform that also teaches history and patience.

If your wife is adamant about spending more time with her,, you could be in for some rough waters. Talk to her about the history portion of the hobby,, get her involved. By this I don't mean her building,,,  unless she would like to,,, what I mean is the point in time when your aircraft or boat or tank (etc.) was in service. You can talk about the era in time,,, the people, the turmoil, landscape, etc. etc.       You never know,, maybe a little twist within the hobby might get her interested.

Best of luck

My lovely wife is unique. She has A D D really bad. So she is not a fan of history. Her name is Kate and her song is Kate by Ben folds. So serious. It is her. I think she is a hippy. Explains the crazy clothes and the reason she drives a VW. I am a conservative country boy, she is a liberal hippy. Oil and water. But damn do we have fun.

So the only time she would refer to modeling is if I am talking about history and I take to long. She will tell me to land the plane. So I need to sum up the battle of the bulge in 10 words or less. 

"*** needed fuel, so they attacked the allies resources."

autovomatic88

"*** needed fuel, so they attacked the allies resources."

HA! the nanny bot strikes again!!

Didn't get to read every part of this thread, but here's my 2 cents ...

I have very limited time when not working to be with the wife and to build. My study is in the front of the house, away from everything else in the house. She likes to come a "visit" me, but I could tell that she wanted to be around more. She likes to read and do work on her laptop so I decided to move things around in my study. I bought and placed in my study a comfy chair and reading lamp in my study just for her. It's a little more cramped than I liked but her smile was all I needed to know that I was what needed to be done. Now we sit together. Not really talking much, but that's not the point.

Being newly wed, just take things a little slower ... I too like playing video games, but I/ we only paly every once in a while now and it's usually something we can play together. She's even gotten pretty good at "shooter" games ... scary!

Like someone said before, it's all about the marriage first and foremost. Once you guys get used to being together, you'll have a little more time to do things on your own. 

As far as only getting to work an hour or two at  a time ... dude ... slow down! Divide your build into small subassemblies and go from there. You'll get more out of your build, your marriage ... and you won't spend so much burning through all your stash! ... I love completing builds, but I didn't even finish ONE in all of 2010!

That's pretty much what I got in a nut shell. Hope it helps .... Good luck to you..... 

autovomatic88

 So I need to sum up the battle of the bulge in 10 words or less. 

"*** needed fuel, so they attacked the allies resources."

 

Wabashwheels

DoogsATX, chip in here and share a little of your experience juggling family and hobby.  

Gladly - this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

I've always been - I wouldn't say a loner - but I've always enjoyed periods of solitude. My wife is the opposite...she's the sort that always wants someone around. We butted heads bigtime over this when we got married, until we found a compromise.

The compromise is basically that 1) my time is not my own, but 2) we could agree on some time that was my own.

In the first several years of the marriage, it was time to write. I got it in my head a few months after we got married that I wanted to write a novel. At first it was like "I'm going to go write all night, every night", but that caused massive friction. The problem with writing something like a novel is that you can't just play around for half an hour...but we finally settled on a schedule where I could have dedicated time to write three nights a week.

This kept on for several years. Then we had our first kid. And I switched over to a new job with a large writing component. I started to get severe burnout, but kept what I could of the schedule just for that coveted solitude.

Then, around the time our second was born last May, I decided I need to change things up. I'd been having this crazy need to do something with my hands. No room for a project car, and besides, that's a terrible idea with little kids around. So I thought I'd take up modeling. Spent a few weeks reorganizing the garage, and then I was off.

My schedule now is basically...work during the day, come home to family time and dinner, then bath time and putting the kids to bed. This is usually wrapped up around 8:15-8:30. Then the wife and I usually have our chance to catch up, maybe watch some TV or a movie or get some housework done. At around 10, she goes to bed, and I go out to the garage from 10 until usually around 1.

It's not a perfect system, and sometimes I'd love far more time at a single go, but it keeps the peace.

Anyway...my advice...you're going to have to give up those long stretches of confinement, but that doesn't mean you can't carve out some time for your hobbies if you work it out ahead of time.

Well, it looks like I married her sister!!!!

  Sally, moved out at 16 and had her son a few years later. She also worked very hard and eventually got to the point of owning her own business. She is simply amazing and to sum it up, I adore her.

I met her when her son was 12 years old. I could not believe how well mannered he was. After getting married and helping to raise her son, I really found out how special Sally was. Let's just say, he is now 25 and a fine young man. A man I am very proud of and have no problem in saying it. Even though he is in his own place, I bug him to come over, all the time. I enjoy his company and we play video games together.

I agree about Lifetime...what is it about that channel?!?!?! Sally loves that channel and especially 'Murder She Wrote'...Ugh......Anyway, as Doogs said your only other option sounds like maybe waiting for bed time. I tried that at first but quickly found out that I would push it. The next day I would be tired and useless. But it might be the opening you need. The other thing you can try is seeing if the child is interested in any of this...video...modeling. That was my common ground with Sally's boy. From there our relationship grew.

  You have struck gold as I have. And it sounds like you know you have. Now all you need is the compromise...which will probably sneak up on you when least expected 

  Remember we are all pulling for you 

AlterEcho

I agree about Lifetime...what is it about that channel?!?!?! Sally loves that channel and especially 'Murder She Wrote'...Ugh......Anyway, as Doogs said your only other option sounds like maybe waiting for bed time. I tried that at first but quickly found out that I would push it. The next day I would be tired and useless. But it might be the opening you need. 

If we hadn't cut the cable years ago, Mrs. Doogs would probably still be all over that channel. That and trashy reality shows. She's a smart woman, but we definitely have distinct tastes! Her with Tantrums and Tiaras, me with Spartacus...but we have a good amount of common ground, too.

The night modeling thing I think depends on the kind of person you are. I'm a night owl. Always have been, and work and four dogs and two kids haven't quite beaten it out of me. I totally understand the tired and useless thing, but I've found that the worst thing I can do is skip a night at the bench. Even if it's to grab a few extra hours of sleep, I sleep poorly and wake up in a foul, crabby mood. I'm convinced the bench time helps me decompress, even on those nights when I spill solvent all over a kit!

The thing is still the same though...I believe it's entirely fair to set aside time for yourself, as long as its done upfront, expectations are managed and met, and you stay flexible.

Also - and idea for justifying that $300 ship? If you spend 2 hours a day at the bench, it'll take you a long time to finish the kit, so at whatever the cost per day, it's not really all that expensive, especially next to other hobbies. 

 I think you'll get about as much advice here as there are members. It started out much the same for me. I didn't get back into modelling til after my wife (G.F. at the time) moved in with me (1994,18, married at 20). I didn't have much for tools, paint, etc. So, what I had could fit in a model box with the model. I'd just build on my lap, sittin on the couch. I built maybe 3 models a year....not much! As I aquired more supplies, I built a little portable rack, that I could set aside when not in use. I'd sit on the floor, against the couch and pull the coffee table over my legs. Yes, my wife digs Lifetime, and was "needy", but I was building a model, so...whatever! She had me close and I got to do what I wanted too. I built that way for years!!! Fast forward to 2003, when we moved into our current home and have lots of space. I had to wean her off of me slowly. I put a modelling desk upstairs in the loft, overlooking the living room. Still close enough, for her! I finally was able to finish off the basement and move everything down there. The entire basement is dedicated to nothing but modelling. It took many years, but now I model whenever I want. There are times that I can tell, she wants me close by. That's fine sometimes. But sometimes, I really wanna get to work. I just get real obnoxious, and make her want me to go to MY basement!!! We both win...it's great!!!

 It takes time. Eventually she'll realize that your hobby is a good thing and that you are close by, not off in a bar somewhere with loose women (that is how they think!!!).

DoogsATX

If we hadn't cut the cable years ago, Mrs. Doogs would probably still be all over that channel. That and trashy reality shows. She's a smart woman, but we definitely have distinct tastes! Her with Tantrums and Tiaras, me with Spartacus...but we have a good amount of common ground, too.

Not to hijack the thread, but what substitute are you using Doogs? Netflix, P2P, Usenet.....

  I have been entertaining cutting out cable...but FiOS does have a rocking lineup and the price is not to bad. So, I am always checking out what the 'other guy' is using to supplement their entertainment.

  Fermis makes a good point, though. I used to hit the bars pretty hard with my fellow IT employees. Had a lot of girls that always hit on me at the bar or at work (no account for good taste, huh    ). So the miss'es was glad for me to take up a hobby and settle down. And to be honest, so was I.

Hard to get a balance.

Being newly-wed she wants you close and play with the toys she bought you. So extended time in the man-cave is a no-no.

Best time, IMO, do your own hobbies (modeling, knitting, etc) while being in the same room.

Different working hours, etc complicate the matter as will rugrats, etc.

Only way I think she could accepted you spending lots of hours in the man-cave is when she banished you to it(not recommended just yet).

I think I can speak for many here that we have to fit in modeling sessions at odd times and less lengthy than we would like.

"a happy wife equals a happy life"

Long stretches of confinement are tough now when you're a newly-wed, try fast forwarding a few years if/when you have kids.

Similar scenario to DoogsATX, only so many hours in a day and its tighter when you have 2 kids around.  My area is hidden in the laundry room away from little hands so I don't spend more time cleaning then working.  My time is short spurts when the boss sits down to watch one of her shows.

I'd go with a TV tray, maintain the quality time.

BTW...I stand corrected.

It has been pointed out to me that her other favorite channel carries "Murder She Wrote". That would be the Hallmark channel. You would think I would have remembered that as much as it is on.