Murder he screamed!!!!

Ebonbuddha

Ebonbuddha

Active member
Ok. This is a rant. So bear with me. When we got married my wife had no problem with my hobby. Anyway we share the computer and my painting area in one small room. After she had been playing a PC game all day I came in to check something. She had put her dirty dishes and cups on the stuff I was working on!!! And she is complaining more and more about my hobby.

There use to be a time she understood my hobby. But her friends seem to be playing more and more of a role in her opinions. Her best friend yells everyone I paint dolls. Then again the people who aren’t enchanted by his “humour” refer to him as the obnoxious gay guy. lol

Anyway, rant off.
 
O

Onis Lair

New member
Thankfully for me my wife is understanding. In fact she use to paint with me until the GW paint pot spewed all over her because of the crappy screw on lids for the third time ina row. Now however i can see the annoyance build each time i buy a new miniature. She\'s ok my hobby, just not my desire to buy more of them. :D Unfotunatly Buddha alot of spouses start listening to friends about things that bother them, makeing it suddenly the spouses annoyance as well.
 
D

DrEvilmonki

Active member
My wifes parents are coming this weekend and I have had arequest to clean up \"my area\". Now as I shower everyday I will assume she is talking about my painting desk. :D
There was certainly an undercurrent of not wanting to be embarassed by my playing with toys.

I do find it strange though that somehow computer games are seen as more mature things to play with. When did that happen?
 
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JakeSh

Guest
I\'m usually suprised by people\'s reactions when I show them my minis. I usually expect the worse, but I\'ve never recieved anything less than ooh and aahs.

When I first started dating my fiancee she was worried about my \"little dude\" painting, but she accepts it and likes it now.
 
Shawn R. L.

Shawn R. L.

New member
Some psychiatrist somewhere was quoted as saying that to be an artist is to be mentally ill................Some get it and some dont (yes, that can go two ways!)
 
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Hoblit

New member
Currently my wife encourages it. This could be because I suck at both the painting and the playing of the games and yet I still enjoy doing it, which has helped me tone down my competitive streak. (a good thing)

How long this lasts for however remains to be seen.
 
Ebonbuddha

Ebonbuddha

Active member
As I said before. My wife use to support me too. I remember her telling me one day she liked the colours on one of my paint jobs. She thought they looked more vibrant than the old paint job on the same miniature. But that was years ago back in BC. I guess alot can chane in 7 years.

Oh well.
 
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frenchkid

New member
Make her paint a bit, might solve the probleme :)

I\'v never had any probleme on that side, apart from some friendly jesting dosn\'t seem to be a probleme for the people I show them too. My parents at first weren\'t really thirlled about it, looked like an old man\'s hobby to them. But I\'v made them change mind, still can\'t say they\'re supportive but they leave me in peace :p Plus they always seem to complain, they don\'t like me airsofting either :p
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Well.. you can always say \"I need it for stress release\" And do that nervous eye twitching thing. And then you can shove in a \"Sometimes I feel so constrained... it\'s like I got to do something really crazy. Well.. I\'m not talking about killing anyone or so but.. yeah\" Then you could mutter at least 4-5 times a day \"all work and no play make\'s Jules a dull boy\"

Seriously you should talk about what it is with the hobby she\'s annoyed with. I haven\'t had any big problems so far.. just some with me spending too much time and money on it. But I just explain how important it is for me.. (and do that nervous twitching thing). And if anyone thinks I\'m stupid because I think this hobby is important, it is their problem not mine. Their prejudices not mine.. but it can be very annoying. My mother became very calm about it (some years ago) When I very graphically described what I could do late nights if I not painted miniatures.. now she seems pretty happy! :D
 
cdukino

cdukino

Member
I guess I\'m more or less lucky there. My boyfriend couldn\'t care less about miniatures. Sure I would have preffered him sharing the hobby ofcourse, but he doesn\'t have anything against it either. He doesn\'t mind me spending time and money (well that is still my money ;) ) on the miniatures... but the hobby itself for him is about as interesting as watching grass grow it seems. He has no intrest what so ever in it. Patiently listened and even looks (well half hearted though) when I shove a mini under his nose I painted, or stuff i bought at a convention occasionally. Not that I have the illusion he actually cares about that, But hey... I wanna show it so he\'s looking at it.
So as long as he doesn\'t have to join in, the mini hobby for him is perfectly fine. Me liking it is more then enough for him. The paint stains on doors and such he just takes with it without much complaint.

My friends/collegues/family often doesn\'t understand how you could put so much time in something so small.. But they all like it and some even praise the work.
Heck my dad even spend 2 of his rare free days to make me 2 specially made miniature display cabinets.

So no miniature haters in my surrounding. And I can\'t inmagine me ever having problems there with people i care about.
 
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paintingploddy

New member
In six years only one sign of displeasure when a comment was made that I already have enough. I\'ve been taking care since then to note anything negative and I\'m happy to say it seemes an aberation.

If everything was stored in one spot though - I think it might become more common. Never let them see more than a few hundred figures at one time.
 
Sand Rat

Sand Rat

New member
Hmm.

Been Dealing with this since about 1983 -

My dad felt that a serious adult, I should give up childish things. Miniatures, models, and gaming were all childish things in his estimation, and as I was growing older, should be given up in his estimation.

As you can tell, that didn\'t happen.

My first wife was interested but indifferent. I let her paint one day, and when I didnt freak out that she had done a better job on the faces than me, she became indifferent to the whole process - she didn\'t try to discourage me from painting and gaming, but she didn\'t go out of her way to encourage me either.

My second wife was indifferent to the hobby overall - since I had a separate area to work on and kept it organized, (well, as organized as any work area could be when you\'ve got 50-100 wips in process at any given time), and kept my better painted minis on the walls everything was fine, except that my display cases needed \"cleaning\".

My girlfriend? Well, some of the folks here have met her online (she frequents the chat room in part to facilitate communication between the two of us), she has bought me miniatures, and encourages me to paint. But, as she has said, I encourage her in taking up the things that she has enjoyed in the past, but has let drop to the wayside because they were \"childish\". Perhaps EB if you were to encourage her in something she does or did, it would help her understand why you paint.
 
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matty1001

New member
My girlfriend always gets at the money side of things, just the other week she complained that i had spent £30 in a GW store, so i just said that she had just spent £30 getting her hair cut! So its swings and roundabouts really. (But personally i dont understand why women spend so much on getting thier hair cut! I just do it at home with a shaver!)
 
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james sequeira

New member
my mum doesnt mind really.the only hassle i get is from my little sister but thats because she thinks if you dont hang around in gangs your a geek lol
 
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brushmistress

New member
I\'m extremely fortunate in that my husband is the one who got me started in the little people world by painting GW minis for our WFRP game. I\'ve seen dozens of men at our shop over the years marry or date a partner who has no interest in the hobby. They sadly all end in divorce or the guys disappearing the store having to give up their passion for gaming and modelling. DON\'T MARRY THEM IF YOU HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON! I speak from experience- I divorced my first husband who thought painting was \"stupid\" and a \"waste of time\". I\'ve know women in the hobby are few and far between (I\'ve been to Games Day several times) but we are out there. Don\'t let go of what brings you satisfaction and joy!
 
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Hoblit

New member
3 things. 1 Brushmistress - welcome to the forums.

2 - a quote taken wildly out of context:

But hey... I wanna show it so he\'s looking at it

I know quite a few people who\'d be happy to look.

3 - There are worse things than being a geek. And to be perfectly honest, generally by the time you start working, you have friends with similar hobbies or ones who can understand, and it\'s not an issue. That whole geek vs jock thing kind of disappears when you go to a hardware shop/petrol station/insert menial task here, and the jocks are the ones that have to help you.

I lied, 4 things - EB. I guess the best advice would be to sit down with your wife and try and see her side. If it\'s a time thing that\'s relatively easy to fix, if it\'s a money thing, well that may be a little more tricky, but shouldn\'t be a hassle. My wife and I have \"an allowance\" basically we each get a certain amount of money that we can spend on anything without any recriminations. This has saved a lot of arguments, although I tend to spend most of mine on gifts for her.

I know I had a similar problem a few years ago where my wife became jealous of my computer. I was playing a lot on it at the time, and she was feeling neglected. We set a few rules, and when those didn\'t work we changed them until we found a workable solution in which I still got a chance to destress and relax, but she didn\'t feel threatened.

If it\'s none of these, then I don\'t have any more advice.
 
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