Wife Acceptance Factor

Fire
Have "Yours", "Hers" and "Our" accounts. Don't be afraid to get "Cut Off" if she gets mad about something. Show her now that your balls are made from steel and not ground meat.
Jkalman
In every relationship, there's a "Male" and "Female".

A quick read-through of this thread reveals only one or two men who have reasonable and happy relationships with their wives, at least in the areas surrounding their audiophilia. All the rest (25? 30?) are mostly in the "Be a man!" or "I just don't tell my wife" category. While I have no doubt that Audiogoners are a breed apart from the general population (in both good and bad ways!), I find the majority opinion here a little disturbing.

My wife happens to be a bibliophile rather than an audiophile. She buys lots of books, some she'll only read once, and some which I read also. I buy LPs and CDs, some that only I care about, and some that she loves. We both use the audio rig, which is in the living room we share on a daily basis, and she's as happy to have wonderful music as I am. I don't go wild with the hardware, and she helps me audition every piece that cycles through.

Place me squarely in the reasonable and happy category.

"Be a man ... Show her your balls are made of steel...good riddance...etc."
You married your wife, right? There is some love there, right? There is some mutual respect there, right?
Most of you guys sound like a group of teenage boys talking about how tough you are.

WAF comes into play in two ways: how much money can be spent, and also how acceptable your purchases are as decor.

Naturally, unless you have so much money and so much room that you can carve out a niche that doesn't affect her at all, you would be dealing with shared money and space. So it is good to start by accepting that she does have a legitimate stake and may have reasonable wishes. Then you can fight her truly unreasonable demands. :-)

I am lucky with WAF, partly because my wife is a music lover and likes the end result. Visually, she would have preferred sleek and matched components (B&O or Bose type looks come to mind) to the hodge podge I have assembled, but it is tolerated. It helps to give in on non-essentials, as when I let her choose the shelf in which the components are kept. Not what I would have picked but such compromises buy me more freedom in the audible arena that I care about.

Dave
I worked with a guy whose Wife gave him a weekly allowance for lunch. If he wanted to buy something for himself, he had to ask.