CV, a new realisation....

[Mawashi]

You are worrying over something that will never happen. To women, all of these leather jackets look the same. They do notice differences in color, though. Also, my wife noticed the "fur" collar on my ThunderBay. She knew that was different from my other "brown jacket." So, all she knows is that I have two brown jackets and one black jacket. She has no idea I have 15 of them!

So much truth to this, my wife is actively disinterested in my jackets! Plus, what's the chance of her knowing how many I have when at last count I had 13 when I thought I had 9!!!

My wife doesn’t even bother to care anymore. She looks at them for a minute or two and then throws odds on how long it’ll last. She’s gotten pretty accurate.

I don’t look at her funny when UPS is addressed to her and she extends the same courtesy. She wins in terms of volume but I’m on top of a landslide in cost.

Let's just say you guys are the luckier ones for the rest of us with SO more similar to a finance minister + mother superior good luck lol

 

[dan_t]

Well, some great advice there.
I think I’ll run the gauntlet with the old “what, this old thing? I’ve had it for ages...”
Oh... and it’s 8. I’ve just found one I’d forgotten about..

 

[Will Zach]

My strategy has been to make a lot of noise when I sell a jacket. "See, honey - one more gone, I broke even ( or made a coupla bucks) on this one" And keep quiet when I buy one. If asked, I say: "Yes, I bought one, got a great deal, but I also sold one recently, remember?". Problem with this approach is that since joining FL my jacket count ballooned from 3 to 7... I think my wife knows, she just chooses to look the other way, as long as it is not getting totally out of hand. It helps that I tend to buy inexpensive vintage stuff. If these were seven $1000 jackets I would catch hell.

 

[handymike]

^^this

 

[mtrlr]

Buy her the thing that she always wanted first, and then you can casually start the conversation that you just realized you should stop buying leather jacket. Something like that.

 

[belfastboy]

Buy her the thing that she always wanted first, and then you can casually start the conversation that you just realized you should stop buying leather jacket. Something like that.

My wife wants a vintage Porsche......

 

[zebedee]

Buy her the thing that she always wanted first, and then you can casually start the conversation that you just realized you should stop buying leather jacket. Something like that.

Women know when you are doing this. They know every distraction/misdirection/outright lie/outrageous exaggeration/limp rationalisation that you are making a) just before you are going to make it and b) when you are making it. They tolerate this behaviour in men as one deals with bold (desperate) dissimulations in one's child. If you are lucky, your flimsy tactics are recognised, absorbed and forgiven. If not, they are stored away, filed carefully and callously for future used when you are weakened and at some vulnerable juncture- then they reveal that they noticed and recorded: that's how you know that they know.

Your best option is something courageous that transcends this quiet litanisation of your sins, your excesses. Ideally, you want the surpassing nature of your gesture to make it as if the subject matter is unworthy of comment or analysis at the later date that you know is coming. You're going to have to lend them to friends to keep for you, while it looks like the jackets were moderately-priced gifts though you know you can get them back. Two or three friends, two jackets each. Unmarried friends.

 

[Superfluous]

Buy her the thing that she always wanted

My wife wants a vintage Porsche......

My wife wanted a Miami Blue 911 . . . the color is a bit bold for my taste, but I nevertheless got it for her . . . she could care less about my jackets.

 

[navetsea]

while I'm in no position to suggest anything since I don't have a wive and still mentally not ready for one

but how about just slowly hammer it to her that this jacket thing is your character, your weakness, your flaw, I think she might just accept it, it makes you a unique individual, and not a dangerous one like gambling or adrenaline seeking high risk sport thing, it might work

 

[belfastboy]

My wife wanted a Miami Blue 911 . . . the color is a bit bold for my taste, but I nevertheless got it for her . . . she could care less about my jackets.

My wife better not see this post!!!!

 

[El Marro]

Women know when you are doing this. They know every distraction/misdirection/outright lie/outrageous exaggeration/limp rationalisation that you are making a) just before you are going to make it and b) when you are making it.

Ain’t that the truth though!
Back when I was married I would sometimes have what I thought was a flash of guile or cleverness and I would attempt to distract attention from something dumb that I had purchased or something dumb that I had said. It never worked, it only made things worse.
I’m starting to think that honesty might be the best policy here. As navetsea said, there are far worse habits and hobbies than excessive jacket collecting.

 

[jacketjunkie]

So I have no wife experience, but as far as girlfriends go, I have found the best way to handle the leather jacket issue is being completly honest about it, in a completly blunt and ruthless fashion. "Yeah I got like 25. Most are too large right now so I'm going to buy some more smaller ones that fit. Just ordered two new ones. I may have a problem, I don't care, it's a hobby and it gives me joy. Others have alcohol problems and beat their girls and it's my money anyway so I think you could be off worse." Some react better to it, some worse but it's part of who I am and they either accept me as I am or are unsuited for the girlfriend part anyway. Most have considered it an oddity they could easily overlook as after all, it does not really matter for the question of how good or bad a boyfriend I am to them, there are other criteria much more important to women.