Is your wife/husband causing you to play less?

[Robert****]

Just curious. If you love to play guitar, which I assume you do, is your significant other holding you back somehow? Would you like to play more, but your wife/husband isn't 100% supportive, so you play less instead to avoid conflicts?

Loaded question perhaps, but I admit I would play more if my wife was more positive about it. Perhaps it's my interpretation too. There has to be a balance of course, we can't play guitar every minute of our time being at home.

One reason can be the volume. Us guys like to makes some noize eh!

Perhaps some just don't get why we want to sit and play guitar for hours, when we could be mowing the lawn or fix the leaking tap, etc.

[MichaelE]

Not any longer. But when I was married it was a drag.

[Commodore 64***]

My wife doesn't hang out in the room when I practice on my Blackheart LG or Fender SS amp because it's pretty loud, especially the LG because you gotta crank it a bit. I have an acoustic which I will practice in the living room or downstairs so I can still interact with her/ the kids.

I also picked up a Danelectro Honeytone amp, it runs on a 9V battery. It sounds terrible, but it does allow me to walk around the house playing the electric guitar with it clamped on my back pocket.

[sunvalleylaw]

Well, family life in general, plus my responsibilities from two jobs in winter, limit me some. Not specifically my wife. She would rather see me play than watch tv at night or be on the computer, and she is pretty supportive overall. But my playing has mostly been after the kids are in bed, so I don't get to use much volume, record much, etc. I have been on my acoustic more as a result, or playing relatively quietly and cleanly through my amph. EDIT: The new room that I can close off at night helps. At least I can play loud enough to hear the amph a little. I have to watch it though. EDIT 2: Bottom line, I am a hobby player. If I was trying to really make it in a band, earn a living off of it, or it required a substantially bigger commitment, something else would have to go, like my ski coaching I suppose. That isn't happening anytime soon. I am in a different place than more professional players, and my wife supports my hobby pursuit of music. That my kids are involved and enjoy to play with me, or dance while I play helps too. END EDIT.

My New Year's resolutions include better time management, so maybe I can come up with some other solutions too. But, I just keep it fun, and remember this time of my life is about family.

[Spudman***]

My wife is my biggest supporter. When I want to play she grabs a book and reads while I entertain. Our daughter dances to a lot of my funky loops and she even gets her little friends dancing too. I would never let anyone stand in the way of my playing. It's what I do.

[hubberjub***]

My wife is supportive. She would go to all of my gigs but the summer festival thing has gotten old for her.

[Plank_Spanker]

My wife is very supportive. She pretty much lets me buy the gear I want. She went to all of my gigs; she's letting me pay for lessons now, and she doesn't mind when I practice - as long as my daily husband chores are done first.

[ted s]

My wife is also very supportive, I don't practice enough.

[Tig***]

Any lack of playing time is purely my doing. Call it a time management thing.

Still, I get in a fair amount, and Mrs. Tig enjoys listening to me (poor woman) when she surfs the interwebs.

[marnold***]

My wife is largely ambivalent. Since I'm in the basement, I can't really bother anyone. My main problem is just finding time/desire to practice. The past two weeks have been crazy busy so if I've had time to pick it up and noodle for a bit I've been lucky.

[evenkeel]

Mrs Keel is very supportive. She encourages me to practice at home, often accompanies me to open mics.

Has only once balked at a guitar purchase. Have to admit it was a bit over the top. Good thing to. A few months later the D60 came into the fold. Might have had to pass if I'd just dropped some big $$..

[marnold***]

I should add that the good news is that my son and I have been having regular weekly lessons and my wife encourages him to practice. Next week: six string barre chords! Huzzah! After that, we move on to Metal Method's Stage Three and I can begin teaching him that solo. I'm really looking forward to that--and playing rhythm for him.

[street music]

My wife doesn't approve of most any hobby I have but she would rather I play than deer hunt. She has many problems with what I do that doesn't spend time with her or make money for her to spend.

[Soulstress]

My wife doesn't approve of most any hobby I have but she would rather I play than deer hunt. She has many problems with what I do that doesn't spend time with her or make money for her to spend.

hahahaa. LOVE IT!

For me, I'm the wifey so it's all good here. He has a 20% hearing loss so I'm usually the one yelling about why the TV is hella loud. My only issue is that after I've been playing for four months and then he goes to get his bass guitar to learn I'm gonna have to listen to his damn jingle bells plucking like I did...LMAO.

[MichaelE]

My wife doesn't approve of most any hobby I have but she would rather I play than deer hunt. She has many problems with what I do that doesn't spend time with her or make money for her to spend.

That's all I used to hear.

[Eric***]

My fiancée is generally pretty supportive, and will even listen to me ramble on about modes or amps or whatever. However, when she's hanging out at my place and I have the looper going, she gets sick of it before I ever really stumble upon anything worthwhile.

I tend to think this would happen for pretty much anyone listening to the same chord progression, so perhaps I just need to get used to headphones...

[syo***]

Not causing me to play less, but certainly less loud. The only way I can crank things up is through headphones or wait til she's out (not often). She's a professional classical violinist and doesn't really like rock which generally offends her aural sensitivities.

I do have some small hope though. She recently awoke from a dream where she was playing the guitar. It seemed like fun in the dream so she wanted to try playing. We messed around with the intro to Laundromat and she kind of got into it. So maybe the key is to get her playing as she doesn't seem to mind the decibels when she's playing.

[deeaa*]

I just had a thread a while back about the same...my wife never usually outright says anything much about my musical endeavors, but I can tell she doesn't like me doing it much. She doesn't usually mind if I play some acoustic, but otherwise it's that she does NOT want to listen to my music/bands and such, and she always remembers to pull it into an argument like 'it's just like in 2005 you just HAD to be mixing and releasing an album just when we had a new baby and things were tough' etc. etc.

So yeah, I hardly ever get to do stuff because of that.

[bcdon***]

Not an issue with me. I wear the pants in the family, but my wife picks them out.

Actually, my wife is very supportive. She has her own interests to keep
busy and she knows it keeps me out of trouble.