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I have formal practice with the band twice a week and a gig once a week. She gets the gig money! However this has become too much for the wife to handle and she threatens divorce every week. So how many of you have had to deal with the neglected wife problem? Music is such a great therapy for life and yet it’s like my guitar is another woman to her. I have had an Ovation Legend and a Strat demolished, however the Les Paul stays at the studio! After twenty years of marriage you think she’d realize I’m in a band. So how do the rest of you obsessed musicians deal with it?
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No, I don’t think the Mrs. cares about the lead singer, as flat out gorgeous as she is I like her singing abilities more. My wife knows I lust after music more than other women. She is my daughter’s age besides and we are like older, much older, brothers to her. We got lucky with Leilani, her father put her in a sound booth at the age of four and she has recorded all her life. Where can I post an MP3 of her?, she is worth hearing.
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😆 gh2. “Liftin’ skirt” sounds better than Linkin Park, but I’m not a female singer. You’re sure Mrs gh2 doesn’t think of your singer as a potential Ms gh2? We had a female singer, but Mrs bassleft knew she wasn’t my type (strange, because “female” is usually my kind of woman).
Band dynamics, very strange things.
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DEFINITELY don’t pretend you’re “meeting the boss” when secretly working on that difficult middle-eight with the band. I’m amazed she didn’t assume you were lifting skirt 😯 . I’d rather tell her straight that I’m playing Barry White covers in the local brothel than do the “meeting the boss” story. When that story is blown, the worst is always assumed.
Anyhoo, runthrough with guitarist went OK. She was still up when I got back, mostly annoyed that I wasn’t around to tell her who got evicted from Celebrity Fame Academy (a sort of “American Idol” with celebs, for Charidee).
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The nearest I’ve come to having to move out was when I claimed to be having dinner with the boss, but was secretly at practice. I was busted when I came home at 11 and admited my lie. So rule one, don’t lie even for music, one of the last true religions. I spent a week on my buddy’s couch before she realized the rent was due, then it was all forgiven. So now I just tell her I’m going to play and as long as that is on a regularly scheduled practice night she’s fine with it! But they never understand crawling in at 4:30 in the morning after playing from 9-2 breaking down, driving to the studio, unloading and being a zombie until late afternoon, but it was so much fun.
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I’ve not been quite that lucky. The nearest was seeing an old Laney about to go for peanuts on Fleeb and saying “Decided on my birthday present, yet?” I can’t imagine her considering any amp nice looking. I’m quite fortunate, though. Our ‘dining room’ looks like a ham-radio nerd’s workshop. Boxes of old tubes and the most knobs in a single room outside of a Snoop Dogg video. She’ let me off so far, but I’m due out tonight, leaving sproggy here while she’s got a ton of reports to write. Maybe I’ll be on the council housing waiting list tomorrow 😉
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Yeah getting her to party with the band would be interesting. She likes the music we play but has no desire to see a gig or even a practice. There is the occasional band party for a birthday or a holiday that she will come to. She’s more at home in a bookstore trying to find a first edition. She likes it when I play along to a favorite band of hers on a cheesy little practice amp, but heaven help me if I’m five minutes late getting home from practice. There was a magical moment one time when we walked into a Guitar Store and she saw a Marshall Amp sitting there and she asked if I wanted it, like I’m gonna say no, and later I found out she liked it because it was sexy! Not for the screaming tube tone, but just because it looked good to her!! She’s never even heard it played at a gig!!
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This might not help much, after all, you don’t want to choose a band because your Mrs likes somebody…
My previous band did way more regular rehearsal and gigging than my present one (in perspective, though; weekly rehearsal + approx monthly gig. Maybe record annually) and she put up with this far better than my current band. One of many reasons may be that the singing guitarist in the first band had a g/f who got on very well with my Mrs. We’d eat out, even meet up on holiday, so she put up with the band even though she didn’t think we were that great.
The current band’s guitarist is a bachelor (the songwriting and general push always seems to come from me and the rhythm player) and the Mrs doesn’t gel at all with anyone. Although we rehearse a lot less and gig almost never, she resents it more (not to instrument-smashing degree though). Is it possible to involve the other halves? Meals out, or a social drink?
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lee,
well does your drummer need a roomate? I guess the wife is gonna win this one too. It’s like the old adage can’t live with em, can’t live without em. We have a comedian who puts it in the proper perspective, upon marriage we don’t “commit” we “surrender”. So as much as music and playing guitar are my favorite pastimes the wife should come first, maybe 2nd after the beagle, however many of you will find after 20 plus years of marriage that certain desires can become a conflict. For one month I’d like to go to the studio at 6 in the morning play til midnight and see what gets created. In the scheme of free time a working husband is lucky to get one or two nights to himself, I should consider myself lucky to have this time at all.
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Our drummer is divorced, unemployed, gets a social payout every week, free rent on a 2 bed flat (with views over the ‘Canvey Delta’) gets up at 2 in the afternoon, plays 2 gigs a week to pep up his social money, smokes more dope than Dopey the dope smoker from the dopey deltal, has a 12 track mixing desk and studio, writes all the songs he wants and chills out, and is he happy? ummmm….. thats a tough one….
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Thanks for the advice guys. Just keep the guitars out of the house. She knows nothing about guitar values when swinging them into the wall. Thts why I keep the mexi strat at home to practice on, go ahead take your best shot I can get another one tomorrow. Can’t be said of the LP, so it stays at the studio. After 20 years our kids are in college, (they cost me more than ever), the wife and I get along until music comes up. No matter what problem arises, music is to blame. So I say screw this, more music, more gigs, more recording and mixdown, or its chauffeur time and trek the princess around all weekend and stay up with her as late as I play music, impossible, I’m good for like 15 minutes at my age and then its lights out. I know I can’t get rid of her but getting her to see the positive side of music isn’t easy unless I play her favorite songs, then I occaisionally get lucky.
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Don’t ask me if I’d rather have a ’58 over a ’59 LP, Lee. No 3-band boost/cut, some 10″ short on scale length, whaddoIknow? 😕
All I would say is that a 59 ‘burst came up, a globe of people wet knickers and it sold for $300k+. That’d do for me, although I’ll take an aunty’s ’58 if it’s under the bed. Sorry, bear with me, I’m just a lefty 4 or 5-stringer 😀
“The Canvey Delta Blues Boys” 😆 😆
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Aaron pretty much sums it up. For the bare mathematics; look at your pension sheme(s). Either you have very badly performing investments, or a ’59 LP. Otherwise, a wife is more valuable than a guitar every time.
Besides, I never managed the proper technique of ‘making love to my guitar’ – although the 1/4″ socket didn’t help.
Update – the Mrs has just looked at my screen and added “you never managed the proper technique of making love to the wife, either” 😳 I’ll butt out of this thread now, I think.
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This is tough man, and a lot of us deal with it. I don’t gig nearly as much as I used to, but the couple times a month is almost too much sometimes! Your marriage HAS to be the top priority, but that does not mean giving up music!
Talk to her, yeah I know its tough, tell her she IS first, and if she is able to feel that is really the case you need to let her know how much her support of this area of your life really means to you. Does she have a hobby or something she needs like you need music? make sure you show your support of her endeavors as well.
this neglected feeling may be that she feels she supports you but gets no support in return.
Good luck man, thats really tough.
Aaron
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Well im not married, nor old enough to be, but my past gfs usually threatened me with “its me or the guitars” and i usually say, well, i did pay for the guitars. They dont like it, but when ive been so dedicated to something i love so much that i cant look away from em even for a second, and the girl cant handle it, then is she really worth it?
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