When my father retired after working for the same company for 34 years, he was paid an additional full year's salary as an early retirement bonus that he had not been told he would be paid. So, he decided to buy a NOT VERY EXPENSIVE Ruger Mark I, bull barrel,.22 target pistol. The gun he bought turned out to be a stainless steel bi-centennial model. I visited him shortly after his retirement, and he told both my brother and me to come down into the basement to see something. Now, Dad had not been shooting in years, unless we dragged him to the range. When he showed us the gun, we congratualated him, but he hushed and said that mom didn't know he bought it! I said to him, why would mother care one way or another if you bought the gun? You are 63 years old. You just retired. you have more money in the bank than the two of you ever dreamed of having. Why are you afraid of what mom will say? He couldn't answer, but we knew this was a product of the " game ". I told him that when I wanted to buy a gun, I bought a gun, and my wife didn't have Anything to say about it. I wasn't stealing grocery money to buy them, or failing to pay the mortgage payment. This was always discretionary spending, and she bought whatever she wanted, without my permission or approval, too.
NOW, it helped, of course that my wife also worked, and earned a good living on her own. But I could just never understand my dad being afraid of mother. Neither could my brother understand his relationship with mom. Frankly, if he had stood up to her years before they might have had a better marriage. He let her get away with murder.
I used to take my wife with me to gun shows, and she would shop for the guns she liked, and I would look for something I wanted.
Get the wife involved, even as a cheerleader, or a stand warmer, in your sport. Let her be there when you are successful in taking game, so she sees the joy in your face, and the glee in your eyes at your success. She will love you more for it. And spend the time accompanying her when she goes " hunting " bargains, or whatever. Be there when she finds something at a " steal " that she has always wanted. It will make you grow closer together, instead of being battling opponents. When both of you use some common sense about purchases, so that the family budget is not destroyed, or the family put out on the street, you won't have the problems some men suggest here.