Of Pipes and Cats and Cats and Pipes

[romanza10]

Here, below, is an e-mail I'm sending to my wife (she is currently in bed asleep). It concerns her want of cats and my want/need of pipes. I do believe that the terms I've offered her are fair. I will continue with more explanation after the e-mail.

You want cats. I want pipe stuff.
Lets see if we can’t figure out a way to make us both happy.
I have no problem with us fostering the kitten. It’s good for the cat, it’s good for you, and yes I do actually enjoy playing with the little booger head. Now you had mentioned that you may want to adopt the kitten we are about to foster and possibly even the one left at PetCo. I can deal with that if you agree to my two following request.
1. Let me stash a minimum of 10$ a week from each pay check (sans the one that is auto drafted) into a “sock drawer account” for me to use towards my pipe hobby.
2. In the future, when we move into our own house, I want just one room that I’m allowed to smoke in (you may use it to if you wish, as well as guest).
If you are willing to accept my offer, I will not hinder you in any way with your want of adopting the kittens.
Please do consider this. As both my hobby and the cats will be with us for years to come. I feel that this a reasonable and fair offer.
Let me know something once you have read this.
Your loving and wonderful husband,
bill

Now, for a brief background. We have recently fostered a momma cat and her five kittens. We kept the mother and three of the two kittens have been adopted out. There are two left, one at the pet store and one is back at the shelter due to some kind of kitten sickness.
The shelter has asked if she would like to foster the sick kitten. Fine, no problem. But then she asked this afternoon if she could adopt him once he is well. I was needless to say hesitant. I hate to admit this, but we currently have 5 cats. She wants to adopt the sick one once nursed back to health and she also asked about the one still at the pet store as a possible adoption.
This afternoon, it didn't occur to me that I could use her want of kittens to my advantage. I figured this out after a couple of beers. Now let me explain my request.
First Offer

1. Let me stash a minimum of 10$ a week from each pay check (sans the one that is auto drafted) into a “sock drawer account” for me to use towards my pipe hobby.

You will notice that I did not set a maximum limit. That's because there can't be one, obviously. I can put as much in the sock drawer account as if financially comfortable. The reason it's set to 10$ is because things are tight now, and any money set aside is better than nothing. Also, 10$ is a palatable number for her to read. Had I said 20$ or 30$ that would be seen as rude and quite honestly greedy. I'm a patient fellow (hell, we have 5 cats) and can wait on 10$ a week.
Second Offer

2. In the future, when we move into our own house, I want just one room that I’m allowed to smoke in (you may use it to if you wish, as well as guest).

Now this one is genius. We currently live in a town house, which the mortgage is in her name. I moved in with her once we got married, so I can't set the rules for the house. But some time in the future we will be moving into a bigger, real house (not a town home) where my name will be on the mortgage. She can do what ever she wants to this future house as long as I have my own smoking room. It should mentioned that she is cigarette smoker (I make her up RYO which I do smoke too) and that being able to smoke in doors would be beneficial to her as well.
Both offers have to be accepted before I agree to more kittens. If she does not, no kittens. I think that is fair and reasonable. I just wanted to share this and get your feed back on it. Sorry if it's long and wordy but beer makes me kind of long winded.

 

[guitarguy86]

Five cats? And the fact that she smokes, I think your proposal is very fair and reasonable.

 

[nsfisher]

Marriage, I have found, after 25 yrs is succesfull thru compromises. I think your requests are well founded and fair. Good luck to you mate!
On a side note, the old saying that succesfull marriages live by:

Happy Wife = Happy Life

 

[ck12]

sounds like fair proposal to me! I am very allergic to cats though so i have never been a big cat guy myself.

 

[shawn]

I think this is a fine approach.

 

[ghost]

I think it sounds fair, but will she be okay with receiving it by email?

 

[mrenglish]

Well, coming from someone who has a wife/animal lover, we have 6 dogs and 5 cats plus a Beta. I have drawn the line at more 4 legged creatures but it is a fight a times. She is involved in basset rescue and they have been fostering several pregnant females, their third one. So, lots of puppies..
That said, we kind of have the same deal. I get x amount of cash in my own account to spend on this hobby and she rarely complains if I need more for hard to get pipe tobacco.
I think your proposal is quite reasonable, you just have to have a line drawn somewhere.

 

[reichenbach]

As a cat and tobacco enthusiast, myself, I will sign off as an arbiter. I say fair deal.

 

[crk69]

We have four dogs and two cats.. My wife generaly wont complain too much about my hobby expendiatures, as long as the bills are paid and there is a little buffer for emergencies. I like your approach, hope that she does too..

 

[romanza10]

ghost said:

I think it sounds fair, but will she be okay with receiving it by email?

ghost you hit the nail on the head. I about ended up living in the crate with the dog today because of my lack of thought into writing the e-mail I did. I take away a couple of things about this whole experience.
1)Never write e-mails to you wife after drinking beers and its late
2)Talk to your wife, also see point one.
We ended up having an argument, and it wasn't fun. It wasn't that my request where unreasonable, it was how I went about asking for them. And while I thought that the tone of my e-mail was in humor, she didn't see it that way. But after talking/arguing, I did come away with being able to put aside 15$ a week (she raised it, and I love her for it) and that one day when we move into a real house together I can have a smoking room.
Do I feel like this was a victory, no, not at all. It upset her and upset me. I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson about communication. Bearing in mind me and my wife have only been together for two years and married for one. What nsfisher said applies here.

Marriage, I have found, after 25 yrs is succesfull thru compromises. I think your requests are well founded and fair. Good luck to you mate!
On a side note, the old saying that succesfull marriages live by:
Happy Wife = Happy Life

Oh and yes, there is a good chance we will be getting the kittens. I still stand by what I said about agreeing to them since she let me follow through with my request. My only regret is I wish I had handled it better. I will not make the same mistake again.

 

[mp31guitar]

I think you're probably getting another cat. You might not get $10 a week or future smoking room, nice try though. :rofl:

 

[jndyer]

Ah, the thoughts of a man under the influence of pipe and beer (Actually that might make the start to a wonderful short story)...
By the way, I am glad I read all of this post as the first part the post was inspiring me to do something similar with my wife. After twenty-one years of marriage you would think I would no better. I guess I better set down next weekend for some of my own unique pipe and beer thinking.

 

[jharvard]

Oh friend! Your request is very reasonable indeed! An old saying comes to mind: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." I think this fits your current "dilemma" quiet nicely actually. :puffpipe:

 

[baronsamedi]

There's no winning when it comes to women or cats, but you got your stash for pipe money so good job! Don't feel bad about using email. My wife leaves me post-it notes with cryptic words on them that sound like I'm supposed to do work. She gets mad when I write "¿Que? No Habla Ingles" on the notes.

 

[spartan]

It's quite funny to see things like this unfold. We, as men, think our preparation and execution of messages to be perfectly reasonable, if not down right awesome. And then we get wacked in the head with a bunch of stuff we didn't think of because the female mind is something so strange to us we couldn't begin to imagine the responce we'll receive.
I'm about to experience this later tonight.... But I typed out and printed a letter.
Ended by: "(Burn this after reading)" lol
A smidgen of humor to lighten the mood. It doesn't always work in my favor... Wish me luck. :wink: