Have You Ever Hidden A Large Purchase From Spouse/Significant Other?

Never a problem for me. Easy solution is no wife or significant other. My life is busy and rewarding enough without those "complications."

I don't see the humour in the cliche of a brow beaten husband.

My wife knows about all of my purchases. She needs to, so she doesn't get ripped off in the event I predecease her.

I live with my mum (hence no wife!), and I never tell her what I spend on stamps, even though I will make it all back (and more) once I sell what I dont want on ebay.

She's just horrified that anyone would spend more than a few pounds on 'bits of paper', even though she's a former collector herself.

So headline figures of hundreds of pounds would just be asking for trouble.

Nope. No need. I don't quiz her about her Disney addiction and she doesn't ask me about mine.

I see her opening up another and putting it in her collections and she knows about mine when she asks for help getting the cartons into the house (I hate answering the door for deliveries. Dogs go berserk).

It's worked for 30+ years so no need to change anything.

There can be too much truth in any relationship.

I remember receiving a check some years ago in which bore the usual printed name and address plus the statement "This is the account that my wife knows nothing about"

I think this depends upon the people involved; truth certainly has both 'costs and benefits' and this requires that all parties can emotionally and intellectually handle the truth.

That said, I think that everyone lies or can be made to lie. It is normally possible to set up a situation where telling the truth has a much greater cost than lying.

But in general terms, I think women tend to lie in situations where someone might get hurt while men lie to make themselves look better. (For example, a woman might lie by saying, 'Oh your baby is so cute' when the kid is actually ugly. A man will lie by saying something like, 'I caught a record breaking trout'.)

Don

Stamp purchases yes. They are small enough to get away with. We also keep our money and credit cards separate. My wife has never had access to my bank account.

Well,
With the change of the payouts being directed into our bank accts instead of PayPal, which my wife thinks is my 'petty cash' account.

I fear she will realize that 'petty cash' in this world could be in the thousand's, which will be beyond the 'shoes petty cash' acct.

I think I will 'fund' a special deposit into her 'petty cash'.

No, never do/did.

When I married my wife, she would ask to buy every littlest thing... I told her that, while I appreciated her asking it wasn't necessary. I trusted her and that I don't go for this 'your money' - 'my money' crap. We're married and we're one person. One set of accounts, both names on everything. If she needs something, she knows our finances and budget as well as I do. Get it if she needs it, whatever it is. However major purchases should be a joint decision, like a car, washer/dryer, big screen TV, new living room furniture, gun show purchases like an M14... Mint Scott #1... etc.

That's the way I was brought up and that's how we've always lived.

We've both had occasions where we needed to buy something big and always discuss it first. We're both well grounded so it's rarely an issue.

Same as jconey here. Joint everything. We both have our careers and contribute to the household. My Husband does woodworking and builds small furniture pieces as a hobby and I'm glad he has his escape. He encourages me with my newly found stamp collecting hobby. What I have decided though, is to sell a few things (not stamps) on Nextdoor/eBay etc and with that I purchase larger ticket stamps. I don't need to do that, however it makes me feel good about my larger purchases.

Followup;

Actually now that there are deposits being made , sometimes several a day she has found this to be very positive on the petty cash 'flow'.
So far so good...
Now, on the buy side a little here and there no big thing along with the other payouts around this 'hobby of kings' (queens also)
Haven't seen a big one to have a plan for payment yet, as I usually let her know about a buy-beyond-petty-cash normals.
Still use PayPal

Don't have a wife, so never an issue!

No wife. No problems. When I WAS married, I never kept it from her. She had no interest in stamps, but one day asked me if I would take her to a stamp auction a few hours away that I was going to attend. We were going to make a weekend of it - I was going to make it a weekend of it myself, so there was little change to my scheduling to have her along. She wanted to experience what was one of my passions. She was in her early 20's. We showed up at the auction and started viewing. EVERY guy that was there made some comment directed at her - nothing mean, just something. It made her BRUTALLY aware that she was being viewed more than the stamps. She never went along with me again.

I have been at the other side of the table - I was a dealer for a number of years in a few stamp shops on the East Coast. There were always customers that made it clear (by their behavior more than their words) that they were keeping their purchases from their wives. One guy would split his purchases between 5 or 6 credit cards - he told me that his wife might see one of the bills arrive, and he could survive a $20 purchase, but maybe not a $100 purchase, each month. Another guy had 'mad money' stashed away and always paid (big bills) in cash. Some regulars would ask us to split purchases over several payments. One guy had one of those big clunky cell phones and when his wife called he always would say, "Oh, I'm just at the mall" or some such thing.

With the Secret Culture in the family, I wonder what the wives are doing behind the husbands' backs. Hopefully, just buying expensive yarn and roasts.