Tell her it will be more assets she gets in the divorce.

LTG : )

Well does she play them?

Ran out of room at the old place and when looking for a new house I let her know I needed a big basement, and it was mine. If there was no big basement, we weren't going to buy it.
Thats sort of it...our monies are our own and what we buy doesn't really need to be discussed.

I saw WAF and thought is this about subwoofers?!

I can’t tell you how many times I have had to try to influence my wife through furniture locations for perfect sub placement and keeping her happy with not being able to see it. Solved that problem with an IB sub setup- never going back to boxed subs!

Thankfully my wife was the one that suggesting a pinball machine when we did our basement. Don’t think she knew the door she was opening up though On my 4th machine in 2 years! Hoping my current one stays for more than 7 months.

She did say after hauling #3 into the basement that was the last machine she would help move. Neighbor helped me move #3 out and #4 in

Yeah there's always the players vs non players. I mean if a theme she likes helps get more in the house it's a win. I wouldn't specifically be looking for games for her to like if she's never going to play, but it can be a tool for getting more in the door.

This doesn’t affect me and I’m glad, as we just had a really stupid argument about TV size.

I have a separate place where I keep my games which is great. I am the sole arbiter of which games and how many space permitting.

We have one game at our apartment and of course she had some say in which one. It’s fine with me one game is enough, the others are 10 minutes away.

I have a room in the house that my lovely wife lets me do whatever in. Plus three in what was supposed to be the formal dining room to entertain guests. At this point it isn't really a question of whether I can fit another pinball machine, its whether I want to throw out enough of my other stuff to fit another.

It took a while to get to this point though. Lots of tense negotiations and setting/breaking boundaries. I think she settled on the point we are at now when I started building up a route. Then whatever was at home seemed minor compared to the hundred some odd coin-op devices I have in other places. She at least gets to play the ones here.

She does play some, but I've learned the hard way never to buy any pinball machines for her. Her favorite game outside of the house was Stargate. Her interest in it died the day it came home. She was pretty pissed I bought it too, because she didn't like the idea of me buying games she liked to get her to play more. Now my strategy is just to have her rate the games we have when I start thinking about letting one go. I've only sold one game she really liked.

I didn’t care what my wife said , I said “woman ! I have a dredd coming tomorrow so stay out of my way !”

Then .. We got separated

Me and my wife have since day one agreed on having separate economy to avoid arguing about money (we have been together for 17 years now and have 3 kids).

Every month we both add money to a shared account relative to how much we earn (as my salary is higher I add more). This goes to pay monthly expenses like food, clothes, bills, kid expenses, family fun and similar.

We also both move some money monthly to a savings account for unexpected things (like a car breaks down) or larger planned expenses like a long family vacation.

The rest of our salaries we can do what we want with and the other doesnt really have a say about it. If I want to buy a new projector or a pin, its my money and I do it. If she wants to buy machines for her hobby of creating jewelery or new shoes its her money. This works really great for us and we never argue about money or why someone bought item x (goes both ways ofc).

When it comes to pinball she only plays them when we have visitors that plays on them. Her favorite pin (which I also like) is ToM so that game will never leave if it can keep her more happy about the pin collection. She even offered to pay half of the topper price for it so I'm happy she is at least a tiny bit interested in my hobby.

Yes infinity baffle.

I have 4 18” subs. 2 opposed in each manifold.

With Dirac correction it’s flat down to 5hz

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Tips for convincing a S.O. to allow pins.
1. Leverage the fact time spent at home playing pinball will keep you out of bars playing pinball.
2. Buy a used game, keep it a few months, sell it for what you paid for it or a little more. Pinball is not a Home Theater expense where you spend $2,000 and get $300 when you replace it. Once you have confidence you can get your money back out, it’s not throwing money away it’s having money tied up.
3. Keep it out of the living room and in an underutilized space. The area I have my pins in is pretty much useless otherwise.
4. Let them see that you use them and have fun. When you aren’t using them and not having fun, it’s probably time to let them go anyway.
5. Set boundaries, let them know ahead of time what space will be used and keep it to that space.
Good luck!
(1 pin to 5 pins and a MAME in 2 years here).

One thing you can tell her is that pinball machines largely hold their value. As long as you are paying fair market value for a used game that game should hold it's value or go up. The only exception is NIB where you will see some depreciation but even then it's not that much. I imagine if you tried to sell your A/V equipment, you would only get a fraction in return of what you spent.

This was exactly what we did. My wife wanted to move out of the area my old house was in. She wanted an open kitchen with adjacent dinning room and large living room. I wanted a large open basement that had walkout doors to the back or side of house. We looked for over a year to find the right house. We found an over sized bi-level that was 1400 sq feet on each level with walkout basement. The main floor is hers and downstairs is mine. No arguing about what I do or what she does. The move was the best thing we could have done.

Mine encourages pinball spending.

This is a great point! I told my wife pinball machines are giant piggybanks, if you buy them right. I've been fortunate to not lose any $$$ on my pin purchases which re-enforces the point.

Normally I stay out of these discussions because they're riddled with "MY WIFES A BICH" and other dumbass boomer bullshit but there's been a lot of good pointers here so I'll share what's worked for me.

If it's a concern of space, you might not have much ground to stand on (literally and figuratively) when it comes to wanting more pins. If you own a house, you probably have some clear spaces that are dedicated to one thing or another. Have a discussion about what spaces get used for what and make sure you're not taking more than your fair share of the house. Always remember that if you share a space with someone, you SHARE THAT SPACE WITH SOMEONE. Same goes with roommates, siblings, or other family members you live with. Set some clear rules. Let's say you're the main money owner in a household and you pay for the house and the property taxes and homeowners insurance all on your own income, you STILL share the house with your wife. If you try to use your provisions as a reason for why you're taking up the space you're taking up, you're treating your S.O. like a roommate and not a partner.

If it's a concern about money, Lhyrgoif has a pretty good layout up there. Big open discussion and transparency about where you're spending your money is always helpful. If you're treating pins like investments that you're expecting to get a return on, well, don't. That's a bad way to format a discussion with your S.O. about where your money is going unless they're investments you can mutually get enjoyment out of. If you don't both get behind an investment, it's just dirt for one to throw at one another. It builds up over time.

If it's a concern of noise, that one is the toughest to overcome in my experience. These things are noisy as hell (along with being big and heavy as shit). Best way to mitigate that is to promise that you'll do the work you need to silence your pins and, here's the kicker, actually do it. You'll never completely silence a pin (I should know, I've tried every trick in the book) but there are plenty of seriously effective ways to make them quieter.

I live in a one bedroom apartment in an old victorian home in New England. I have 9 pins in my possession and only one is allowed in the apartment at a time. Originally I wanted to put three in our living room because I'm an idiot and don't know how to visualize space. When we were designing our floor plans of our place before we moved in, I presented the three pin idea to my girlfriend and she absolutely lost it. Rightfully so. It was absolutely a violation of what she expected to be used as a shared space. When we moved in, I ditched the idea of having a pin in the house until she realized I was constantly going over to my barn and my parents house and the places I had pins on location and was getting a little miffed that I wasn't around as much as she would have liked (and to be fair, I'm gone a lot). As a compromise, I'm allowed to have one pin in the apartment at any given time. I schedule my load ins and load outs. I tell her how much I'm paying for it and how much it's supposed worth is when it's shopped fixed and bulletproofed. Before it gets turned on I soundproof it as much as possible. I always try to bring in pins that are projects, but not pins that need to have a complete cabinet overhaul or playfield restoration. Gives me something to do while we listen to records or watch TV. Most importantly it has to be a title we both agree on. So far, the only pin that's gotten a flat no is Funhouse, because, to her credit, it is absolutely the creepiest pin out there.

Relationships are tough work, but most of the time it beats the alternative (and obviously, other times, they're not).