SHOPPING AROUND - And The Husband Walks Away

In retail you are frequently the bystander to a family or relationship dynamic. They stand outside your shop and a wife will be engaging in preliminary and delicate negotiations with her husband about a card/soap/wax melt/lampshade in which he appears to be showing zero to only a cursory level of interest. It can even be an active disinterest to a 'not on your nelly' level. At its very worst he'll show his disapproval simply by walking away, disappearing into the off licence next to us, or completely vanishing from view. And when the Husband silently walks away, is that the ultimate in passive aggressive actions?

There are male partners who do take an active and real interest, obviously. But it has to be said, these can seem quite rare. Though the interest can easily slip into a 'what ever the little woman wants' belittling response. Sometimes the wife has to drop gentle and repeatedly heaver hints, and then the pre-primed husband may return later with 'the credit card' to purchase said item. He'll be on the phone to her trying to establish which one from our range of jewellery it was she wanted. Her description not quite matching what he is seeing. Why they couldn't just come in together to do this is never that clear. Maybe they're trying to conjure up a fiction that this was an entirely spontaneous act on his part.

Who has primary agency over purchasing is noticeable. Its obvious when a woman has agency to buy whatever she likes and when she hasn't. When she has to get her partners approval first. When is it genuinely a joint decision? Who has ultimate control over the purse strings. If it is the wife, then there is a discernable clear air of metculous attention given to money management. If its the husband, there can often be the sense of defensive conservation, from which a begrudging largess is being dispensed. 

Older or poorer couples tend to hold a more old fashioned uneven dynamic over how they manage the family finances. Who has the purchasing power depending on what is being bought. If its about home decor then it is generally a feminine preserve, buying a car largely a masculine one. It is disheartening to see just how gender entrenched and unevenly financial control can be even in modern relationships. Underpinned by the lack of interest in stuff that's habitually considered a feminine or a masculine preserve. The sneery disinterested husband if successfully cornered by his wife, can still, however, press the nuclear option to walk away.

On occasions there is a more open acknowledgement that there are different interests, and that this is largely OK, with an obligatory bit of micky taking. Two women were in the shop recently, one middle aged woman and her Mother. The wife answered her mobile phone, and on the other end is her husband.  I only heard one side of the conversation.

'Where are we? we're in a shop in Sheringham'
.................................................

'Where are you? ........... You're at the railway station still.'

.................................................

'Well, we are going to have a sausage roll or something and then mooch around the shops for a while. You can join us if you want.

.................................................

 You don't want to do that. So what do you want to do ?'

.................................................

'You're going on the train to Holt again?'

The Mother loudly pipes up, in a teasing jocular fashion.

' Well bugger off to Holt then'

I laugh out loud

'Our conversation is causing a bit of hilarity here'

As they leave she turns to say to me.

'He says to tell you he's really going to enjoy buggering off to Holt'