Seems like quite a lot of the partnered women in this thread have stated that decorating the whole house is a process of compromise. I know it is for me. I can see a number of things that I’m not particularly fond of from where I’m sitting in the dining room. If I had free reign to deal with the house and didn’t have anyone else’s preferences to take into account, things would be quite different. The very concept of the “man cave” makes me eye-rolly.
And, The Great Sun Jester, many women (with children, especially) would really, really love some regular, quality alone time.
Honey, so for couches, do you like ones with cushions, or the kind thats one big squishy thing?
I don’t care, you decide
What do you think of this one? It has a little built in compartment for remotes! You could keep your PS4 controller in there and the cat wouldn’t chew on it!
I don’t care, you decide
I like this brown one, but maybe leather is more practical since you like to eat during the game. thoughts?
OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME. I. DONT. CARE. YOU DECIDE
…
(time passes)
My wife chose the furnishings wah wah wah now I’m a snowflake and need a special man cave room because my wife “got to” furnish the house and I was soo excluuuuuded.
I think the idea of the man cave is that it’s his room, the wife doesn’t have veto power over decor, furniture, electronics etc… Wife already exercises full veto power over the remaining 3k sq ft of the house and I’m cool with that in order to retain sole power over my room with my shit in it. It doesn’t mean its a room that only I am allowed to use.
I don’t think women need that in most cases as they typically already have control over most of the house and whats in the rooms whether they work or not. My wife already knows she can do what she wants with the rest of the house without me butting in.
And man cave is the stupidest phrase of the last decade. I know you didn’t make it up but it’s dumb.
ETA: I see that others have already said this same thing. I didn’t read the whole thread before posting.
I think that it will become slightly more common for men to be in charge of the household as women become primary breadwinners, and part of that will be dictating the style and furnishing thereof, with the woman’s preferences increasingly relegated to a small self-contained area.
But probably not very much.
I think, in many cases, the reason that women dominate the furnishing and interior design of homes is that they simply care more about it.
My wife and I were married eight months ago, and set up housekeeping three months ago, and we fit a familiar pattern. Much of our furniture was hers, because it was nicer than mine. I certainly appreciate nice furniture, but not enough to actually spend money on it of my own volition, so the only nice stuff I had was stuff I refinished myself (sweat equity) and one thing I bought with her input when it was clear that we’d eventually be owning it together, and my usual “buy it cheap because I don’t care” process didn’t make sense if I’d just throw it away when we moved in together.
The living room, the bedroom, the dining room, and the kitchen are all arranged to her preferences. Ultimately, I don’t care that much how it looks. I think she does a very nice job decorating, and I certainly enjoy our home, but only marginally more than I enjoyed the spare and Ikea-strewn place I had when I was single. But the spare bedroom has a big screen and a projector in it, because that was a priority for me.
Heh. The part of my mother’s state that I’m “due” (that is, the part that can’t be removed without the process of declaring me officially Not Her Daughter) is
3€ and the right to bid for communal land,
updated from
500pta and the right to bid for communal land,
updated from
3 reales de vellón and the right to bid for communal land. (The real de vellón originated as a specific coin, stamped under José I Bonaparte, but became a new division in Spain’s monetary system)
My married brother had enormous problems convincing his wife that when she asked about curtains and he said “either one, honey, I don’t mind”, it meant exactly that. The only input he’ll have in how to decorate is by marking budget limits, because that’s all the input he’s ever cared to have (“no, we’re not getting a tiny table for 4000€” did not mean “no, we’re not getting a tiny table”, it meant she wasn’t allowed to spend 4K on it). If he ever complains about not having enough input on how his house is decorated, I reserve the right to hit him with the largest frying pan they own.
I agree with others that “man cave” is a concept promulgated by HGTV to encourage space entitlement and consumption. It also is a vestige of the idea that women are neat freak harpies with OCD who demand dominion over the entire house, while men are wild and messy simple creatures who are indifferent towards “domestic stuff” and need a secluded refuge away from their families. Because, you know, men are reluctant participants in their own lives as husbands and fathers; the whole idea is her doing.
The meme in previous decades was that the patriarch’s place was in the family room, parked in the Easy-Boy or a well-worn armchair in front of the TV. He was catered to and his seat was generally off-limits to others when he was present, but he wasn’t hidden away from the rest of the household and it wasn’t assumed that he needed extra space for all this “man stuff”.
I was visiting my Mom a couple of months ago, and one of her friends was building a man cave in which he said No Girls Allowed. I assumed he was joking. I wanted to check out the man cave because I thought it would have comic books and action figures and stuff I like, but it was really disappointing, just a couple of barbells and a refrigerator. (This dissonance clued me in a lot to my own geek-oriented perception of manhood.) The thing is, I don’t think he was joking about No Girls Allowed. The guys acted weird while I checked it out, and his wife seemed to be under the impression she was not permitted to enter. This utterly fucking boggles my mind.
Most of the things in our house are mine. He’s a very clean, ordered, minimalist kind of person, and I’m a fucking hurricane of disastrous clutter. He affectionately calls me Shiva the Destroyer. But he also recently took it upon himself to purchase about 20 Marvel action figures which are now spread all over our living room in a very cluttered fashion. Action figures are cool, but I wish we had a display case or something.
If my husband had his own cave, it would have stuff I like in it, and we would hang out there all the time. He rarely feels a compelling need for retreat. I have that need much more often. It’s an introvert thing.
As it is, I don’t have anything resembling a “man cave,” partly because we don’t have the space for one and partly because I don’t have any hobbies that require a room of my own. When I get a little spare time, I’m more likely to spend it web surfing or reading something on my Kindle, which is something I can do ANYWHERE.
