Girlfriends and wifes, how do YOU cope?

Someone, I think it was Albert, perhaps in this thread or perhaps in a similar one, pointed out, that it was important to make quite clear, right at the start of a relationship, ones dedication to music and the consequences this might have, so the choice is the lady's, if she is willing to live with this or not. Its honest, its clear and its true to oneself. This attitude is very similar to mine and through my life - which by now is a fairly long one - I've adhered to it and not done badly. Perhaps I've been lucky, because I never fell in love with anybody, who did not love music and infatuations to the contrary never really lasted long. If I think back on my most important relationship, which lasted almost 40 years, we never had an argument about equipment, because she knew it would serve the music, which we both loved. She used to look at my system as a musical instrument, which was evolving, a work in progress, listening critically, advising, helping. It was a passion we shared, music, the gear was only a means to its end. If I read some of the posts above, I suppose, I've been really blessed and very lucky. Cheers,

Detlof, as an analyst, perhaps my answer to the question "girlfriends and wife, how do you cope?" will interest you because it relies on the difference between masculine and feminine attitudes towards listening pleasure. I can clarify this apropos of the psychoanalytic opposition between "enjoyment of drives" and "enjoyment of the other," since this opposition is sexualized. On the one hand, men follow the closed, ultimately solipsistic, circuit of drives which find their satisfaction in idiotic masturbatory (autoerotic) activity, in the perverse circulating around an object (e.g. a piece of music) as an object of drive. On the other hand, women are subjects for whom access to enjoyment is much more closely linked to the domain of other people's discourse, to how they not so much talk, as are talked about: say, musical pleasure hinges on the animated talk of the co-listener, on the satisfaction provided by speech itself and not just the act of listening in its infantile and onanistic stupidity. And does not this contrast explain the long-observed difference in how the two sexes relate to the "listening room"? Men are much more prone to use the listening room as a masturbatory device for their solitary listening immersed in stupid repetitive pleasures playing their records, while women are more prone to participate in chat in the listening room, using the listening room for exchanges of speech. There is another--more radical--point to be made here: namely, a "true woman" is defined by a certain radical act: the act of taking from man, her partner, of obliterating--even destroying--that which means everything to him, and which is more important to him than his own life, the precious treasure around which his life resolves. As the exemplary figure of such an act in my life, I will mention my previous fiance who, upon learning that I was involved with another woman, appropriated my Jadis amplifiers, my most precious possession at the time, and donated it to a Salvation Army store in Manhattan--it is in this horrible act of destroying that which matters most to her partner (whether through chat in the listening room, or through appropriating his most treasured component or recording) that a woman acts as a true woman and copes with her partner's way of enjoying himself.

Slawney, a pleasure to see you back and a beautiful piece indeed. Your analysis, though of course politically highly incorrect, is of course psychologically more than correct,if you truly reduce the whole affair down to its brass tacks. It was Chaucer after all, who about a millenium ago pointed out, that the basic interest of woman was power - benevolently wielded, if you're lucky, maliciously, if you cross the lady. Was it not Shakespeare who said, that "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned", vide your Jadis. He also speaks of them as " those empty vessels". Obviously he understood something about male projection. In that sense our systems are empty vessels as well, aren't they? (~;

the girlfriend left (not too broken up about that), never been married....just me and the mutt, and we are both happy:D

Cinepro 20, here i come!!!!

Slawney. Very nice discourse. Sounds like you destroyed her heart and she destroyed your "heartware". I'm not getting into a discussion of which is most dear. However, if we flip this around a bit, aren't many of the responses in this thread related to inclusion and sharing as the keys to coping? If a woman destroys the things you love if she is treated wrong, does it follow that she would protect the things you love most if she is treated right?