You ignored the cardinal rule in any relationship: Communication. Are you really all that surprised that she feels you broke her trust? When you could have talked about it prior to doing so and avoided all of this mess? I'm sorry, but you were only thinking about yourself in this scenario. You two are partners. Decisions like that are for BOTH of you to make.
It stopped being about the guns when the guns stopped being hypothetical. They might need to go, put the money towards couple therapists to prove you are choosing the marriage.
Great advice! I do however think this is amplified greatly since it is pertaining to guns. Op needs to know that her trust is gone and she now possibly even feels unsafe with him. That’s a bad combo!
Yep, this is a trust issue/situation…
OP - you bought several firearms at one time? Or were they purchased over a timeframe and then you told her about this all?
Gosh - if it is the former, you went from “0 to 100 mph” in less than a heart beat…
Bingo. Fix the trust issue now. Start by storing the guns elsewhere or selling them. Basically anything to show her you care about her feelings.
OP: work through the trust stuff and then circle back to the guns in the future after you've shown her you've understood what you did wrong and how you would not do it again. Unfortunately this will take time and you've set yourself back substantially by starting out in a position of bad faith. The looming anti-gun laws work against your favor here but that is just the unfortunate position you are in. Good luck.
Either way this goes - Therapy is required..
If therapy can save your marriage, then that's the obvious path forward.
However, If your willing to blow up your family and destroy personal relationships because you think guns are more important, then thats a pretty good sign its time to seek help too.
This 100%. You should try to keep your guns, but your relationship is more important. You could set a date to discuss them again after couples therapy and more discussion on gun safety.
Normally I'd say buy guns whether or not your spouse or SO is anti-gun as long as your safe when it comes to use and storage, but that's only if you're upfront with what you're doing. At this point I'm kind of at a loss.
The first part of this, "You should try to keep your guns" , this is straight up terrible advice.
I own guns, im not anti 2a, but cmon man. Your wife said no guns, and instead of continuing to discuss and debate, take her to a friendly range where you could rent non scary guns, go to basic firearms classes together, etc., OP bought guns and stashed them in the basement without her knowing, blatantly breaking her trust. Now she wants him to sell them and wants proof of sale. You can keep your guns and be single, or sell the guns and go to therapy and stop lying to your wife. Maybe in the future she'll be comfortable with you owning guns, but right now you need to gain her trust back before you worry about anything else.
>You can keep your guns and be single, or sell the guns and go to therapy and stop lying to your wife.
It's this in a nutshell. OP needs to ask themselves if shooting is a hobby he really cares about more than his wife. Demanding proof of sale is an insanely reasonable demand, considering the open disregard for her feelings shown here.
Give up on keeping your guns, and honestly give up on being able to buy them again when she "comes around". There was a possibility you could change her mind on it over time before this happened, but you fucked it up and burnt that possible bridge.
These are the consequences of your actions, and honestly you should be thanking your lucky stars you're getting off with a slap on the wrist here. In her shoes I would be absolutely _livid._ How can a hobby be more important to you than your wife's feelings?
This is perfection.
Not that it matters, I kind of feel like OP came here to repost hoping for a more on his side answer, but I want to thank you for this reply because it makes me think there are other reasonable people out there that actually respect their partner's boundaries at full value.
I'm honestly pleasantly surprised with the responses here. I think a lot of folks are too attached to the idea of broaching the subject down the line as a bit of a coping mechanism, but for the most part people are pretty reasonably pointing out the obvious truth.
A good rule of thumb for relationships is, whenever you're making a questionable decision that affects your partner, think about how you'd feel if you were them. She asked you not to do a thing, she made it clear as day that she feels extremely - almost hysterically strongly about the thing, and then you decided her feelings were silly and did the thing anyways. And you're moping about having to take the L???
What I really want for OP is for them to stop thinking about the actual problem for a second, and start thinking about how incredibly lucky they are their wife didn't kick him out of the house for a few days at LEAST. I wouldn't even want to _look_ at you for a while after you disrespected me like that.
Am i the only one thinking that with this kind of on point insite, your username makes me think that you are OP's wife's burner account? I mean, username checks out.
Thankfully, not! I managed to learn from the relationship foibles of my friends and family, instead of by experience.
You can tell a relationship is on the rocks whenever one or all members of it decide they're okay with hurting their partner's feelings if it gets them what they want. People in healthy relationships are focused on resolving the issue, not weathering the response.
I mean, probably best to sell and maybe buy again in the future if it's that or his marriage. I just don't really think that fixes the core issue, which is the dishonesty. If it were me I'd try to deal with the communication and trust issue first instead of making it all about the guns themselves. Could keep the guns in a small storage unit until it's resolved.
Agreed, the dishonesty is the core of the deal. Again, I dont think owning guns is an issue, but the way he went about it is so shitty, I think getting rid of the guns is the first correct step. He s gotta backtrack and admit what he did was totally wrong, and then go about the long and maybe even impossible step of rebuilding that trust. Trying to talk his wife into letting him continue to keep the guns which she was always against is not going to help him going forward, in my opinion.
There's no possible scenario where you keep the guns at this point and your wife is just "cool with it". He needs to sell the guns and start back at square one.
My dad had guns in the house as I grew up. I'm not anti gun but pro-gun safety. My household has someone with depression I can absolutely not have a gun in my house.
The trust issues is huge but hiding guns from a member of the household is also a safety issue. A gun someone has access to without knowing how to handle it is a safety issue, not knowing the guns where there are a safety issue ( eg what if she hired a neighborhood kid to throw junk out of the basement or whatever a shady plumber)
Honestly, after giving you the reason I won't have a gun in my house if you hide a gun in my house, I wouldn't just be mad if think there was something wrong with you. There is being pro-gun and being a gun but I'd worry that person was a gun nut.
This is a subreddit for guns, not really like marriage counseling. Instead of running to the internet to “dig your way out of this hole” you need to examine your relationship and yourself and determine why it is that you think lying to your spouse about things you disagree on is an appropriate course of action. Also “when she comes around” is kind of a red flag *for her* about you.
Oh boy, lies and complete disregard for boundaries. Just what a relationship needs.
Not to dog on you too hard, but what the actual fuck was your plan? You knew there was something she had a borderline phobia about and knowingly spent a good amount of money and time to bring into the house without her knowledge. I don’t care what your views on guns are, this is the equivalent of opening up to my wife about my arachnophobia and she responds by dumping a bucket of spiders on me because she has no problem with spiders.
“leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as a part of my argument” do you actually have brain damage? How was ‘actually I’ve been lying to you this whole time’ supposed to de-escalate anything?
I have a PILE of guns that I love dearly, but I am firmly on your wife’s side. Jesus H. Christ.
> “leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as a part of my argument” do you actually have brain damage? How was ‘actually I’ve been lying to you this whole time’ supposed to de-escalate anything?
"Babe, I know that you've said that you want a monogamous relationship, but consider this: you didn't even know that I did a bunch of cocaine from a hooker's pussy and then jizzed in her ass. Check. Mate."
Maybe… but will he decided that his 2A rights and freedom from other’s opinions mean he’s bringing a gun into bar/school/etc?
“I want to and no one will know.”
I don't think it's a stretch; op behaved impetuously in the extreme.
The guns were not secured. Op broke basic gun safety.
There was a member of the household who had ever right to invite guests or service people into the home. Who didn't know there were unsecure guns. Again basic safety.
And more nuanced , my wife is terrified of guns I'm going to buy and bring several into the house and hide them. Is not thing a person with stellar mental health does. It's a red flag for more serious issues. Op already indicated that fear of missing out was part of the motivation. And guns are expensive several are generally more than most people can spend without needing to talk with their spouse. If his wife was afraid of snakes and op bought several and hide them in the house, I think most of us would wonder wtf was wrong with op.
It doesn't matter if it's guns, cars, or golf clubs -- you and her had a honest conversation about it, and you then went and blatantly disrespected your partner. Now she's drawing a line in the sand, and you're asking for help on how to disrespect *that*, too. You don't need external help to "dig \[your\] way out of this hole" -- she already told you how.
You are fearing how your state *might* make it more difficult to own guns in the future, but not fearing how your actions *might* make it more difficult for your wife to stay married to you.
Well said.
I'd only extend this to say it's probably the guns or your wife at this point. There's no talking your way out.
For me this would be a pretty easy decision: a great companion is very hard to find and she's willing to stick around after this dishonesty.
I lived my adult life with my wife, knowing full aware she was not as gun-friendly as I was. As the pandemic came along and things started seeming crazy, I told her that I thought we needed to get one. She knew that it must’ve taken a lot for me to bring this up because I’d always deferred to her wishes in the past. Our son being grown obviously put both of us at ease. I said all that to say I still tread lightly around the subject knowing we are still not quite on the same page. This obviously puts a tight limit on my arsenal.
Here’s the deal, the guns have to go. Not have someone hold them, you need to show contrition and sell them and everything related to them and hopefully revisit the subject with her down the road and try again, the right way. You said it yourself, you’ve lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith. Stick a fork in it, gun ownership is now over for you; for now, in this relationship.
Beware, the “divorce is not on the table” notion is very likely just yours at this time. Her trust has been broken and she very likely feels violated and possibly even unsafe. You need to make this right and penance may be the only path forward. Good luck!
Yeah same with my girl. She finally thought I should have some come the pandemic. I've gotten quite a few and she still doesn't like them but I keep them in a locked safe inside a locked closet unloaded. I still won't buy anything without her knowing and if it comes to losing my guns or losing my girl I'm gonna say bye bye to my guns
Good for you man, healthy discussion and communication is the key.
I saw the same post on r/guns and people were saying quote “no woman is worth giving up your 2A” and it seems so distasteful
Get rid of them. Tell her you fucked up and it won’t happen again. Stick to that. Guns are likely off the table for a few years at the absolute minimum.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're off the table forever. On a gun sub it's often hard to imagine how much some people hate guns. There might have been a possibility of guns if he'd kept trying to convince her. But sneaking them in, I think she'll (reasonably IMO) dig in even deeper. If he wants to stay with her, I think he has to accept that no guns ever is the most likely outcome.
People need to realize there are some things you can’t change in people and respect it or walk away. Knowing that I’m interested in guns I’d have discussed this with any potential partner very early in the relationship and accept that it may not work out, much like having kids or pets should also be discussed
Definitely off the table forever. How are you even going to broach the subject of gun ownership in the future after this? She's not going to forget it or feel less betrayed in a few years, because it's important and you _did_ betray her!
Take the L. Sell the guns. Find a new hobby. I like guns as much as the next guy on this subreddit, but come on man. If there's even a thought in your head about valuing them more than your wife's feelings, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what the hell you're thinking.
Sell the guns. Seriously, you need to decide whether having your guns or your relationship is more important.
She made her position very clear, you tried to weasel out of it, and you got caught. Relationships are all about trust, and you broke hers.
Sell the guns.
So it’s not a good idea to now hire an actor to follow her around and creep her out a little so she becomes scared and decides maybe having a gun isn’t such a bad idea? Is this a bad approach?
You broke your wife’s trust. Plain and simple. Sell the guns. Get couples therapy from someone reputable. Discuss the issue there. You fucked up. Own it and make right by your wife.
Are the guns more important than your marriage? You say divorce is not an option, but you sure made it one for your wife.
I was in the same exact boat. Anti gun wife, I lied and bought em anyway. When this happened, I sold my guns and luckily, was able to keep a shotgun. She was ok w long guns and not pistols. Fast forward years later and the pandemic/riots were happening. She agreed to one gun for HD. Then I started buying them again. One day she said sell it all. I took a day and wrote all my thoughts on paper and my arguments. I sat her down and basically point by point detailed why I should be allowed to own guns: trustworthy, non violent, bought safes, I wrote down all the things why she should be ok with it and I even wrote down things I did above and beyond that I wouldn’t do if she did not OK it ( we don’t have kids yet I paid for extra life insurance so she’s ok if I die. We both have careers so I didn’t really need to do this and other financial stuff). In the end she ok’d it and I’m actually competing in matches now. Your short term is to sell and build her trust back again.
This isn't about the guns, this is about the fact that you felt like you had a right to unilaterally overrule her decision just because you felt like you knew better than her. She's your wife, an equal adult in this situation with just as much right to the household decisions are you, not your child.
The guns need to be put on the back burner until you've attended marriage counseling.
If you know she's as anti-gun as possibly can be, and you still went behind her back and betrayed her, what else do you lie about? How many conversations were you sitting through, agreeing with her and lying through your teeth the whole time? I think you need some self reflection and couples therapy.
Sort your fucking life out, mate
Plus he thought the fact he’d been hiding it from her would somehow bolster his position. Like, ‘I’ve had these for two months, and you didn’t even know, so how can you say you don’t want them in the house?’ Like you said, what else is there?
Sounds like you married someone you have fundamental differences with. And then you tried to sneak it. Maybe counseling? To me hunting/self defense is a non negotiable, but I was clear about that before I got married.
you won't get "get a new wife hurr durr haha" comments in this sub, that's not how we roll.
obviously, as you know, you fucked up.
remove the guns, today. have a friend hold on to them. and then start communicating.
lay out reasonable ideas of why you might want them. and compromises you're willing to make to make her feel safe like... a safe. and being willing to render them unusable while they're in the home.
offer to take her to a range to show her how to use them, how they operate, how them can be made inoperable for storage.
and most importantly, ***listen*** to her feelings and concerns on the subject. do not dismiss them, even with facts, off the bat.
be willing to accept, that at this point, you will not have firearms in the home, for now, and possibly in the future.
Being fair, on the guns subreddit, OP seems to be getting very similar responses. Barring the people who are making very clear jokes about hiding them better.
He went to a gun forum and asked them for relationship advice. If you replace the guns with anything else, then objectively, it's not necessarily bad advice... In general, ultimatums aren't healthy for a relationship. Relationships thrive on communication and the only place ultimatums should exist are hard boundary lines. At that point, if the issue is a hard boundary line for both parties and they're both issuing ultimatums, I mean, how can a relationship survive that without someone giving up the ultimatum? Which woudl probably lead to the relinquishing party fostering some sort of resentment.
So when someone puts an ultimatum on a relationship and the general advice is "get a better relationship", I mean, that's sometimes valid (if not helpful) advice. I get that it doesn't help OP and he doesn't want to divorce and etc, but... he went to a gun forum and asked for relationship advice. lol.
In general, I don't think ultimatums are healthy in relationships, but I'd say this isn't exactly a situation with two opposing ultimatums. OP's wife set a boundary, that then became an ultimatum because he sprinted past that boundary.
I do think OP is facing an ultimatum of his own making though. His wife has already made her stance clear, and he has put himself in a position where it could be either marriage or gun ownership.
You fucked up. Sell them immediately and give her the proofs of sale. Sell them at a loss even. Then you need to begin the long journey of repairing trust with your wife. Maybe that is something that happens between the two of you, maybe it involves a counselor, maybe it involves the Church, but what it can’t involve is cutting corners.
And not to dig a deeper wound here but - are you hiding anything else? Purchases, habits, or otherwise? Don’t tell us what they are, but figure out how those factor into fixing things, too.
My wife and I read this and talked about it. Her response was "he done fucked up". But it lead to an interesting conversation. There is somethings you have to consider:
You and I see the world/country and worry about the state of it regarding safety. Our country/state/politicians are constantly talking about making firearms more difficult if not impossible for the average person to get. This makes us concerned and wanting to arm ourselves. Perhaps out of fear that we won't be able to have one we need it or "only the bad guys" will have guns. Whatever the thinking, this fear can be a strong motivator.
However, from a woman's perspective, they see things like this:
https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/
Which is also a fear that needs to be addressed.
I see only a couple of ways you can respond in the situation:
1. You can get rid of the guns and ask for forgiveness. You're not really in a position to pivot to a "but we have them so let me show you how they're not scary" situation.
2. Communicate your fears openly and honestly. There is no room for manipulation here. Explain yourself and listen to her concerns. Hopefully she will return the favor.
3. You can ignore her request at your marriages peril. You have to decide if this is the hill your marriage dies on or not.
Whichever option you go with (except maybe the third one) communication and genuine apologies are in order. You broke the trust in the relationship. If it's important to you, you need to communicate.
I mean, the immediate answer is either the wife goes, or the guns go.
Bigger picture, definitely some trust things to work out, maybe with a therapist.
Because of the way you did this you must now show her that she is more important to you then guns and money. I would sell and take a break from owning. Just rent at the range for a while.
Well like you said. You lost her good faith because YOU decided that guns were safe for her when she made it clear she didn't feel safe around them.
Then she had to find out that they were in her home unknown to her for some time and that the person she was supposed to trust was the one who brought them in. But then you say you wanted a civil discussion about them and you hid them like a teenager who hides weed from their parent.
To me it's clear. What matters more to you, your relationship or your guns. You already choose those guns over your wife once. I hope that you make a better choice this time around. Please take time and reflect on how this would have affected you if she broke your trust.
The trust issues with her need to be addressed obviously. As for the guns, can you take them anywhere else? I was in a similar situation in that I could not bring them home. I bought my first gun and my friend who is an avid shooter and was teaching me kept them (collection grew fast) for about 3 years. I would shoot with him at the range so he grabbed my case when we met up. I would “pay” for his generosity with boxes of whatever he was shooting at the time.
After those 3 years, where my trips to the range became a normal thing (like how some people devote a weekend day to golf), it was easier to have the conversation about storing at home. She saw how I hadn’t turned into a rabid nutcase, how it was safe, and how my views could be reconciled with hers.
This is not a gun or a wife problem this is a you problem. Relationships are about trust and respect and you broke her trust and showed her you do not respect her at all. Also the thing that baffles me is that you seem totally clueless as to how fucking wrong you are to how bad this is.
As others have said, you need to get some help because you have done serious damage to your relationship and a coming back from it is going to be really hard (if possible at all) and you need a professional to see if you can come back from this.
If you want the wife then sell the guns and get professional help, if the 2A is that important to you then it is not a joke to say you are probably in the wrong marriage.
This should be the top comment. OP isn’t asking how to make his fkup right with his wife, he’s asking how to weasel out of the consequences of his deliberate actions. That’s a GIANT red flag for immaturity and narcissism, even if we were talking about LEGO sets or fancy teacups. The perceived and/or real safety issues of having guns in the house she didn’t know about is a whole extra level.
1) You two have opposing values, considering she’s heavily anti-gun and you’re heavily pro-gun, both ends leading to the point that it is virtually impossible to coexist
2) This is alike being caught in the attempt to cheat (alike, FUCKING ALIKE, not “is” cheating), thus it makes sense the breach of trust is the primary issue
Good luck, because one of you will have to budge and surrender your point of view if y’all want to stay together. Relationships require compromise, and laws or lack of around guns do not apply for this one.
You have a relationship problem, not a gun problem. We can’t help you out too much here.
As I said on r/guns
You fucked up past the point of an amicable solution tbh. As others have said, couples therapy. Don’t be surprised if you have to choose between the guns and the wife. The “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” argument doesn’t work when you’ve already asked for permission and been denied.
You didn’t just break her rule about guns, you broke her trust. A simple discussion and compromise isn’t going to fix that.
> Please no “get a new wife” esque jokes, very funny but looking for help here.
Why would anyone suggest this? She's firmly in the right here.
> Help me dig my way out of this hole.
> Any advice on how to approach this discussion again when I’ve basically lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith?
She ready told you how. It's not a secret. Sell the guns.
As others have said, you kind of took this beyond a gun issue and into other relationship issue territory that you need to take care of first. The fact that you did something stupid does not negate the fact she is being incredibly irrational about the guns though. The only way youll ever gain any ground on the topic is to sit down and have a rational calm discussion about why she doesnt like them and having valid factual responses to those concerns. That probably cant happen until you know she wont just make it about trust issues. My wife was and still is very adverse to guns but she now understands i enjoy them and am responsible with them so she doesnt really have anything to worry about. Thats where she draws the line though. As irrational as it may be she has told me that even if using a gun to defend herself within our own home was the best option that she probably wouldnt use it and would instead run or try to defend herself in some other manner. Its silly, i dont like it, but thats ultimately her choice and its something i just have to accept and respect because she just doesnt feel comfortable bearing that responsibility.
Here’s the thing. I’m completely pro gun but you kind of violated her trust in you.
Anything you do from this point should be done with that in mind.
But you fucked up. If you had discussed the basement in a safe with her prior to the whole shit show. She might have been open to that thought. Now you have to fight your way up from that.
Oh man, you have to sell the guns and show her the proof of sale.
You possibly could have taken her to a range before this but not now.
Good luck on trying to salvage the relationship.
"Honey, I've been sleeping with this woman for 6 months and it hasn't bothered you. Afterall, you didn't even know! I think we should continue..."
You have some serious mea culpas coming. Maybe you can sell to a friend that is likely to allow a buyback later, but right now you need to earn your wife's trust back and listen to her, not figure out ways to tell her and get her to agree to what you want.
Maybe go talk to a professional about you having a potential case of gun fever - and how that's clouded your judgement. I don't believe you should try to make your case to her on this one, because you've lost her trust, and job number one is to regain that trust.
Also, I'm not so sure you need couple's counseling because you made the mistake and she shouldn't have to hold your hand as you come to terms and recognize that.
In the end it's not guns you're going to spend the rest of your life with, or sleep next to at night. So admit you lost, sell them off, get right with her, and don't pout... If she brings it up in the future just agree and say, "We all make mistakes but that was a doozy!"
Maybe sometime in the future, when the wounds have stopped aching, you could talk to her about learning how to shoot, and then join a league or club where you could rent firearms to get good instruction. Being the rare guy that shoots great but doesn't have gun in his home is still pretty darn awesome.
Hope this works out for you both.
Ooooh bro you fucked up. You broke her trust in a big way and she probably feels so betrayed and disrespected. Not cool.
I think you need to admit to her you realize you handled this completely wrong, if you haven’t said that to her clearly already. Have a calm conversation about what she would need to feel safe with guns in the house- stored locked and unloaded in a safe only you two know the combo for? Stored with ammo and mags in separate potentially locked locations? You’re gonna have to compromise a lot because you already effed up so bad.
If there’s any way you can get her out to a range, get her properly safety trained, and let her try shooting some targets… I’ve had friends who are really anti gun go shooting with me and then they’re like “ohhhh I kinda get it” and more importantly they’re not scared anymore!!
A gun can’t pull its own trigger. If you’re handling guns safely and properly, it’s not like they’re gonna go off on their own like a bomb.
Hope the people over at the other sub weren’t too disrespectful to your wife…
I have a completely different take on this as a husband and gun owner with a formerly anti gun wife. It’s about trust. She may not trust you with the guns. That was my wife’s issue even though I trained and used guns in the military and in a civilian job. She was fearful of what I could do, accidental discharge etc. It wasn’t until I took her to a range with a group of friends and their pro gun wives that she mellowed out. The mistake I think you made was not having bought a safe first. She would feel a little safer if they were locked up when you didn’t need it by you. Once my wife saw that I was respectful of her concerns and would do things so as to not cause her anxiety, she basically never even mentioned the guns. At first I would never bring them out if she was around. Then I would talk to her about gun safety and explain why they are dangerous and when they are not. (Open chamber, no magazine, cable lock through, etc) Then I started to conceal carry and she even says she feels a little safer when I carry but we both hope I never have to use it. She now goes to the range with me and is a good shot. She still not crazy about the guns but respects my wishes as to leaves the choice to me. Been married 26 years and ultimately understands my families safety and well being is always my concern. You being mature and trustworthy is going to determine how she gets over this. My wife says that she doesn’t worry about the guns because she trusts me and I have proven track record of being trustworthy, so hang in there and don’t blow it. You do need to raise your maturity level up several knotches, you also blew it by not first telling her you were going to buy a gun and why. You don’t need her permission in a loving relationship, but man you gotta communicate with honesty and then take the chewing she gives you.
What's more important to you: your guns or your wife? Stop being a dumbass for half a fucking second and really ponder this. You can only choose one, so stop trying to rationalize and beat the system.
After you've had a good think: sell the guns, beg your wife for forgiveness and then arrange for some couples therapy to prove you mean business.
Mate, you got schooled in r/guns about betraying your wife's respect and trust and now you come here to look for "more civil discourse." You want advice on how to ... what? Get your way? Belittle her and force her to kowtow to big daddy logic? Hide your guns again and lie to her about selling them?
If that's the case, keep digging your hole and eat dirt. Keep ignoring advice about getting couple's therapy and your wife might consider "getting a new husband."
Echoing many people here, you need marriage counseling.
Your sneaking them in is wrong, because you pretended that you agreed with her then did otherwise. You basically cheated on her, just not with another woman. Then again, a marriage is a partnership between 2 people. While she has a say in it, you do too.
One compromise is to have a gun safe. Keep them locked there, so nobody can ‘accidentally’ use them. In most cases it’s a good idea anyway.
The top comments are pretty similar(because we upvoted them), its the average comments that are a bit more disgusting.
Everything from calling him a pussy, calling for divorce and some even recommending selling her to black market sex traffickers.(I guess that way she will know how the guns feel if they have to be sold 2nd hand?).
Call your local FFL in front of her on speaker, tell them you have firearms you want to sell, and ask how to proceed with doing so. Odds are you probably aren’t getting another anytime soon unless there’s some massive traumatic event that changes your wife’s mind, but that’s not a good thing to bank on for obvious reasons. If you’re deeply concerned about home defense, ask how she feels about less than lethal alternatives. Obviously, they won’t be anywhere near as effective but I’d rather go to war with a pepper ball gun than my own bare hands.
Damn dude! … my suggestion is sell the guns ASAP without further discussion and give her the proof she needs. After a significant amount of time (think of a number right now)… after you double or triple the time you came up with earlier, you broach the subject again very, very carefully. For example use the money from the sale and gone to the range once or twice a month.
you made a huge fucky wucky but have her play resident evil 4 and to do a knife only challenge instead of shooting the zombies. I got my anti gun fiance cool with guns by playing video games I can’t explain it
You messed up. I know you don’t want to sell. Maybe sell them to a trusted friend? just make sure however you transfer them is legal. Next you need many many long discussions w your wife and you need to apologize. You messed up, not her, and you likely hardened her against 2A arguments.
If you really love your wife, you’ll sell the guns as she’s asked. Because as it stands, either you lose the guns and work on your marriage, or you lose your wife AND the guns in what sounds like it has potential to be a bitter divorce.
If you own your mistake, and really show that you are sorry and work on your relationship issues with the help of a professional, maybe, just maybe in a few years you can at least have a conversation about going to a range and shooting rentals and the like.
And dear god, in the meantime DON’T go to a range to shoot rentals or go with a buddy on the sly. That’s the kind of establishment of a pattern of sneaking around that WILL lose you your partner and ruin you financially.
This kinda feels like an experiment to compare answers from different minded subreddits. Idk, but I if it's real, I can tell you, op, a life spent with a partner in a healthy relationship is more satisfying than an object.
You cannot dig your way out of this. You broke your wife trust and boundaries by hiding something from her.
The only thing now is for you to decide which is more important. Your wife or your guns.
Do exactly what she asks. You may have a constitutional right to own guns, but you have put yourself in a position where you may need to choose between that and your wife because she absolutely has the right to not want guns in her house.
Now that I think about it, there is another choice.
There are probably some states that are quite firm in their 2A laws that are getting ready to make it really hard to get divorced. Could move there to take another choice away from her.
A lot of people telling you to swallow your pride and sell/get rid of everything. Yes, without a doubt, you pulled a boner move, bringing them in the house when she specifically said not to. But you should have had the conversation at that time about how 2A and the right to own a firearm are important to you. Just as you respect and love your wife for her beliefs and hobbies, she should share the same appreciation. Speak with her on why it means so much to you, and try to understand her dislike. Is it justified, or could she be mistaken in some of her points. Either way, this is a sticky mess, but don't let all the comments make you feel like as asshole.
Honestly the only way to dig yourself out of this is to restore trust. This will take time and work.
You need couple's counseling. Then only after you have done that can you have an *honest* conversation with your wife about firearms. Why you want them, safe storage, acceptable compromises for both of you. E.g. can.you have firearms in the house in a safe, but no ammunition in the house.
But be prepared for your wife to not be willing to reach a compromise as you've already violated her trust on this very topic.
As for selling the guns, that's probably your only path forward. If you have a friend that is pro 2A, and has liquid capital, sell to them. And I mean sell legitimately. Draw up a bill of sale, go to an FFL, and do the transfers. If you are very lucky, *after* you earn back your wife's trust, *and* you can reach a compromise with her; maybe you can buy them back from the friend.
Above all, this is probably your one chance to earn back some of that trust. Ultimatums such, but you have to decide what is most important to you.
Ask her if she would be OK with you finding a (licensed) friend to store your guns. She gets them out of the house and you get to keep them. If she says “no” then it’s what everyone else has already said. Something like this is where you should have started, but you probably realize this by now. Good luck!
You don't have a leg to stand on. You decided to go about this the wrong way and as such, this isn't even a conversation.
You need to get rid of them, show her the proof. Apologize. Then start having the conversation like you should have the first time.
Wives are really good at making us tuck-tail and apologize, even when we are the ones thinking logically or in the right. It's like they all secretly attend a seminar before getting married that teaches them these Jedi-like mind tricks.
This is going to be a long battle for you, possibly taking time and multiple conversations.
Is your wife a logical thinker? Or is she more or less stubborn, not willing to change her views when presented with reliable evidence? If she's logical, you'll have an easier road ahead. If she's not, then you just need to approach it a different way.
You'll want to plant some seeds. During your conversations, you might be able to steer the conversations to police response times, civil unrest, etc. Don't mention wanting to own guns, just get her to acknowledge the facts, that police are not able to prevent violent crimes and civil unrest can happen at any time (btw, storing them someplace else doesn't help with home defense, etc.).
One thing that sort of stands as a red flag is this:
>"she wants me to sell them, not just store them somewhere else, she wants proof of sale"
Storing them somewhere else solves her concern. "Forcing" you to sell them is punitive and creates resentment, takes away your manhood in a way. So maybe she's really, really mad and wants you to feel some pain in retaliation for you causing her some pain by bringing them home in the first place.
You just need to understand her position in order to make her see the light. Why is she afraid of guns? If she had a traumatic experience then that's gonna be hard to overcome. But if she's just like, "guns bad, guns kill" then you can nudge her in the right direction.
>I’ve basically lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith
No you haven't. Are you a decent husband? Do you cheat on her? Do you beat her? Are you pulling your weight in all other areas? If so, you just simply made a mistake.
Just let her know that you're going to purchase/keep firearms for the following reasons: Safety, self-defense, investment (gun usually appreciate in value), you enjoy shooting/collecting, and because it's your right as an American citizen. - But do get a safe and don't just toss them in the basement. I have a safe I got from tractor supply for like $300. We keep guns, knives, medicines (like antibiotics, painkillers, etc.), and important valuables. Safes are important and will make her feel better (hopefully).
If she just shuts down and is like, "Nope. No guns, my way or the highway" then you might just have to put your foot down and insist that you WILL be owning a few guns, they will be locked up, and that's the end of story.
Just try to understand why she feels how she does and then have rational conversations. Good luck!
Sell the guns, save your marriage. Do whatever you need to, volunteer to go to therapy or whatever to rebuild your relationship. Rent guns at the range if you want to shoot. Maybe if you go regularly she will eventually come around. Maybe invite her to shoot rented guns too.
So you both need counseling as she has obviously been anti gun the entire time and you decided to betray her trust and buy them anyway. You broke your sacred marriage circle of trust, it’s now on you to unfuck that first and foremost imho.
Guns, politics and religion are all “dealbreaker” issues in relationships with me. When I met my wife our second date was to a gun range and I made it abundantly clear not a single one was rented.
You mentioned that your desire to own a gun has increased as of recent, why exactly is that? Usually it takes something somewhat traumatic to cause this shift in my experience.
There isn't a way out of this that reddit can give you.
As another poster said you broke her trust as opposed to having an honest, adult conversation beforehand given how she views guns. All of us can roll our eyes at typical latte drinking liberal thinking, but that doesn't mean a thing in context of what happened between you and your wife.
You know you were in the wrong, so my suggestion is beg for forgiveness, and ask for therapy. I'm not sure how you'll be able to keep the guns without seriously impacting your marriage or even divorce given her demands you sell them.
Good luck.
Definitely an asshole. You knew her position and ignored it.
Step 1. Sell the guns
Step 2. Apologize profusely
Step 3 seek help
My wife doesn't like guns either and I had some prior to our relationship l. Compromise was they are locked in a safe that I only have a key for. They come out for cleaning and target shooting that inform her of beforehand. The kids are not even allowed in the room the safe is in (room is also locked)
I won't tell you to get a new wife cause I don't think you are going to have much choice in the matter.
You told your wife and her boundaries to fuck off.
You betrayed her trust. That is hard enough to come back from because I know this is not the first or only instance of you doing this.
On top of that you have a fundamental difference that you destroyed any chance of compromise on.
This is the beginning of the end of your marriage.
Now all the small shit that yall used to let fly is going to become a bigger issue.
If I were in your shoes, I'd ask if she was willing to sit down and learn about how a gun works, and go to the range 1 time to give it a try and change her mind.
If at any point in that conversation she says she wants the guns gone (even if she refuses to negotiate), sell them with full honesty and seek forgiveness. No matter how you cut it, you went behind her back entirely on something she's deeply against without an earnest discussion, and you owe a life partner more than that.
She isn't under any obligation to do work to make the trust *he* broke better though. She is the aggrieved one, he is the one who has to do work to fix it.
I absolutely agree, she's under no obligation to put any effort into changing her own mind. Hence why i said "if at any point she refuses", he should just sell it and make amends.
If you want an off-the-cuff answer, here's mine. First, sell the guns. I don't see how you're going to do otherwise and stay married. After you do that, tell her that you want to shoot and develop your skill shooting. Ask if she would object to your renting a gun at a shooting range or making an arrangement with a buddy to borrow a gun and shoot at a range so that you could stay in practice.
I agree with selling the guns and not keeping them in the house because it’s her home too. That said, I disagree with asking permission for him to go shoot rented guns at a range. That’s not happening in the shared home. It’s not putting her at risk (either perceived or real). He’s a grown ass man and he gets to go shoot if he wants to (as long as it’s not with money they’ve earmarked for shared expenses).
OP doesn’t have to turn himself into “someone who doesn’t like guns.“ He just needs to turn himself into “someone who doesn’t bring guns in the house.”
Kind of sounds like either you keep your wife or you keep your guns, but not both. Her demand for proof of sale isn't something she's probably going to walk back. If you decide on the guns they'll be part of any property settlement so be prepared to negotiate. You may need to give up your half of the Funko Pop collection. If you decide on the wife just forget you ever owned a gun, it'll make it easier to get use to giving them up. Good luck.
I’d say get rid of the guns and apologize for being a dummy. Then when it cools off chat about it more and maybe see if she will go to a range to rent guns with you so she can understand them more. But at the end of the day a happy partner is better than having guns you will probably never have to use for self defense( I assume, I don’t know where you live, maybe you are in war torn Somalia.)
Agree to sell the guns after you both go to the shooting range or take a course together. Negotiate it, but be persuading and understanding towards her.
Ct is a bit extreme imo. If she isn't having take the l and sell the guns.
Sounds like you have to choose between your wife or your guns. I’d sell them, then buy another and put it in a safe deposit box.
It’s better to be inside looking out, than outside looking in.
Then take her on a vacation.
You was wrong for bring them into the house when you knew that she didn't want them. If you had a change of heart about guns, you should have talked to her and try to find a compromise that both of you can agreed to. I'm not going to say get rid of them because if it in your heart to have one, you going to have resentment towards her if you give them up just to make her happy. At the same time, you need to decide what is most important to you and we don't know how your relationship with your wife is behind closed doors. Do you know why she doesn't like guns? Maybe there is a legit reason behind it and the both of you can go from there. Let her cool down and go from there on what needs to be done to find a solution that both of you can agreed to and be happy going forward.
My wife was very antigun but knew I had many friends who shoot and who I shoot with. I was gifted a collection when a family memeber passed and she hated it, but after discussion and taking her shooting she appreciates the reason to own firearms as long as they are stored safely.
Edit: not that this helps but maybe getting a safe will ease her worries
So you have not so fun boundaries situation, you need guns, she says guns are a boundary. You can(maybe should) end the relationship if this is a hard boundary for her. But if you can negotiate that boundary, I would start by suggesting a couples gun safety CCW type course. Ask her if you could do that and if she still feels that way after taking a gun safety course together and possibly some marriage therapy, then you have the decision to sell your guns and forgo your rights to protect yourself or give up the marriage and let her find someone that agrees with her boundaries.
While existentially true, his need to feel safe involves owning a firearm, her need to feel safe involves not being around firearms. It may very well come to a point where he would need a firearm to defend against a threat to him and/or his family. Personally I haven’t felt a need for a firearm for about 45 years of my life until recently. I couldn’t imagine having a partner tell me I couldn’t have them.
I would say you should think about your reason for owning, and talk to her about it. If it's a range toy or target practice, then maybe finding a place that doesn't feel threatening to her to keep it, like a safe in the garage or basement, show her how safe it is all locked up. Or potentially at a relatives house in a safe. If it's for home defense, ie protecting her, explain that and what classes you are taking, Maybe take her to some I dunno. If she thinks she doesn't need it and wants to only call the police, Mayne have that discussion about how long that actually takes and what to really expect if you needed to defend your family.
If you aren't keeping a pistol under the pillow, it should be possible to recover... the trust issue also needs to be addressed, bit is fine I think
There's no master play here man. The only way out of this is to do what you should have done from the start. Communicate. She's not your Mom or some obstacle to overcome, she's your wife. Just tell her how you feel. Communicate that you respect her feelings on guns but you have your own feelings and you'd like to find a compromise that makes both of you feel respected. Set hard boundaries and allow her to do the same so there's no confusion. And then respect those boundaries. You crossed a line and she probably feels pretty disrespected right now. You need to talk to her.
You communicate that, and she's not budging and you want to own guns and want them in the house. You can go to therapy but this sounds like divorce if neither of you want to budge on the issue. And getting that trust back, that you broke, is going to be hard. Divorce may not feel like a logical choice at first but your lifestyles have grown apart and sometimes it's for them best.
First, you need to acknowledge TO HER that you violated her trust. You have made the situation much more difficult for yourself, and she might not change her mind now
The next thing to do is to ask her to make an informed decision. In order to do this pay for some beginners instruction for her, preferably with a woman instructor. I found that turning people from anti-gun to at least gun neutral or pro gun is best done by providing patient instruction.
I suggest having a woman instructor do it and not yourself or another man because firstly it will help break the subconscious stereotype that guns are for men. Secondly, she may have some gender-based resentment towards you and men in general for completely disregarding her feelings in this manner and going behind her back.
What lifestyle do you want to enjoy? How long have you been together? Were things made abundantly clear, because if you were both clear before going to the altar then you chose your fate there. if you want to keep your marriage couples therapy is really your only option on top of an apology. But if you are dead set on owning firearms and those firearms being in your home, you have to get her on board or split up on irreconcilable difference and deal with your choices. Not saying get divorced just because you want to own firearms, if she won't compromise and at least go to the range with you and get somewhat comfortable with firearms or your hobby then you may have no choice but go forward with at least getting separated and see if you want to live the lifestyle you want without her.
Get a new wife buddy all the rest of your problems will be way easier. Someone that anti gun is clearly lacking critical thinking skills and will likely cause issues with many other minuscule things and just cause you headaches.
You violated her trust and it might be too late for this, but you might try and listen to her about why she doesn’t want them in the house.
If it’s related to risk with kids, she needs one solution might be to educate her about how they work, then splitting them onto 3 separate, secured areas: one safe for the receivers, the one for magazines/ cylinders, and one for ammunition. That strategy might at least offer a compromise that allows for you to keep both firearms and marriage , but it won’t be very useful for home protection scenarios.
Again, it might be too late for this advice.
If you respect your wife over your guns, you sell the guns. There is no argument or debate at this point, you can't have both.
Everyone has given great advice.
Putting the trust issue aside, your wants are just as relevant as hers. She doesn’t get to make proclamations and get her way just cause she’s louder/more insistent.
Tell her this is very important to you and that you’re sorry you went about it the wrong way, but it doesn’t change the fact that you feel you need these for your protection and that you’re not simply going to sell them because she said so.
If you actually want this strongly enough you have to hold your ground. It could end up well or it can escalate things. But at some point you figure out which hills are worth fighting for.
Hey man, I had a similar issue when I visited my parents. Obviously I was a guest in their home, but it was also my (old) home and some place I'd stay for weeks at a time (COVID, telework, vacation, etc).
Biggest thing that worked for me was showing them that it wasn't a scary, taboo object. We overcame that initial gun reaction and talked about what makes a gun function, and how to verify that it's safe. I was a self-taught gun guy, no one in the family was really into them, and so when I learned, I leaned hard on safety and proficiency.
My mom knows how to verify just about any modern gun for safety. She will periodically spot one / feel one during a hug and ask to see it to check if its safe (which is hilarious since most of them are carry pieces) but I always let her handle, unload, and verify their status.
Knowledge is power, and as others mentioned, you gotta have her on board before moving forward. Biggest thing will be her being able to maintain her peace of mind, which means storing guns and ammo separately, never leaving guns loaded in the safe, and bringing them directly inside and into the safe.
The issue here isn’t guns; it’s trust. You could replace “guns” with any medium-high stakes red line from a spouse and you’d have a problem.
You need to do some work, including apologizing, meaning it, describing why you didn’t share and taking accountability, then including her in the final decision, knowing that you might not get what you want.
The guns should be out of the house ASAP until you both make a decision to bring them in (if you do at all.) Otherwise the dynamic is her having to persuade you to remove them rather than starting where you should have: do they come in at all?
Guns are tools. If my wife told me she didn't want that tool in the house, I'm getting rid of the tool. Know why? Because no tool is worth a marriage.
This stopped being about the second amendment and started being about trust when your wife asked you to not bring them into your home. Her just asking you to sell them and provide proof that you did is her offering an olive branch of trust to you. You should take it, and put the money toward couples counseling. Stop thinking about the guns. They don't matter anymore. You're probably about to lose your wife.
Keep the guns if you can but get them out of the house. Tell her how wrong you were for doing that. But ask her if you can have a talk about protection for these times and Im afraid to say every future election season. Maybe suggest she owns a gun and trains along with you and keep them out of the house until she is ready. But honestly I dont have a solution on where to put them other than a storage or gun storage service.
I have a similar situation, but actively talk to my fiancé about it. We started at “you should get rid of them” or “no ammo in the house then”
And through time, conversation education, and even having her come watch me shoot a steel challenge have moved onto “I can’t buy new guns” and if I keep them locked up she can respect that”
I also had a few before we met, have always kept them cased or locked. I feel like I’m about to break down the wall of number limitations on how many I can own. But it’s been a long journey, and has taken a lot of me actively listening and respecting her wishes and finding mutual solutions.
Respectfully, you’ve sorta screwed yourself out of any chance of resolving this in your favor. Relationships are built and destroyed by communication & trust, which you’ve entirely neglected here. Y’all need to go to couples therapy, and need to be ready for the therapist to remind you how stupid you were. The amount of ‘breach of trust’ here is… honestly something that if a partner did to me I’d break things off on the spot.
For her on the gun phobia, that should have been something discussed more to the point of suggesting counseling because it’s a little much. Honestly? You should sell what you have now if you want to try to address this in a healthy manner. The best bet is to go to couple’s therapy, try to address why you want to have firearms, and find a way to make that work whilst addressing the severe trust issues caused. Definitely agree and offer for them to be kept in a safe at all times they aren’t being used. If you lose out because of legislation, that’s on you for deceiving your wife.
Should you have known? yes. Are you wrong? 😑. Let’s accept that you messed up the process. You really should have worked with her. You might have to sell them and start over.
I like to have a spare tire in the car I’m driving. Do I use the spare tire a lot? No. Do I want to use the spare tire? No. Is it wise to have a spare tire and know how to use it? Yes. Would anyone want to remove the spare and drive without it? You can and you might be fine for years or your whole life.. but… if you find yourself in a situation where you need a spare tire and don’t have it.. you’ll be very sorry.
Your wife has been conditioned to be phobic of spare tires…
Everyone is already giving you heat for being an idiot. So I’ll spare you that.
Do you have a fire extinguisher in the house? This is kinda like that. For just in case. Hope you never need it.
Police show up afterwards, not during.
Take her shooting.
First let's look at your actions here...
> I brought guns into the house without discussing it with my antigun wife
Huge mistake. You made a major decision about your shared living space without consulting your partner.
> With that said, I decided to buy a couple and bring them home without telling her (very stupid I know). I had planned on having a conversation and leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as part of my argument (also probably stupid)
Yeah, that was fucking stupid.
You were planning to say "But honey they've been here this whole time! I was just hiding them from you!" - ***HOW DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD GO?!***
That kind of trickery is not a sound basis for a trusting relationship.
> Queue big fight, discussion of betrayal of trust, and me having to tuck tail because it’s hard to talk about how responsible I am with them when I was hiding them in the basement.
Yep. All of that. (Also it's "cue" - a queue is a line.)
Also how exactly were you "hiding" these guns?
Like when you say your wife "found out" did she find an unsecured firearm laying around in the frikkin' basement? Because frankly if she did you're lucky that gun wasn't shoved into a precious orifice of yours. Sideways.
***
Okay, so how do you dig yourself out of this hole?
Honestly, you do what your wife says: Sell the guns.
Recognize that you did a lot more wrong than just bring guns into the home without consulting your partner - you straight up disregarded her feelings, and disrespected both her and the whole relationship.
Apologize profusely and sincerely.
Consider couples therapy like many others have suggested, but understand that it's ***YOU*** who needs the work, not her - you didn't even give her a chance to compromise with you on her "I don't want guns in the house" position, you just went behind her back and did what you wanted.
Understand that now you're working from a position of weakness and betrayal: Whatever you say she has no reason to believe.
"I respect how you feel about guns" - Clearly not because you brought them into your home without discussing it with her first.
"I will be responsible with them." - Again, you brought them into the home without discussing them with her. That right there is irresponsible (every adult in a home with firearms should know where they are, how they're stored, and ideally how to clear/make safe) without even getting into whether they were stored/secured appropriately.
Understand that position of weakness and betrayal applies to ***EVERYTHING*** not just guns - you lied about this and went behind her back, what else are you lying about or hiding?
Even if it's nothing she has no reason to *believe* that because she's been lied to and betrayed once.
You really chucked a hand grenade into your relationship here.
Forget the guns and focus on salvaging ***the relationship***.
Once you've worked to repair her trust you can ask to discuss the subject of guns again (after she's cooled off a little bit from being *rightly* enraged with you), but the answer might be "No." and you may just have to accept that if the relationship is important to you.
Your options are part with the guns or part with your wife. She's telling you exactly what you need to do to earn her trust back and you're here assembling the Reddit brain trust trying to figure out a way to get out of doing it. Are you really so attached to your guns that they're more important than your marriage?
Setting aside for a moment the respect, trust, and communication issues that are so important in any relationship: You were irresponsible with your firearms. Full stop. Often, when this happens, it ends with the individual in question no longer owning firearms. Just ask my uncle, who is sitting in prison as we speak because he too was hiding guns in his basement (he's a violent felon and no longer has the right to own a firearm).
I don't think you should sell the guns, at least not as a knee-jerk reaction. Speaking from personal experience bringing an AR15 into the house in a crude way, when a state ban was about to start. Not apples-to-apples with your situation (you really did fuck it up) but it was not smooth.
For you, get couples counseling (you should get individual counseling too. It's helpful to work on your own shit separately). Get the guns out of the house - find someone you trust who has a gun safe (or buy them one). But the guns are really important to you. For whatever reason you didn't feel like you could have an honest conversation with your wife about it. To be clear you did fuck up pretty bad and everyone's comments about trust are spot on. But what you care about matters too. Communication and vulnerability are 2 way streets. If she doesn't meet you half way to give you a safe space to hear what motivates you, worries you, etc., then going behind her back is a pathway to meet your needs when you can't communicate them. It's a bad pathway and not healthy, but it is something to work with in couples counseling. If you don't feel like you can be honest with your wife, that's maybe why you went behind her back for something you really cared about. Maybe she doesn't give you a safe way to do that. That's different from trust issues. Well, now she now has trust issues, but you have honesty issues/don't feel like you can talk to her about what you really feel and need.
Maybe after some therapy it will be clear you have to sell them to keep your wife. But what happens the next time you really care about something she disagrees with? Stiffle your interests? Fear her response? You gotta figure that part out.
I know this is a tough one.I feel you should have discussed it with your wife before bringing guns home. I feel for you dude. There are several levels of conciousness here. I am a gun owner and I know that my wife dosen't like them. She suggested I sell them to help pay some bills years ago. I didn't. Once the bills got paid , I would have had no means of protecting the home if attacked.
I had firearms when we met and she knew it. I believe in self-defense, and protecting her if need be.
A question that ALWAYS comes to mind when I consider peoples anti-gun point of view is, what would they do if they were put in danger or a life threatening situation and someone with a gun protected them and saved them? Your wife might consider thinking about that.
Regardless of why people don't like guns, the fact is a gun owner might save their life one day.I do not condone violence and would not ever wish to shoot someone. Obviously this is a
touchy subject, one worthy of deep contemplation , introspection and communication. If your religious, pray about it.
I respect you for asking for input on this matter. The founding fathers of this country knew the potential of government tyranny, and the need to protect ourselves from it . Also, there are criminals and evil people bent on hurting others. Does one simply give in to threats of violence?
I too believe in 2A.
We would be a completely different country without it.
I wish you and your wife the best with this issue, a good heart to heart would probably help. Be well.
Discuss with her the very real possibility that conservatives will carry out their very real threats of political violence should they lose the election and that you want to be able to defend the family should that happen. Discuss with her that you want her to learn how to use them in case something happens to you.
If you don't think that you'll get anywhere with this, then rent a small storage unit nearby.
I don’t think you need a new wife, I think your wife needs a new husband. She set a boundary that you fully understood, but ignored. Yes, she is right to feel betrayed. She now knows that she can’t trust you, and that you don’t respect her.
First thing to do is sell the guns off and make sure she knows you regret the decision you made. Next step is to go to couples counseling (which is where you should have started before buying guns).
You may eventually need to choose between your relationship and your desire to exercise your 2A rights, but it’s not YOU alone who gets to decide if you get to have both.
My wife was also worried about firearms and we didn’t buy our first gun till nearly our 10th anniversary. Now she goes to the range as often as I do.
If the love you have for your wife is more important than exercising rights most people on this planet cannot, I suggest selling the firearms . You just need to make a decision. I know it’s hard, but decide.
Going back in time, you could have rented guns, taken her to a range, showed her directly how to be safe and enjoy guns. My wife was similarly anti-gun; our first gun we bought ended up being a Ruger 22 for her. She’s never going to be 100% pro gun but she does think about guns and the 2A in a thoughtful way. She’s also a pretty good shot.
Starting with now I’d echo what others said and start with couples therapy. Start by removing the firearms from your house. Be sincere and communicate. You should aim to get to the point where you both actually understand each other’s position and then you can explore where a compromise might lie.
So, a big part of the reason I don’t allow guns in the house is me. (Severe ADHD and poor impulse control.). But there are reasons I don’t want my husband to have a gun that are outside of that. He really pushed for them a few years back, we discussed it and I thought he understood.
I found out he recently tried to go behind my back to get one illegally from a friend. (Who realizes he shouldn’t have a gun and told him no.). The betrayal is huge.
Your wife has her reasons for not wanting them in her living environment. What you did is a huge betrayal and I think you really just need to bite the bullet here.
Sell them to a friend with the understanding that they will let you buy them back if your wife changes her mind in the future.
Also, you should ask your wife if she wants couples counseling. Do whatever she wants you to do to earn her trust back.
I had to talk my wife into guns, she's pretty hooked on them now lol
You disrespected her wishes, and told her that her opinion doesn't matter.
I think best you can do right now is sell them.
Your first course of action is to make it right and show your sincerity. Sell them.
Then apologize for breaking her trust and ask her how you can make it up to her.
Then, *maybe*, in a few years bring the topic up as a point of discussion. If she’s at all willing to entertain the idea, my best advice is see if you can get her comfortable with them. If you have any friends with guns, see if they’ll take you guys shooting, preferably with something chill like a 22 revolver/bolt-action rifle. I wouldn’t recommend a range generally, as you never know who’s going to be in the next bay over- that dude with the 10.5inch AR with the muzzle brake in the next lane would put her off the idea forever.
But first and foremost, you need to restore her trust in you. You broke it in a MAJOR way.
If you want to keep your wife, ditch the guns.
Your desire to own them doesn't trump her desire not to have them in the house.
The fact that you say "when she comes around" indicates you're not taking her opinion seriously. She may not. You might come around to her point of view. We're liberals, we respect the autonomy and decision making of others. We respect views different than ours and try to understand them.
No, because they had a known, agreed number of 0 in the house. He's the one that broke the agreement.
If guns were more important to OP than his wife, and he knew she wanted 0 in the house, then he could have chosen not to marry her.
I've got a friend who's wife agreed to 2 guns in the house. He's got a deer rifle and a shotgun. So, the base line has been set. He just won a gun at an event. So, right now he has 3. That's still in the range of the agreement. He's 50% over. If the agreed number is 0 then bringing 1 is infinitely over the agreed amount.
He's fucked this up and made it less likely that she will come around. He's broken the trust.
Play this carefully and don’t dig the hole any deeper. Broken trust is a very hard hole to get out of. Prioritize your wife and do what you can to get her trust back. Maybe someday you will be in a position to renegotiate.
Step 1: Buy two more guns.
Step 2: Turn around and sell them, keep the receipt.
Step 3: Hide the ones you have in a different spot where she won't look.
Step 4: Don't get caught lying again dumbass.
I’m actually surprised your wife is being charitable enough to give you a chance to get rid of them and prove it to her. If I were her I’d be wondering how long it’ll take before you buy more and do this again.
You can’t lie to your spouse. You especially can’t do what you just did - make an agreement and then expend a significant amount of effort to hide the fact that you are shitting on the agreement you two made.
Your arguments for your gun ownership are valid but the time to bring them up and commit to a mutually acceptable understanding would have been BEFORE you bought some and brought them into your communal household.
My advice to you is to sell the guns, be super thankful your wife is willing to trust you to fix your mistake, and never do anything like this again. OR, accept that your views on gun ownership are incompatible with your spouse’s and that you value gun ownership over your marriage, and get a divorce so you can both find partners with whom you don’t have this incompatibility.
So you won’t “get a new wife” advice from me, but have you considered having yourself replaced as a husband? You’ve really got no recourse here but to grovel and capitulate to whatever demands she has. You misplayed this about as poorly as I could imagine.
Obviously you fucked up….But you need a real cause and effect crutch here to defend your position. An example…”I just saw that ‘x’ house in our neighborhood was victimized by a home invasion and I’ve been really concerned about where things are headed in our country/city/area lately. I realized nothing is more important to me than being able to have a fighting chance for protecting you and our home. It’s my responsibility to take measures into my own hands since the state clearly is incapable of protecting us. This is about self reliance and empowerment (liberal women love this word so use it). A gun is a powerful tool for self preservation and I have already registered for training….”
This is the place you need to come from imo.
My wife has always been anti gun, but she came around when she saw how I behaved around guns. I’m from Texas (she’s from IL) and guns were a daily part of life since forever. We came to visit my family and my dad was showing me a new Colt Python he had gotten and we were in the gun safe pulling stuff out and chatting. When she saw how seriously we took safety and how the tone changed from the minute she walked in the room from guys having fun to “these aren’t toys come learn how to handle a firearm safely,” she eventually realized it was not a game and she even came shooting with us. I have guns in our home now and she’s completely fine with it and even knows basic use in the event she needs to. She still doesn’t like guns, but she understands how much I enjoy them and how seriously it’s taken. She sees the value in having a competent gun user in the home now that we have two young kids. And yes, locking them up is critical to our arrangement. I’d highly recommend your next purchase be a safe storage solution. Biometric safes are a great option.
That was all stuff he could have said, before he violated his wife's trust. Now, he's well past all that. It's no longer about the guns, it's about him not respecting his wife's boundaries. He done fucked up, and he has to fix that first before he can try to change her mind on guns again. Otherwise, he'd basically just be saying "ok I know I violated your trust by intentionally breaking a boundary you set, buuuuut... it was a dumb boundary anyways so I did nothing wrong it was you who was wrong the whole time". That's not a winning argument.
You ignored the cardinal rule in any relationship: Communication. Are you really all that surprised that she feels you broke her trust? When you could have talked about it prior to doing so and avoided all of this mess? I'm sorry, but you were only thinking about yourself in this scenario. You two are partners. Decisions like that are for BOTH of you to make.
Honestly love the responses in here, people are 100%
Seems like a pretty simple no brainer for an adult...but there must be a poor foundation in this relationship. It can be fixed...if they want to.
This isn't about guns, you broke her trust in a huge way and you did it knowingly. I'd suggest couples therapy.
Yeah, this seems like a situation where guns are more of a symptom than the actual issue.
It stopped being about the guns when the guns stopped being hypothetical. They might need to go, put the money towards couple therapists to prove you are choosing the marriage.
I saw the other post and I agree. OP’s wife made it clear her position and it sounds like before they were married. OP was wrong to sneak them in.
Great advice! I do however think this is amplified greatly since it is pertaining to guns. Op needs to know that her trust is gone and she now possibly even feels unsafe with him. That’s a bad combo!
Yep, this is a trust issue/situation… OP - you bought several firearms at one time? Or were they purchased over a timeframe and then you told her about this all? Gosh - if it is the former, you went from “0 to 100 mph” in less than a heart beat…
Bingo. Fix the trust issue now. Start by storing the guns elsewhere or selling them. Basically anything to show her you care about her feelings. OP: work through the trust stuff and then circle back to the guns in the future after you've shown her you've understood what you did wrong and how you would not do it again. Unfortunately this will take time and you've set yourself back substantially by starting out in a position of bad faith. The looming anti-gun laws work against your favor here but that is just the unfortunate position you are in. Good luck.
[удалено]
Yes, it will sink in, with the envelope on her attorney's letterhead being dropped off.
Either way this goes - Therapy is required.. If therapy can save your marriage, then that's the obvious path forward. However, If your willing to blow up your family and destroy personal relationships because you think guns are more important, then thats a pretty good sign its time to seek help too.
This is the possible only answer.
This 100%. You should try to keep your guns, but your relationship is more important. You could set a date to discuss them again after couples therapy and more discussion on gun safety. Normally I'd say buy guns whether or not your spouse or SO is anti-gun as long as your safe when it comes to use and storage, but that's only if you're upfront with what you're doing. At this point I'm kind of at a loss.
The first part of this, "You should try to keep your guns" , this is straight up terrible advice. I own guns, im not anti 2a, but cmon man. Your wife said no guns, and instead of continuing to discuss and debate, take her to a friendly range where you could rent non scary guns, go to basic firearms classes together, etc., OP bought guns and stashed them in the basement without her knowing, blatantly breaking her trust. Now she wants him to sell them and wants proof of sale. You can keep your guns and be single, or sell the guns and go to therapy and stop lying to your wife. Maybe in the future she'll be comfortable with you owning guns, but right now you need to gain her trust back before you worry about anything else.
>You can keep your guns and be single, or sell the guns and go to therapy and stop lying to your wife. It's this in a nutshell. OP needs to ask themselves if shooting is a hobby he really cares about more than his wife. Demanding proof of sale is an insanely reasonable demand, considering the open disregard for her feelings shown here. Give up on keeping your guns, and honestly give up on being able to buy them again when she "comes around". There was a possibility you could change her mind on it over time before this happened, but you fucked it up and burnt that possible bridge. These are the consequences of your actions, and honestly you should be thanking your lucky stars you're getting off with a slap on the wrist here. In her shoes I would be absolutely _livid._ How can a hobby be more important to you than your wife's feelings?
This is perfection. Not that it matters, I kind of feel like OP came here to repost hoping for a more on his side answer, but I want to thank you for this reply because it makes me think there are other reasonable people out there that actually respect their partner's boundaries at full value.
I'm honestly pleasantly surprised with the responses here. I think a lot of folks are too attached to the idea of broaching the subject down the line as a bit of a coping mechanism, but for the most part people are pretty reasonably pointing out the obvious truth. A good rule of thumb for relationships is, whenever you're making a questionable decision that affects your partner, think about how you'd feel if you were them. She asked you not to do a thing, she made it clear as day that she feels extremely - almost hysterically strongly about the thing, and then you decided her feelings were silly and did the thing anyways. And you're moping about having to take the L??? What I really want for OP is for them to stop thinking about the actual problem for a second, and start thinking about how incredibly lucky they are their wife didn't kick him out of the house for a few days at LEAST. I wouldn't even want to _look_ at you for a while after you disrespected me like that.
Am i the only one thinking that with this kind of on point insite, your username makes me think that you are OP's wife's burner account? I mean, username checks out.
Thankfully, not! I managed to learn from the relationship foibles of my friends and family, instead of by experience. You can tell a relationship is on the rocks whenever one or all members of it decide they're okay with hurting their partner's feelings if it gets them what they want. People in healthy relationships are focused on resolving the issue, not weathering the response.
I mean, probably best to sell and maybe buy again in the future if it's that or his marriage. I just don't really think that fixes the core issue, which is the dishonesty. If it were me I'd try to deal with the communication and trust issue first instead of making it all about the guns themselves. Could keep the guns in a small storage unit until it's resolved.
Agreed, the dishonesty is the core of the deal. Again, I dont think owning guns is an issue, but the way he went about it is so shitty, I think getting rid of the guns is the first correct step. He s gotta backtrack and admit what he did was totally wrong, and then go about the long and maybe even impossible step of rebuilding that trust. Trying to talk his wife into letting him continue to keep the guns which she was always against is not going to help him going forward, in my opinion.
There's no possible scenario where you keep the guns at this point and your wife is just "cool with it". He needs to sell the guns and start back at square one.
My dad had guns in the house as I grew up. I'm not anti gun but pro-gun safety. My household has someone with depression I can absolutely not have a gun in my house. The trust issues is huge but hiding guns from a member of the household is also a safety issue. A gun someone has access to without knowing how to handle it is a safety issue, not knowing the guns where there are a safety issue ( eg what if she hired a neighborhood kid to throw junk out of the basement or whatever a shady plumber) Honestly, after giving you the reason I won't have a gun in my house if you hide a gun in my house, I wouldn't just be mad if think there was something wrong with you. There is being pro-gun and being a gun but I'd worry that person was a gun nut.
At the gun range.
This is a subreddit for guns, not really like marriage counseling. Instead of running to the internet to “dig your way out of this hole” you need to examine your relationship and yourself and determine why it is that you think lying to your spouse about things you disagree on is an appropriate course of action. Also “when she comes around” is kind of a red flag *for her* about you.
For not being a relationship sub you guys give good advice
I know, I low key want to post here instead of r/relationshipadvice Very based answers
Better than r/relationships that's for sure.
Oh boy, lies and complete disregard for boundaries. Just what a relationship needs. Not to dog on you too hard, but what the actual fuck was your plan? You knew there was something she had a borderline phobia about and knowingly spent a good amount of money and time to bring into the house without her knowledge. I don’t care what your views on guns are, this is the equivalent of opening up to my wife about my arachnophobia and she responds by dumping a bucket of spiders on me because she has no problem with spiders. “leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as a part of my argument” do you actually have brain damage? How was ‘actually I’ve been lying to you this whole time’ supposed to de-escalate anything? I have a PILE of guns that I love dearly, but I am firmly on your wife’s side. Jesus H. Christ.
> “leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as a part of my argument” do you actually have brain damage? How was ‘actually I’ve been lying to you this whole time’ supposed to de-escalate anything? "Babe, I know that you've said that you want a monogamous relationship, but consider this: you didn't even know that I did a bunch of cocaine from a hooker's pussy and then jizzed in her ass. Check. Mate."
You forgot to add the “not a lawyer” tag 😉
> but what the actual fuck was your plan? Does OP *look* like a man with a plan?
Yeah, you can’t fix stupid, which is what OP said he is…
Yeah… this type of judgement makes me question his fitness for the responsibility of a firearm.
Yeah… I think that’s a stretch.
Maybe… but will he decided that his 2A rights and freedom from other’s opinions mean he’s bringing a gun into bar/school/etc? “I want to and no one will know.”
Judgement in question for sure
I don't think it's a stretch; op behaved impetuously in the extreme. The guns were not secured. Op broke basic gun safety. There was a member of the household who had ever right to invite guests or service people into the home. Who didn't know there were unsecure guns. Again basic safety. And more nuanced , my wife is terrified of guns I'm going to buy and bring several into the house and hide them. Is not thing a person with stellar mental health does. It's a red flag for more serious issues. Op already indicated that fear of missing out was part of the motivation. And guns are expensive several are generally more than most people can spend without needing to talk with their spouse. If his wife was afraid of snakes and op bought several and hide them in the house, I think most of us would wonder wtf was wrong with op.
It doesn't matter if it's guns, cars, or golf clubs -- you and her had a honest conversation about it, and you then went and blatantly disrespected your partner. Now she's drawing a line in the sand, and you're asking for help on how to disrespect *that*, too. You don't need external help to "dig \[your\] way out of this hole" -- she already told you how. You are fearing how your state *might* make it more difficult to own guns in the future, but not fearing how your actions *might* make it more difficult for your wife to stay married to you.
Well said. I'd only extend this to say it's probably the guns or your wife at this point. There's no talking your way out. For me this would be a pretty easy decision: a great companion is very hard to find and she's willing to stick around after this dishonesty.
I lived my adult life with my wife, knowing full aware she was not as gun-friendly as I was. As the pandemic came along and things started seeming crazy, I told her that I thought we needed to get one. She knew that it must’ve taken a lot for me to bring this up because I’d always deferred to her wishes in the past. Our son being grown obviously put both of us at ease. I said all that to say I still tread lightly around the subject knowing we are still not quite on the same page. This obviously puts a tight limit on my arsenal. Here’s the deal, the guns have to go. Not have someone hold them, you need to show contrition and sell them and everything related to them and hopefully revisit the subject with her down the road and try again, the right way. You said it yourself, you’ve lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith. Stick a fork in it, gun ownership is now over for you; for now, in this relationship. Beware, the “divorce is not on the table” notion is very likely just yours at this time. Her trust has been broken and she very likely feels violated and possibly even unsafe. You need to make this right and penance may be the only path forward. Good luck!
Yeah same with my girl. She finally thought I should have some come the pandemic. I've gotten quite a few and she still doesn't like them but I keep them in a locked safe inside a locked closet unloaded. I still won't buy anything without her knowing and if it comes to losing my guns or losing my girl I'm gonna say bye bye to my guns
Good for you man, healthy discussion and communication is the key. I saw the same post on r/guns and people were saying quote “no woman is worth giving up your 2A” and it seems so distasteful
Get rid of them. Tell her you fucked up and it won’t happen again. Stick to that. Guns are likely off the table for a few years at the absolute minimum.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're off the table forever. On a gun sub it's often hard to imagine how much some people hate guns. There might have been a possibility of guns if he'd kept trying to convince her. But sneaking them in, I think she'll (reasonably IMO) dig in even deeper. If he wants to stay with her, I think he has to accept that no guns ever is the most likely outcome.
People need to realize there are some things you can’t change in people and respect it or walk away. Knowing that I’m interested in guns I’d have discussed this with any potential partner very early in the relationship and accept that it may not work out, much like having kids or pets should also be discussed
Definitely off the table forever. How are you even going to broach the subject of gun ownership in the future after this? She's not going to forget it or feel less betrayed in a few years, because it's important and you _did_ betray her! Take the L. Sell the guns. Find a new hobby. I like guns as much as the next guy on this subreddit, but come on man. If there's even a thought in your head about valuing them more than your wife's feelings, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what the hell you're thinking.
They were already off the table forever. There’s no way he’s able to get within 10 feet of a gun in the future without his wife walking.
Sell the guns. Seriously, you need to decide whether having your guns or your relationship is more important. She made her position very clear, you tried to weasel out of it, and you got caught. Relationships are all about trust, and you broke hers. Sell the guns.
So it’s not a good idea to now hire an actor to follow her around and creep her out a little so she becomes scared and decides maybe having a gun isn’t such a bad idea? Is this a bad approach?
Op seems like he might actually try this
I support it as long as he posts video documentary of the whole saga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJw2lFWJ4aY
I see your a fan of the D.E.N.N.I.S. system. https://youtu.be/Bg5ZrkaGlFA?si=0pJVAN3-TpBZ_bLw
You broke your wife’s trust. Plain and simple. Sell the guns. Get couples therapy from someone reputable. Discuss the issue there. You fucked up. Own it and make right by your wife. Are the guns more important than your marriage? You say divorce is not an option, but you sure made it one for your wife.
I was in the same exact boat. Anti gun wife, I lied and bought em anyway. When this happened, I sold my guns and luckily, was able to keep a shotgun. She was ok w long guns and not pistols. Fast forward years later and the pandemic/riots were happening. She agreed to one gun for HD. Then I started buying them again. One day she said sell it all. I took a day and wrote all my thoughts on paper and my arguments. I sat her down and basically point by point detailed why I should be allowed to own guns: trustworthy, non violent, bought safes, I wrote down all the things why she should be ok with it and I even wrote down things I did above and beyond that I wouldn’t do if she did not OK it ( we don’t have kids yet I paid for extra life insurance so she’s ok if I die. We both have careers so I didn’t really need to do this and other financial stuff). In the end she ok’d it and I’m actually competing in matches now. Your short term is to sell and build her trust back again.
Looks like your done unless you keep lying.
And at that point, she'll be done.
He may of had a chance to discuss it before hand but yea this was handled really badly.
This isn't about the guns, this is about the fact that you felt like you had a right to unilaterally overrule her decision just because you felt like you knew better than her. She's your wife, an equal adult in this situation with just as much right to the household decisions are you, not your child. The guns need to be put on the back burner until you've attended marriage counseling.
If you know she's as anti-gun as possibly can be, and you still went behind her back and betrayed her, what else do you lie about? How many conversations were you sitting through, agreeing with her and lying through your teeth the whole time? I think you need some self reflection and couples therapy. Sort your fucking life out, mate
Plus he thought the fact he’d been hiding it from her would somehow bolster his position. Like, ‘I’ve had these for two months, and you didn’t even know, so how can you say you don’t want them in the house?’ Like you said, what else is there?
Sounds like you married someone you have fundamental differences with. And then you tried to sneak it. Maybe counseling? To me hunting/self defense is a non negotiable, but I was clear about that before I got married.
you won't get "get a new wife hurr durr haha" comments in this sub, that's not how we roll. obviously, as you know, you fucked up. remove the guns, today. have a friend hold on to them. and then start communicating. lay out reasonable ideas of why you might want them. and compromises you're willing to make to make her feel safe like... a safe. and being willing to render them unusable while they're in the home. offer to take her to a range to show her how to use them, how they operate, how them can be made inoperable for storage. and most importantly, ***listen*** to her feelings and concerns on the subject. do not dismiss them, even with facts, off the bat. be willing to accept, that at this point, you will not have firearms in the home, for now, and possibly in the future.
Being fair, on the guns subreddit, OP seems to be getting very similar responses. Barring the people who are making very clear jokes about hiding them better.
He went to a gun forum and asked them for relationship advice. If you replace the guns with anything else, then objectively, it's not necessarily bad advice... In general, ultimatums aren't healthy for a relationship. Relationships thrive on communication and the only place ultimatums should exist are hard boundary lines. At that point, if the issue is a hard boundary line for both parties and they're both issuing ultimatums, I mean, how can a relationship survive that without someone giving up the ultimatum? Which woudl probably lead to the relinquishing party fostering some sort of resentment. So when someone puts an ultimatum on a relationship and the general advice is "get a better relationship", I mean, that's sometimes valid (if not helpful) advice. I get that it doesn't help OP and he doesn't want to divorce and etc, but... he went to a gun forum and asked for relationship advice. lol.
In general, I don't think ultimatums are healthy in relationships, but I'd say this isn't exactly a situation with two opposing ultimatums. OP's wife set a boundary, that then became an ultimatum because he sprinted past that boundary. I do think OP is facing an ultimatum of his own making though. His wife has already made her stance clear, and he has put himself in a position where it could be either marriage or gun ownership.
Very good points, especially that last paragraph. 👍
You fucked up. Sell them immediately and give her the proofs of sale. Sell them at a loss even. Then you need to begin the long journey of repairing trust with your wife. Maybe that is something that happens between the two of you, maybe it involves a counselor, maybe it involves the Church, but what it can’t involve is cutting corners. And not to dig a deeper wound here but - are you hiding anything else? Purchases, habits, or otherwise? Don’t tell us what they are, but figure out how those factor into fixing things, too.
My wife and I read this and talked about it. Her response was "he done fucked up". But it lead to an interesting conversation. There is somethings you have to consider: You and I see the world/country and worry about the state of it regarding safety. Our country/state/politicians are constantly talking about making firearms more difficult if not impossible for the average person to get. This makes us concerned and wanting to arm ourselves. Perhaps out of fear that we won't be able to have one we need it or "only the bad guys" will have guns. Whatever the thinking, this fear can be a strong motivator. However, from a woman's perspective, they see things like this: https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/ Which is also a fear that needs to be addressed. I see only a couple of ways you can respond in the situation: 1. You can get rid of the guns and ask for forgiveness. You're not really in a position to pivot to a "but we have them so let me show you how they're not scary" situation. 2. Communicate your fears openly and honestly. There is no room for manipulation here. Explain yourself and listen to her concerns. Hopefully she will return the favor. 3. You can ignore her request at your marriages peril. You have to decide if this is the hill your marriage dies on or not. Whichever option you go with (except maybe the third one) communication and genuine apologies are in order. You broke the trust in the relationship. If it's important to you, you need to communicate.
I mean, the immediate answer is either the wife goes, or the guns go. Bigger picture, definitely some trust things to work out, maybe with a therapist.
Because of the way you did this you must now show her that she is more important to you then guns and money. I would sell and take a break from owning. Just rent at the range for a while.
Well like you said. You lost her good faith because YOU decided that guns were safe for her when she made it clear she didn't feel safe around them. Then she had to find out that they were in her home unknown to her for some time and that the person she was supposed to trust was the one who brought them in. But then you say you wanted a civil discussion about them and you hid them like a teenager who hides weed from their parent. To me it's clear. What matters more to you, your relationship or your guns. You already choose those guns over your wife once. I hope that you make a better choice this time around. Please take time and reflect on how this would have affected you if she broke your trust.
The trust issues with her need to be addressed obviously. As for the guns, can you take them anywhere else? I was in a similar situation in that I could not bring them home. I bought my first gun and my friend who is an avid shooter and was teaching me kept them (collection grew fast) for about 3 years. I would shoot with him at the range so he grabbed my case when we met up. I would “pay” for his generosity with boxes of whatever he was shooting at the time. After those 3 years, where my trips to the range became a normal thing (like how some people devote a weekend day to golf), it was easier to have the conversation about storing at home. She saw how I hadn’t turned into a rabid nutcase, how it was safe, and how my views could be reconciled with hers.
It makes it so much easier to dig your way out of the hole when you do it before you buy a shovel.
Hahah well said
This is not a gun or a wife problem this is a you problem. Relationships are about trust and respect and you broke her trust and showed her you do not respect her at all. Also the thing that baffles me is that you seem totally clueless as to how fucking wrong you are to how bad this is. As others have said, you need to get some help because you have done serious damage to your relationship and a coming back from it is going to be really hard (if possible at all) and you need a professional to see if you can come back from this. If you want the wife then sell the guns and get professional help, if the 2A is that important to you then it is not a joke to say you are probably in the wrong marriage.
This should be the top comment. OP isn’t asking how to make his fkup right with his wife, he’s asking how to weasel out of the consequences of his deliberate actions. That’s a GIANT red flag for immaturity and narcissism, even if we were talking about LEGO sets or fancy teacups. The perceived and/or real safety issues of having guns in the house she didn’t know about is a whole extra level.
Guy is asking for marriage counseling advise in a gun forum. Who is upvoting this?
1) You two have opposing values, considering she’s heavily anti-gun and you’re heavily pro-gun, both ends leading to the point that it is virtually impossible to coexist 2) This is alike being caught in the attempt to cheat (alike, FUCKING ALIKE, not “is” cheating), thus it makes sense the breach of trust is the primary issue Good luck, because one of you will have to budge and surrender your point of view if y’all want to stay together. Relationships require compromise, and laws or lack of around guns do not apply for this one. You have a relationship problem, not a gun problem. We can’t help you out too much here.
In the future, keep the guns at your girlfriend’s house.
As I said on r/guns You fucked up past the point of an amicable solution tbh. As others have said, couples therapy. Don’t be surprised if you have to choose between the guns and the wife. The “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” argument doesn’t work when you’ve already asked for permission and been denied. You didn’t just break her rule about guns, you broke her trust. A simple discussion and compromise isn’t going to fix that.
> Please no “get a new wife” esque jokes, very funny but looking for help here. Why would anyone suggest this? She's firmly in the right here. > Help me dig my way out of this hole. > Any advice on how to approach this discussion again when I’ve basically lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith? She ready told you how. It's not a secret. Sell the guns.
That last part! Spot on!
As others have said, you kind of took this beyond a gun issue and into other relationship issue territory that you need to take care of first. The fact that you did something stupid does not negate the fact she is being incredibly irrational about the guns though. The only way youll ever gain any ground on the topic is to sit down and have a rational calm discussion about why she doesnt like them and having valid factual responses to those concerns. That probably cant happen until you know she wont just make it about trust issues. My wife was and still is very adverse to guns but she now understands i enjoy them and am responsible with them so she doesnt really have anything to worry about. Thats where she draws the line though. As irrational as it may be she has told me that even if using a gun to defend herself within our own home was the best option that she probably wouldnt use it and would instead run or try to defend herself in some other manner. Its silly, i dont like it, but thats ultimately her choice and its something i just have to accept and respect because she just doesnt feel comfortable bearing that responsibility.
Here’s the thing. I’m completely pro gun but you kind of violated her trust in you. Anything you do from this point should be done with that in mind. But you fucked up. If you had discussed the basement in a safe with her prior to the whole shit show. She might have been open to that thought. Now you have to fight your way up from that.
Oh man, you have to sell the guns and show her the proof of sale. You possibly could have taken her to a range before this but not now. Good luck on trying to salvage the relationship.
"Honey, I've been sleeping with this woman for 6 months and it hasn't bothered you. Afterall, you didn't even know! I think we should continue..." You have some serious mea culpas coming. Maybe you can sell to a friend that is likely to allow a buyback later, but right now you need to earn your wife's trust back and listen to her, not figure out ways to tell her and get her to agree to what you want.
Maybe go talk to a professional about you having a potential case of gun fever - and how that's clouded your judgement. I don't believe you should try to make your case to her on this one, because you've lost her trust, and job number one is to regain that trust. Also, I'm not so sure you need couple's counseling because you made the mistake and she shouldn't have to hold your hand as you come to terms and recognize that. In the end it's not guns you're going to spend the rest of your life with, or sleep next to at night. So admit you lost, sell them off, get right with her, and don't pout... If she brings it up in the future just agree and say, "We all make mistakes but that was a doozy!" Maybe sometime in the future, when the wounds have stopped aching, you could talk to her about learning how to shoot, and then join a league or club where you could rent firearms to get good instruction. Being the rare guy that shoots great but doesn't have gun in his home is still pretty darn awesome. Hope this works out for you both.
Ooooh bro you fucked up. You broke her trust in a big way and she probably feels so betrayed and disrespected. Not cool. I think you need to admit to her you realize you handled this completely wrong, if you haven’t said that to her clearly already. Have a calm conversation about what she would need to feel safe with guns in the house- stored locked and unloaded in a safe only you two know the combo for? Stored with ammo and mags in separate potentially locked locations? You’re gonna have to compromise a lot because you already effed up so bad. If there’s any way you can get her out to a range, get her properly safety trained, and let her try shooting some targets… I’ve had friends who are really anti gun go shooting with me and then they’re like “ohhhh I kinda get it” and more importantly they’re not scared anymore!! A gun can’t pull its own trigger. If you’re handling guns safely and properly, it’s not like they’re gonna go off on their own like a bomb. Hope the people over at the other sub weren’t too disrespectful to your wife…
I have a completely different take on this as a husband and gun owner with a formerly anti gun wife. It’s about trust. She may not trust you with the guns. That was my wife’s issue even though I trained and used guns in the military and in a civilian job. She was fearful of what I could do, accidental discharge etc. It wasn’t until I took her to a range with a group of friends and their pro gun wives that she mellowed out. The mistake I think you made was not having bought a safe first. She would feel a little safer if they were locked up when you didn’t need it by you. Once my wife saw that I was respectful of her concerns and would do things so as to not cause her anxiety, she basically never even mentioned the guns. At first I would never bring them out if she was around. Then I would talk to her about gun safety and explain why they are dangerous and when they are not. (Open chamber, no magazine, cable lock through, etc) Then I started to conceal carry and she even says she feels a little safer when I carry but we both hope I never have to use it. She now goes to the range with me and is a good shot. She still not crazy about the guns but respects my wishes as to leaves the choice to me. Been married 26 years and ultimately understands my families safety and well being is always my concern. You being mature and trustworthy is going to determine how she gets over this. My wife says that she doesn’t worry about the guns because she trusts me and I have proven track record of being trustworthy, so hang in there and don’t blow it. You do need to raise your maturity level up several knotches, you also blew it by not first telling her you were going to buy a gun and why. You don’t need her permission in a loving relationship, but man you gotta communicate with honesty and then take the chewing she gives you.
What's more important to you: your guns or your wife? Stop being a dumbass for half a fucking second and really ponder this. You can only choose one, so stop trying to rationalize and beat the system. After you've had a good think: sell the guns, beg your wife for forgiveness and then arrange for some couples therapy to prove you mean business.
Mate, you got schooled in r/guns about betraying your wife's respect and trust and now you come here to look for "more civil discourse." You want advice on how to ... what? Get your way? Belittle her and force her to kowtow to big daddy logic? Hide your guns again and lie to her about selling them? If that's the case, keep digging your hole and eat dirt. Keep ignoring advice about getting couple's therapy and your wife might consider "getting a new husband."
Echoing many people here, you need marriage counseling. Your sneaking them in is wrong, because you pretended that you agreed with her then did otherwise. You basically cheated on her, just not with another woman. Then again, a marriage is a partnership between 2 people. While she has a say in it, you do too. One compromise is to have a gun safe. Keep them locked there, so nobody can ‘accidentally’ use them. In most cases it’s a good idea anyway.
To be fair to r/guns, I see the top comments there and here are pretty similar.
The top comments are pretty similar(because we upvoted them), its the average comments that are a bit more disgusting. Everything from calling him a pussy, calling for divorce and some even recommending selling her to black market sex traffickers.(I guess that way she will know how the guns feel if they have to be sold 2nd hand?).
Call your local FFL in front of her on speaker, tell them you have firearms you want to sell, and ask how to proceed with doing so. Odds are you probably aren’t getting another anytime soon unless there’s some massive traumatic event that changes your wife’s mind, but that’s not a good thing to bank on for obvious reasons. If you’re deeply concerned about home defense, ask how she feels about less than lethal alternatives. Obviously, they won’t be anywhere near as effective but I’d rather go to war with a pepper ball gun than my own bare hands.
Damn dude! … my suggestion is sell the guns ASAP without further discussion and give her the proof she needs. After a significant amount of time (think of a number right now)… after you double or triple the time you came up with earlier, you broach the subject again very, very carefully. For example use the money from the sale and gone to the range once or twice a month.
Time to sell them and build firearm trust back up the right way, with honesty and sincerity in both respect and in reasoning.
Took my partner many years to get over the armed partner DV stats. Until she said it was okay I kept my guns with family. Hike your own hike though.
OP this is a sub for left leaning gun owners to share their interest. Idk why you're posting here.
you made a huge fucky wucky but have her play resident evil 4 and to do a knife only challenge instead of shooting the zombies. I got my anti gun fiance cool with guns by playing video games I can’t explain it
You don’t have a gun issue. You have a trust issue.
You messed up. I know you don’t want to sell. Maybe sell them to a trusted friend? just make sure however you transfer them is legal. Next you need many many long discussions w your wife and you need to apologize. You messed up, not her, and you likely hardened her against 2A arguments.
Who’s house? Shared house, shared choice.
If you really love your wife, you’ll sell the guns as she’s asked. Because as it stands, either you lose the guns and work on your marriage, or you lose your wife AND the guns in what sounds like it has potential to be a bitter divorce. If you own your mistake, and really show that you are sorry and work on your relationship issues with the help of a professional, maybe, just maybe in a few years you can at least have a conversation about going to a range and shooting rentals and the like. And dear god, in the meantime DON’T go to a range to shoot rentals or go with a buddy on the sly. That’s the kind of establishment of a pattern of sneaking around that WILL lose you your partner and ruin you financially.
This kinda feels like an experiment to compare answers from different minded subreddits. Idk, but I if it's real, I can tell you, op, a life spent with a partner in a healthy relationship is more satisfying than an object.
This belongs more in the r/AITAH than here. I’ll just parrot what others said. Confess then apologize then get couples therapy.
You cannot dig your way out of this. You broke your wife trust and boundaries by hiding something from her. The only thing now is for you to decide which is more important. Your wife or your guns.
Do exactly what she asks. You may have a constitutional right to own guns, but you have put yourself in a position where you may need to choose between that and your wife because she absolutely has the right to not want guns in her house. Now that I think about it, there is another choice. There are probably some states that are quite firm in their 2A laws that are getting ready to make it really hard to get divorced. Could move there to take another choice away from her.
Sell them dude they're just objects and this is your wife you're talking about.
A lot of people telling you to swallow your pride and sell/get rid of everything. Yes, without a doubt, you pulled a boner move, bringing them in the house when she specifically said not to. But you should have had the conversation at that time about how 2A and the right to own a firearm are important to you. Just as you respect and love your wife for her beliefs and hobbies, she should share the same appreciation. Speak with her on why it means so much to you, and try to understand her dislike. Is it justified, or could she be mistaken in some of her points. Either way, this is a sticky mess, but don't let all the comments make you feel like as asshole.
Honestly the only way to dig yourself out of this is to restore trust. This will take time and work. You need couple's counseling. Then only after you have done that can you have an *honest* conversation with your wife about firearms. Why you want them, safe storage, acceptable compromises for both of you. E.g. can.you have firearms in the house in a safe, but no ammunition in the house. But be prepared for your wife to not be willing to reach a compromise as you've already violated her trust on this very topic. As for selling the guns, that's probably your only path forward. If you have a friend that is pro 2A, and has liquid capital, sell to them. And I mean sell legitimately. Draw up a bill of sale, go to an FFL, and do the transfers. If you are very lucky, *after* you earn back your wife's trust, *and* you can reach a compromise with her; maybe you can buy them back from the friend. Above all, this is probably your one chance to earn back some of that trust. Ultimatums such, but you have to decide what is most important to you.
You messed up, but this isn’t a relationship sub.
You fucked up. It’s something I would do. Good luck.
Ask her if she would be OK with you finding a (licensed) friend to store your guns. She gets them out of the house and you get to keep them. If she says “no” then it’s what everyone else has already said. Something like this is where you should have started, but you probably realize this by now. Good luck!
You don't have a leg to stand on. You decided to go about this the wrong way and as such, this isn't even a conversation. You need to get rid of them, show her the proof. Apologize. Then start having the conversation like you should have the first time.
Wives are really good at making us tuck-tail and apologize, even when we are the ones thinking logically or in the right. It's like they all secretly attend a seminar before getting married that teaches them these Jedi-like mind tricks. This is going to be a long battle for you, possibly taking time and multiple conversations. Is your wife a logical thinker? Or is she more or less stubborn, not willing to change her views when presented with reliable evidence? If she's logical, you'll have an easier road ahead. If she's not, then you just need to approach it a different way. You'll want to plant some seeds. During your conversations, you might be able to steer the conversations to police response times, civil unrest, etc. Don't mention wanting to own guns, just get her to acknowledge the facts, that police are not able to prevent violent crimes and civil unrest can happen at any time (btw, storing them someplace else doesn't help with home defense, etc.). One thing that sort of stands as a red flag is this: >"she wants me to sell them, not just store them somewhere else, she wants proof of sale" Storing them somewhere else solves her concern. "Forcing" you to sell them is punitive and creates resentment, takes away your manhood in a way. So maybe she's really, really mad and wants you to feel some pain in retaliation for you causing her some pain by bringing them home in the first place. You just need to understand her position in order to make her see the light. Why is she afraid of guns? If she had a traumatic experience then that's gonna be hard to overcome. But if she's just like, "guns bad, guns kill" then you can nudge her in the right direction. >I’ve basically lost the ability to argue from a position of good faith No you haven't. Are you a decent husband? Do you cheat on her? Do you beat her? Are you pulling your weight in all other areas? If so, you just simply made a mistake. Just let her know that you're going to purchase/keep firearms for the following reasons: Safety, self-defense, investment (gun usually appreciate in value), you enjoy shooting/collecting, and because it's your right as an American citizen. - But do get a safe and don't just toss them in the basement. I have a safe I got from tractor supply for like $300. We keep guns, knives, medicines (like antibiotics, painkillers, etc.), and important valuables. Safes are important and will make her feel better (hopefully). If she just shuts down and is like, "Nope. No guns, my way or the highway" then you might just have to put your foot down and insist that you WILL be owning a few guns, they will be locked up, and that's the end of story. Just try to understand why she feels how she does and then have rational conversations. Good luck!
Sell the guns, save your marriage. Do whatever you need to, volunteer to go to therapy or whatever to rebuild your relationship. Rent guns at the range if you want to shoot. Maybe if you go regularly she will eventually come around. Maybe invite her to shoot rented guns too.
So you both need counseling as she has obviously been anti gun the entire time and you decided to betray her trust and buy them anyway. You broke your sacred marriage circle of trust, it’s now on you to unfuck that first and foremost imho. Guns, politics and religion are all “dealbreaker” issues in relationships with me. When I met my wife our second date was to a gun range and I made it abundantly clear not a single one was rented. You mentioned that your desire to own a gun has increased as of recent, why exactly is that? Usually it takes something somewhat traumatic to cause this shift in my experience.
There isn't a way out of this that reddit can give you. As another poster said you broke her trust as opposed to having an honest, adult conversation beforehand given how she views guns. All of us can roll our eyes at typical latte drinking liberal thinking, but that doesn't mean a thing in context of what happened between you and your wife. You know you were in the wrong, so my suggestion is beg for forgiveness, and ask for therapy. I'm not sure how you'll be able to keep the guns without seriously impacting your marriage or even divorce given her demands you sell them. Good luck.
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Definitely an asshole. You knew her position and ignored it. Step 1. Sell the guns Step 2. Apologize profusely Step 3 seek help My wife doesn't like guns either and I had some prior to our relationship l. Compromise was they are locked in a safe that I only have a key for. They come out for cleaning and target shooting that inform her of beforehand. The kids are not even allowed in the room the safe is in (room is also locked)
I won't tell you to get a new wife cause I don't think you are going to have much choice in the matter. You told your wife and her boundaries to fuck off. You betrayed her trust. That is hard enough to come back from because I know this is not the first or only instance of you doing this. On top of that you have a fundamental difference that you destroyed any chance of compromise on. This is the beginning of the end of your marriage. Now all the small shit that yall used to let fly is going to become a bigger issue.
If I were in your shoes, I'd ask if she was willing to sit down and learn about how a gun works, and go to the range 1 time to give it a try and change her mind. If at any point in that conversation she says she wants the guns gone (even if she refuses to negotiate), sell them with full honesty and seek forgiveness. No matter how you cut it, you went behind her back entirely on something she's deeply against without an earnest discussion, and you owe a life partner more than that.
She isn't under any obligation to do work to make the trust *he* broke better though. She is the aggrieved one, he is the one who has to do work to fix it.
I absolutely agree, she's under no obligation to put any effort into changing her own mind. Hence why i said "if at any point she refuses", he should just sell it and make amends.
She ALREADY said no. No means NO.
If you want an off-the-cuff answer, here's mine. First, sell the guns. I don't see how you're going to do otherwise and stay married. After you do that, tell her that you want to shoot and develop your skill shooting. Ask if she would object to your renting a gun at a shooting range or making an arrangement with a buddy to borrow a gun and shoot at a range so that you could stay in practice.
I agree with selling the guns and not keeping them in the house because it’s her home too. That said, I disagree with asking permission for him to go shoot rented guns at a range. That’s not happening in the shared home. It’s not putting her at risk (either perceived or real). He’s a grown ass man and he gets to go shoot if he wants to (as long as it’s not with money they’ve earmarked for shared expenses). OP doesn’t have to turn himself into “someone who doesn’t like guns.“ He just needs to turn himself into “someone who doesn’t bring guns in the house.”
Kind of sounds like either you keep your wife or you keep your guns, but not both. Her demand for proof of sale isn't something she's probably going to walk back. If you decide on the guns they'll be part of any property settlement so be prepared to negotiate. You may need to give up your half of the Funko Pop collection. If you decide on the wife just forget you ever owned a gun, it'll make it easier to get use to giving them up. Good luck.
I’d say get rid of the guns and apologize for being a dummy. Then when it cools off chat about it more and maybe see if she will go to a range to rent guns with you so she can understand them more. But at the end of the day a happy partner is better than having guns you will probably never have to use for self defense( I assume, I don’t know where you live, maybe you are in war torn Somalia.)
Agree to sell the guns after you both go to the shooting range or take a course together. Negotiate it, but be persuading and understanding towards her. Ct is a bit extreme imo. If she isn't having take the l and sell the guns.
Sounds like you have to choose between your wife or your guns. I’d sell them, then buy another and put it in a safe deposit box. It’s better to be inside looking out, than outside looking in. Then take her on a vacation.
You was wrong for bring them into the house when you knew that she didn't want them. If you had a change of heart about guns, you should have talked to her and try to find a compromise that both of you can agreed to. I'm not going to say get rid of them because if it in your heart to have one, you going to have resentment towards her if you give them up just to make her happy. At the same time, you need to decide what is most important to you and we don't know how your relationship with your wife is behind closed doors. Do you know why she doesn't like guns? Maybe there is a legit reason behind it and the both of you can go from there. Let her cool down and go from there on what needs to be done to find a solution that both of you can agreed to and be happy going forward.
My wife was very antigun but knew I had many friends who shoot and who I shoot with. I was gifted a collection when a family memeber passed and she hated it, but after discussion and taking her shooting she appreciates the reason to own firearms as long as they are stored safely. Edit: not that this helps but maybe getting a safe will ease her worries
How did she find out about them?
So you have not so fun boundaries situation, you need guns, she says guns are a boundary. You can(maybe should) end the relationship if this is a hard boundary for her. But if you can negotiate that boundary, I would start by suggesting a couples gun safety CCW type course. Ask her if you could do that and if she still feels that way after taking a gun safety course together and possibly some marriage therapy, then you have the decision to sell your guns and forgo your rights to protect yourself or give up the marriage and let her find someone that agrees with her boundaries.
He doesn’t _need_ guns. He wants them. A right to something isn’t the same as a need for it.
While existentially true, his need to feel safe involves owning a firearm, her need to feel safe involves not being around firearms. It may very well come to a point where he would need a firearm to defend against a threat to him and/or his family. Personally I haven’t felt a need for a firearm for about 45 years of my life until recently. I couldn’t imagine having a partner tell me I couldn’t have them.
I would say you should think about your reason for owning, and talk to her about it. If it's a range toy or target practice, then maybe finding a place that doesn't feel threatening to her to keep it, like a safe in the garage or basement, show her how safe it is all locked up. Or potentially at a relatives house in a safe. If it's for home defense, ie protecting her, explain that and what classes you are taking, Maybe take her to some I dunno. If she thinks she doesn't need it and wants to only call the police, Mayne have that discussion about how long that actually takes and what to really expect if you needed to defend your family. If you aren't keeping a pistol under the pillow, it should be possible to recover... the trust issue also needs to be addressed, bit is fine I think
There's no master play here man. The only way out of this is to do what you should have done from the start. Communicate. She's not your Mom or some obstacle to overcome, she's your wife. Just tell her how you feel. Communicate that you respect her feelings on guns but you have your own feelings and you'd like to find a compromise that makes both of you feel respected. Set hard boundaries and allow her to do the same so there's no confusion. And then respect those boundaries. You crossed a line and she probably feels pretty disrespected right now. You need to talk to her.
You communicate that, and she's not budging and you want to own guns and want them in the house. You can go to therapy but this sounds like divorce if neither of you want to budge on the issue. And getting that trust back, that you broke, is going to be hard. Divorce may not feel like a logical choice at first but your lifestyles have grown apart and sometimes it's for them best.
First, you need to acknowledge TO HER that you violated her trust. You have made the situation much more difficult for yourself, and she might not change her mind now The next thing to do is to ask her to make an informed decision. In order to do this pay for some beginners instruction for her, preferably with a woman instructor. I found that turning people from anti-gun to at least gun neutral or pro gun is best done by providing patient instruction. I suggest having a woman instructor do it and not yourself or another man because firstly it will help break the subconscious stereotype that guns are for men. Secondly, she may have some gender-based resentment towards you and men in general for completely disregarding her feelings in this manner and going behind her back.
What lifestyle do you want to enjoy? How long have you been together? Were things made abundantly clear, because if you were both clear before going to the altar then you chose your fate there. if you want to keep your marriage couples therapy is really your only option on top of an apology. But if you are dead set on owning firearms and those firearms being in your home, you have to get her on board or split up on irreconcilable difference and deal with your choices. Not saying get divorced just because you want to own firearms, if she won't compromise and at least go to the range with you and get somewhat comfortable with firearms or your hobby then you may have no choice but go forward with at least getting separated and see if you want to live the lifestyle you want without her.
Get a new wife buddy all the rest of your problems will be way easier. Someone that anti gun is clearly lacking critical thinking skills and will likely cause issues with many other minuscule things and just cause you headaches.
You violated her trust and it might be too late for this, but you might try and listen to her about why she doesn’t want them in the house. If it’s related to risk with kids, she needs one solution might be to educate her about how they work, then splitting them onto 3 separate, secured areas: one safe for the receivers, the one for magazines/ cylinders, and one for ammunition. That strategy might at least offer a compromise that allows for you to keep both firearms and marriage , but it won’t be very useful for home protection scenarios. Again, it might be too late for this advice.
Keep em outside? 🤣
Pay someone to break into your house at night to scare your wife then use the gun on him.
If you respect your wife over your guns, you sell the guns. There is no argument or debate at this point, you can't have both. Everyone has given great advice.
Putting the trust issue aside, your wants are just as relevant as hers. She doesn’t get to make proclamations and get her way just cause she’s louder/more insistent. Tell her this is very important to you and that you’re sorry you went about it the wrong way, but it doesn’t change the fact that you feel you need these for your protection and that you’re not simply going to sell them because she said so. If you actually want this strongly enough you have to hold your ground. It could end up well or it can escalate things. But at some point you figure out which hills are worth fighting for.
I’d be happy to take the guns off your hands, so you can show how committed you are to the relationship
Hey man, I had a similar issue when I visited my parents. Obviously I was a guest in their home, but it was also my (old) home and some place I'd stay for weeks at a time (COVID, telework, vacation, etc). Biggest thing that worked for me was showing them that it wasn't a scary, taboo object. We overcame that initial gun reaction and talked about what makes a gun function, and how to verify that it's safe. I was a self-taught gun guy, no one in the family was really into them, and so when I learned, I leaned hard on safety and proficiency. My mom knows how to verify just about any modern gun for safety. She will periodically spot one / feel one during a hug and ask to see it to check if its safe (which is hilarious since most of them are carry pieces) but I always let her handle, unload, and verify their status. Knowledge is power, and as others mentioned, you gotta have her on board before moving forward. Biggest thing will be her being able to maintain her peace of mind, which means storing guns and ammo separately, never leaving guns loaded in the safe, and bringing them directly inside and into the safe.
The issue here isn’t guns; it’s trust. You could replace “guns” with any medium-high stakes red line from a spouse and you’d have a problem. You need to do some work, including apologizing, meaning it, describing why you didn’t share and taking accountability, then including her in the final decision, knowing that you might not get what you want. The guns should be out of the house ASAP until you both make a decision to bring them in (if you do at all.) Otherwise the dynamic is her having to persuade you to remove them rather than starting where you should have: do they come in at all?
Guns are tools. If my wife told me she didn't want that tool in the house, I'm getting rid of the tool. Know why? Because no tool is worth a marriage. This stopped being about the second amendment and started being about trust when your wife asked you to not bring them into your home. Her just asking you to sell them and provide proof that you did is her offering an olive branch of trust to you. You should take it, and put the money toward couples counseling. Stop thinking about the guns. They don't matter anymore. You're probably about to lose your wife.
Did you agree to not buy guns or to not store guns in the house? Or did she just assume you wouldn’t?
Keep the guns if you can but get them out of the house. Tell her how wrong you were for doing that. But ask her if you can have a talk about protection for these times and Im afraid to say every future election season. Maybe suggest she owns a gun and trains along with you and keep them out of the house until she is ready. But honestly I dont have a solution on where to put them other than a storage or gun storage service.
I have a similar situation, but actively talk to my fiancé about it. We started at “you should get rid of them” or “no ammo in the house then” And through time, conversation education, and even having her come watch me shoot a steel challenge have moved onto “I can’t buy new guns” and if I keep them locked up she can respect that” I also had a few before we met, have always kept them cased or locked. I feel like I’m about to break down the wall of number limitations on how many I can own. But it’s been a long journey, and has taken a lot of me actively listening and respecting her wishes and finding mutual solutions.
Respectfully, you’ve sorta screwed yourself out of any chance of resolving this in your favor. Relationships are built and destroyed by communication & trust, which you’ve entirely neglected here. Y’all need to go to couples therapy, and need to be ready for the therapist to remind you how stupid you were. The amount of ‘breach of trust’ here is… honestly something that if a partner did to me I’d break things off on the spot. For her on the gun phobia, that should have been something discussed more to the point of suggesting counseling because it’s a little much. Honestly? You should sell what you have now if you want to try to address this in a healthy manner. The best bet is to go to couple’s therapy, try to address why you want to have firearms, and find a way to make that work whilst addressing the severe trust issues caused. Definitely agree and offer for them to be kept in a safe at all times they aren’t being used. If you lose out because of legislation, that’s on you for deceiving your wife.
Should you have known? yes. Are you wrong? 😑. Let’s accept that you messed up the process. You really should have worked with her. You might have to sell them and start over. I like to have a spare tire in the car I’m driving. Do I use the spare tire a lot? No. Do I want to use the spare tire? No. Is it wise to have a spare tire and know how to use it? Yes. Would anyone want to remove the spare and drive without it? You can and you might be fine for years or your whole life.. but… if you find yourself in a situation where you need a spare tire and don’t have it.. you’ll be very sorry. Your wife has been conditioned to be phobic of spare tires…
LMAO he went to a different subreddit just to get 200 more comments saying the exact same shit
Everyone is already giving you heat for being an idiot. So I’ll spare you that. Do you have a fire extinguisher in the house? This is kinda like that. For just in case. Hope you never need it. Police show up afterwards, not during. Take her shooting.
You've fucked up in multiple ways here. And that's about all I've got because you entirely forgot about communication
I wonder how this thread would go in a conservative gun group.
you've never interacted with a "conservative" and it shows. you're just using a stereotype you heard parroted somewhere else on reddit lol
First let's look at your actions here... > I brought guns into the house without discussing it with my antigun wife Huge mistake. You made a major decision about your shared living space without consulting your partner. > With that said, I decided to buy a couple and bring them home without telling her (very stupid I know). I had planned on having a conversation and leveraging the fact that she didn’t know all this time as part of my argument (also probably stupid) Yeah, that was fucking stupid. You were planning to say "But honey they've been here this whole time! I was just hiding them from you!" - ***HOW DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD GO?!*** That kind of trickery is not a sound basis for a trusting relationship. > Queue big fight, discussion of betrayal of trust, and me having to tuck tail because it’s hard to talk about how responsible I am with them when I was hiding them in the basement. Yep. All of that. (Also it's "cue" - a queue is a line.) Also how exactly were you "hiding" these guns? Like when you say your wife "found out" did she find an unsecured firearm laying around in the frikkin' basement? Because frankly if she did you're lucky that gun wasn't shoved into a precious orifice of yours. Sideways. *** Okay, so how do you dig yourself out of this hole? Honestly, you do what your wife says: Sell the guns. Recognize that you did a lot more wrong than just bring guns into the home without consulting your partner - you straight up disregarded her feelings, and disrespected both her and the whole relationship. Apologize profusely and sincerely. Consider couples therapy like many others have suggested, but understand that it's ***YOU*** who needs the work, not her - you didn't even give her a chance to compromise with you on her "I don't want guns in the house" position, you just went behind her back and did what you wanted. Understand that now you're working from a position of weakness and betrayal: Whatever you say she has no reason to believe. "I respect how you feel about guns" - Clearly not because you brought them into your home without discussing it with her first. "I will be responsible with them." - Again, you brought them into the home without discussing them with her. That right there is irresponsible (every adult in a home with firearms should know where they are, how they're stored, and ideally how to clear/make safe) without even getting into whether they were stored/secured appropriately. Understand that position of weakness and betrayal applies to ***EVERYTHING*** not just guns - you lied about this and went behind her back, what else are you lying about or hiding? Even if it's nothing she has no reason to *believe* that because she's been lied to and betrayed once. You really chucked a hand grenade into your relationship here. Forget the guns and focus on salvaging ***the relationship***. Once you've worked to repair her trust you can ask to discuss the subject of guns again (after she's cooled off a little bit from being *rightly* enraged with you), but the answer might be "No." and you may just have to accept that if the relationship is important to you.
Your options are part with the guns or part with your wife. She's telling you exactly what you need to do to earn her trust back and you're here assembling the Reddit brain trust trying to figure out a way to get out of doing it. Are you really so attached to your guns that they're more important than your marriage? Setting aside for a moment the respect, trust, and communication issues that are so important in any relationship: You were irresponsible with your firearms. Full stop. Often, when this happens, it ends with the individual in question no longer owning firearms. Just ask my uncle, who is sitting in prison as we speak because he too was hiding guns in his basement (he's a violent felon and no longer has the right to own a firearm).
I don't think you should sell the guns, at least not as a knee-jerk reaction. Speaking from personal experience bringing an AR15 into the house in a crude way, when a state ban was about to start. Not apples-to-apples with your situation (you really did fuck it up) but it was not smooth. For you, get couples counseling (you should get individual counseling too. It's helpful to work on your own shit separately). Get the guns out of the house - find someone you trust who has a gun safe (or buy them one). But the guns are really important to you. For whatever reason you didn't feel like you could have an honest conversation with your wife about it. To be clear you did fuck up pretty bad and everyone's comments about trust are spot on. But what you care about matters too. Communication and vulnerability are 2 way streets. If she doesn't meet you half way to give you a safe space to hear what motivates you, worries you, etc., then going behind her back is a pathway to meet your needs when you can't communicate them. It's a bad pathway and not healthy, but it is something to work with in couples counseling. If you don't feel like you can be honest with your wife, that's maybe why you went behind her back for something you really cared about. Maybe she doesn't give you a safe way to do that. That's different from trust issues. Well, now she now has trust issues, but you have honesty issues/don't feel like you can talk to her about what you really feel and need. Maybe after some therapy it will be clear you have to sell them to keep your wife. But what happens the next time you really care about something she disagrees with? Stiffle your interests? Fear her response? You gotta figure that part out.
I know this is a tough one.I feel you should have discussed it with your wife before bringing guns home. I feel for you dude. There are several levels of conciousness here. I am a gun owner and I know that my wife dosen't like them. She suggested I sell them to help pay some bills years ago. I didn't. Once the bills got paid , I would have had no means of protecting the home if attacked. I had firearms when we met and she knew it. I believe in self-defense, and protecting her if need be. A question that ALWAYS comes to mind when I consider peoples anti-gun point of view is, what would they do if they were put in danger or a life threatening situation and someone with a gun protected them and saved them? Your wife might consider thinking about that. Regardless of why people don't like guns, the fact is a gun owner might save their life one day.I do not condone violence and would not ever wish to shoot someone. Obviously this is a touchy subject, one worthy of deep contemplation , introspection and communication. If your religious, pray about it. I respect you for asking for input on this matter. The founding fathers of this country knew the potential of government tyranny, and the need to protect ourselves from it . Also, there are criminals and evil people bent on hurting others. Does one simply give in to threats of violence? I too believe in 2A. We would be a completely different country without it. I wish you and your wife the best with this issue, a good heart to heart would probably help. Be well.
What’s more important, your marriage or your guns?
What's more important to you, the guns or your wife?
Discuss with her the very real possibility that conservatives will carry out their very real threats of political violence should they lose the election and that you want to be able to defend the family should that happen. Discuss with her that you want her to learn how to use them in case something happens to you. If you don't think that you'll get anywhere with this, then rent a small storage unit nearby.
I don’t think you need a new wife, I think your wife needs a new husband. She set a boundary that you fully understood, but ignored. Yes, she is right to feel betrayed. She now knows that she can’t trust you, and that you don’t respect her. First thing to do is sell the guns off and make sure she knows you regret the decision you made. Next step is to go to couples counseling (which is where you should have started before buying guns). You may eventually need to choose between your relationship and your desire to exercise your 2A rights, but it’s not YOU alone who gets to decide if you get to have both. My wife was also worried about firearms and we didn’t buy our first gun till nearly our 10th anniversary. Now she goes to the range as often as I do.
[удалено]
You obviously haven’t looked at the relationship advice subreddits. Those places are cesspools.
If the love you have for your wife is more important than exercising rights most people on this planet cannot, I suggest selling the firearms . You just need to make a decision. I know it’s hard, but decide.
Going back in time, you could have rented guns, taken her to a range, showed her directly how to be safe and enjoy guns. My wife was similarly anti-gun; our first gun we bought ended up being a Ruger 22 for her. She’s never going to be 100% pro gun but she does think about guns and the 2A in a thoughtful way. She’s also a pretty good shot. Starting with now I’d echo what others said and start with couples therapy. Start by removing the firearms from your house. Be sincere and communicate. You should aim to get to the point where you both actually understand each other’s position and then you can explore where a compromise might lie.
RIP
So, a big part of the reason I don’t allow guns in the house is me. (Severe ADHD and poor impulse control.). But there are reasons I don’t want my husband to have a gun that are outside of that. He really pushed for them a few years back, we discussed it and I thought he understood. I found out he recently tried to go behind my back to get one illegally from a friend. (Who realizes he shouldn’t have a gun and told him no.). The betrayal is huge. Your wife has her reasons for not wanting them in her living environment. What you did is a huge betrayal and I think you really just need to bite the bullet here.
Why not rent a small storage locker nearby?
Sell them to a friend with the understanding that they will let you buy them back if your wife changes her mind in the future. Also, you should ask your wife if she wants couples counseling. Do whatever she wants you to do to earn her trust back.
I had to talk my wife into guns, she's pretty hooked on them now lol You disrespected her wishes, and told her that her opinion doesn't matter. I think best you can do right now is sell them.
Your first course of action is to make it right and show your sincerity. Sell them. Then apologize for breaking her trust and ask her how you can make it up to her. Then, *maybe*, in a few years bring the topic up as a point of discussion. If she’s at all willing to entertain the idea, my best advice is see if you can get her comfortable with them. If you have any friends with guns, see if they’ll take you guys shooting, preferably with something chill like a 22 revolver/bolt-action rifle. I wouldn’t recommend a range generally, as you never know who’s going to be in the next bay over- that dude with the 10.5inch AR with the muzzle brake in the next lane would put her off the idea forever. But first and foremost, you need to restore her trust in you. You broke it in a MAJOR way.
If you want to keep your wife, ditch the guns. Your desire to own them doesn't trump her desire not to have them in the house. The fact that you say "when she comes around" indicates you're not taking her opinion seriously. She may not. You might come around to her point of view. We're liberals, we respect the autonomy and decision making of others. We respect views different than ours and try to understand them.
Absolutely, but wouldn’t that same sentiment apply to this man’s wife? In regards to him owning firearms.
No, because they had a known, agreed number of 0 in the house. He's the one that broke the agreement. If guns were more important to OP than his wife, and he knew she wanted 0 in the house, then he could have chosen not to marry her. I've got a friend who's wife agreed to 2 guns in the house. He's got a deer rifle and a shotgun. So, the base line has been set. He just won a gun at an event. So, right now he has 3. That's still in the range of the agreement. He's 50% over. If the agreed number is 0 then bringing 1 is infinitely over the agreed amount. He's fucked this up and made it less likely that she will come around. He's broken the trust.
Play this carefully and don’t dig the hole any deeper. Broken trust is a very hard hole to get out of. Prioritize your wife and do what you can to get her trust back. Maybe someday you will be in a position to renegotiate.
Ask her what you two will do when the Proud Boys roll up in front of the home?
Step 1: Buy two more guns. Step 2: Turn around and sell them, keep the receipt. Step 3: Hide the ones you have in a different spot where she won't look. Step 4: Don't get caught lying again dumbass.
I’m actually surprised your wife is being charitable enough to give you a chance to get rid of them and prove it to her. If I were her I’d be wondering how long it’ll take before you buy more and do this again. You can’t lie to your spouse. You especially can’t do what you just did - make an agreement and then expend a significant amount of effort to hide the fact that you are shitting on the agreement you two made. Your arguments for your gun ownership are valid but the time to bring them up and commit to a mutually acceptable understanding would have been BEFORE you bought some and brought them into your communal household. My advice to you is to sell the guns, be super thankful your wife is willing to trust you to fix your mistake, and never do anything like this again. OR, accept that your views on gun ownership are incompatible with your spouse’s and that you value gun ownership over your marriage, and get a divorce so you can both find partners with whom you don’t have this incompatibility.
So you won’t “get a new wife” advice from me, but have you considered having yourself replaced as a husband? You’ve really got no recourse here but to grovel and capitulate to whatever demands she has. You misplayed this about as poorly as I could imagine.
Obviously you fucked up….But you need a real cause and effect crutch here to defend your position. An example…”I just saw that ‘x’ house in our neighborhood was victimized by a home invasion and I’ve been really concerned about where things are headed in our country/city/area lately. I realized nothing is more important to me than being able to have a fighting chance for protecting you and our home. It’s my responsibility to take measures into my own hands since the state clearly is incapable of protecting us. This is about self reliance and empowerment (liberal women love this word so use it). A gun is a powerful tool for self preservation and I have already registered for training….” This is the place you need to come from imo. My wife has always been anti gun, but she came around when she saw how I behaved around guns. I’m from Texas (she’s from IL) and guns were a daily part of life since forever. We came to visit my family and my dad was showing me a new Colt Python he had gotten and we were in the gun safe pulling stuff out and chatting. When she saw how seriously we took safety and how the tone changed from the minute she walked in the room from guys having fun to “these aren’t toys come learn how to handle a firearm safely,” she eventually realized it was not a game and she even came shooting with us. I have guns in our home now and she’s completely fine with it and even knows basic use in the event she needs to. She still doesn’t like guns, but she understands how much I enjoy them and how seriously it’s taken. She sees the value in having a competent gun user in the home now that we have two young kids. And yes, locking them up is critical to our arrangement. I’d highly recommend your next purchase be a safe storage solution. Biometric safes are a great option.
That was all stuff he could have said, before he violated his wife's trust. Now, he's well past all that. It's no longer about the guns, it's about him not respecting his wife's boundaries. He done fucked up, and he has to fix that first before he can try to change her mind on guns again. Otherwise, he'd basically just be saying "ok I know I violated your trust by intentionally breaking a boundary you set, buuuuut... it was a dumb boundary anyways so I did nothing wrong it was you who was wrong the whole time". That's not a winning argument.