How to Shop With Your Wife - and Survive

August 29, 2011, By Tom McNulty 1 comment

Tom McNulty

The phrases “I love” and "shopping with my wife” rarely appear together, but there comes a point in many relationships when you find yourself at a mall with her.

Here's what you need to know to avoid a big blowup.

The backstory. Most guys don't like to spend much time shopping, even alone, unless it’s at Sports Authority, Golfsmith or Home Depot. The preference goes back to our male “hunter” vs. female “gatherer” roots, which must have gotten embedded in our DNA through the eons. Most men know what we need when we head to the stores, and so we get it and go back home. Back in the day, we focused on a wooly mammoth; now it’s, say, underwear. Women used to patiently scan all around for nuts and berries, so today they take their time when shopping. It’s more of a leisure pursuit—time stands still for women when they shop. So when couples shop together, it quickly becomes a potential cobra-mongoose situation.

The research. One British study suggests that couples put a time limit on shopping together. They found the "critical mass" time to be one hour and 12 minutes. At that point (possibly earlier for a lot of guys), men start to crack, realizing they no longer want to be there. Women, on the other hand, are just hitting their stride. The study advises couples to split up and shop on their own before hitting the dangerous 1:12 mark (or your own personal breaking point, whichever comes first) to avoid a spat.

The solutions. If you start to get restless or irritated, start acting. Fake it. Pretend that you’re cheerful, enthusiastic and engaged for another 15 to 30 minutes to make that time a positive shared experience. Don’t let the shopping safari end in an argument, or the hour or so you invested in being a “good boy” will be wasted.

Another strategy: Before you head to the mall, agree with your wife that after every 45 minutes or so of shopping, you’ll take a 15-minute break during which you can sit down with a cup of coffee and decompress. Or, try to find a compromise solution: If she wants you to shop with her, tell her she has to do man-things with you: golf, fish, watch football, or maybe snap towels, smoke cigars and play poker. 

The final analysis. Whatever you do, make sure you end the shopping excursion as a positive experience, not with a squabble that'll follow you home. Whether it ends well or badly, she’ll remember it.