'do you need to speak to your husband?'

[Madmaxxy]

'I don't have one and I'm the one spending the money' was my answer (best part of £1000 for home improvement)

Honestly in 2022?! AIBU?

I took my mum to buy a car, she knew exactly what she wanted, had researched for a while and been a bit of a petrol head when she was younger. Sales person kept asking me things despite me saying I wasn’t buying anything, I’d just driven her there. I eventually walked off and had a look around, no car was bought as they were awful, the final straw was when they asked for my details for a test drive despite being told three times that the car wasn’t mine, I had zero interest in it and I would not be driving it.

I had some new blinds quite a while ago, my now husband was at home, but in the spare room working, so no the salesman didn’t know he was there, he also didn’t even live with me at that point. I’d picked my blinds, measurements confirmed etc and then he said “I can’t order them until I speak to your wife” (no spouse of any kind had been mentioned by me), so I said that no one else owns the property, its in my sole name, he asked yet again. So I said “I’ll go and get my wife from the office”, so in I went and brought out my then boyfriend into the livingroom and said “this is my wife ‘Dave’ who doesn’t live here”. Salesman didn’t know what to do and we must have spent 2-3 minutes just stood in silence waiting for him to do or say something.

Oh yes…I was heavily pregnant and buying a car n pcp…the car salesman was actually SHOCKED when I said..alright I’ll take this one….”don’t you want your husband to see it first?” Ehhh nope? He couldn’t care less and knows less about cars than I do (which is not very much to begin with). I could see he was reluctant to process it and was saying things like…oh we might have to get your husbands financial info (I’m assuming as some kind of guarantor). I was baffled why that was needed. When he asked my salary his eyes just about popped out of his head (not that it is massive but clearly was a lot more than he was expecting for an admittedly slightly scruffy looking heavily pregnant woman). He asked me to repeat it about 3 times….”are you sure? Because when we run the financial checks it will highlight any discrepancies” ie you are lying and this will catch you out!
Needless to say it was approved in seconds and he just sat back and looked at me like I was some kind of curiousity.
Three years later I went back at the end of the contract to upgrade and he said “oh I remember you! Your husband didn’t even want to come and see the car and you paid for it all by yourself!”

You’re lucky to get a response from a builder. I’ve been trying to get some work done for several weeks. If they respond to a man then I’ll ask my husband when he gets back. I just want it sorted.

@pawpaws2022

But then a lot of women don't help themselves (I don't mean that in a nasty way!) I work for a car brand and get women who have to ask their husband - the mileage, the car reg, whether they should book it for a service, whether the MOT is due... I spend all day hearing "I don't know, I'll have to ask my husband" and it's not elderly people

You might be right to an extent there. I recently bought a car from a car supermarket place. I'd already chosen and reserved the car online (had the same model before and knew all about it etc, was just getting a newer one) and DP came mainly because he could drive our other car home if it turned out I could pick it up straight away.

We walked in together and he went off to look at other cars we couldn't afford while I went to check the car, do a quick test drive and sort out all the paperwork.

He came back a couple of times to 'see if I was done yet' and the saleswoman actually said to me 'I can't believe how hands off your fella is' implying that either most men don't let their female partners buy cars all by themselves without interfering, or they feel they can't do it all by themselves without 'help' from a man even if it's their car and their money.

But I'm nodding along to a lot of these and can't believe it's still the case that so many people assume that women aren't capable. Our roof was damaged in the recent storms so we had to claim on the insurance.

I deal with most of our household admin and am first named on the insurance policy. I also spoke to the (female, as it happens) surveyor who came to assess the damage as DP was at work. It seemed strange that we hadn't heard anything after a few days as she said the office would email us details of a settlement within a couple of days and I mentioned it to DP and he said 'oh yes, I'd got an email about that and kept meaning to mention it'.

They'd only gone and emailed him about the roof repair, even though I'm first named on the insurance policy and I dealt with the surveyor.

Cross posted with @GrandPrismatic. Who knew that we women can earn decent money and buy cars all by ourselves eh?

We can also sell them too. When I sold the car I was replacing when I bought the one above, a man rung to ask about it and when I answered the phone if was so flustered that a woman answered he could barely speak and spent a good couple of minutes flapping about how strange it was that a woman was selling the car.

Out last builders told DH that he had to check with the boss before they’d do something (me).

I didn’t care

This is something that salespeople have always needed to ask. Large orders have been cancelled regularly because they didn't discuss with the other person especially in the case of home improvements. I'm really shocked to hear that they still word it this way.
They should be asking something like IS there anyone else who needs to be involved in the decision?

This sort of behaviour isn’t just men. We once had a female sales rep (for windows) address every single remark to dh and ignore me completely. She also wore a see-through blouse and batted her eyelashes at him non-stop.

When the quotes (much the same) came in, dh said, ‘I think we should go for A’. (eyelash batter).

Me: ‘Oh no we bloody well won’t’, and we didn’t.
The other who had quoted (male) had treated us equally.

Bloody hell I used to get this kind of shit in the 1980s I didn't think it still went on.

@Thereareliterallynonamesleft

Haha, ‘I need to speak to my husband’ is my get out to get away from door to door salesmen etc!

I was going yo vote YANBU then I read this.

But if women are saying this, then it seems sensible for salesmen to say it too

But if women are saying this, then it seems sensible for salesmen to say it too

But they don't need to word it on the assumption that there is a husband and if there is, that he has to be involved.

If they say 'is there anyone else who needs to be involved in the decision' then it covers same sex couples and also single people, or even people who are part of couples but for whatever reason are purchasing alone.

My friend and I were on holiday in France and were asked by an Englishman in his 60s if our respective husbands allowed us to go away without them.
Anyone order a Victorian?!

I've been happily single by choice for many, many years and I can honestly say I've never encountered ANY of this, not once! To be fair I mainly conduct business online and via webchats and I'm trying to envisage someone on the other end of the webchat saying "Is your husband there?".

Reading this thread though made me think. I watched the new Louis Theroux documentary on Sunday about Porn Stars in America and in one scene three women had these huge, strap on, almost comedic penises. If I was encountering what I've read here on a regular basis I'd keep one handy and if anyone didn't want to deal with me as a woman I'd strap one one and ask "Do you feel I'm more qualified to talk to you now?"

@Thegirlwiththeeagereyes

Walked out of two car showrooms when I was looking for my most recent car, for this very reason. But I had the opposite with our builders - anytime a decision was being made with DH they made sure he checked with me! They said it's always the wives that know best, although maybe they were just buttering me up so they could get more tea and biscuits. It worked.

So if they ask if you need to check with husband that's offensive but if they say wife knows best that's OK No double standards at all on here then!

@thecatsthecats

I just saw someone on another thread advocate saying "I need to talk to my husband about this first" about a purchase.

I think that we need to switch it up to "I need some time to think about it".

Pushy sales people need to learn that pushy tactics put as many people off as they bully into purchasing.

Sales people can get round "I need some time to think about it"

This has never happened to me or anyone I know. Does it only happen on MN, as that’s the only place I’ve ever heard it? I think people exaggerate 🤷‍♀️

@Blanketpolicy

Honestly doesn't bother me, we've had as many trade people say to dh 'do you need to speak to your wife?'. I just assume they think a big quote/job will be discussed between a couple before accepting.

Dh is a trademan and regularly has problems where one person accepts a quote then their OH questions it on the day the job is due to either start or be paid.

I do discuss it with DH and he doesn't make expensive purchases without discussing with me. We share the budget so we talk about big spend.

I find that very very hard to believe @MintyFreshBreath, especially the part about it not happening to anyone you know either.

Likewise women who say they've never been sexually harrassed and neither has any other women they know. Or experienced other 'everyday sexism' behaviours like when a heterosexual couple go out for a meal and the man gets served the steak and pint of lager and the woman is given the salad and glass of wine, even if the order was made the other way round.

You're talking about very prevalent behaviour that is sadly almost impossible to avoid unless you never deal with other people.

Late to the party (always) but we went wih a company who asked (as they could hear someone else was in the house) something like "is there anyone else who lives in or owns the property who needs to be consulted". Which is absolutely fair given it was building works.

They were covering their backs which is fine, but equally not being sexist. Interestingly, the builder/surveyor was a woman...

This happened to me in an Audi dealership/garage. I took my car in because it needed something relatively minor fixing. I was so cross, as was dh on my behalf, that we traded it in soon afterwards and have boycotted Audi ever since.

Im so envious yr brother gets it! Mine doesn't and he seems like q big gaslight to me now.

My therapy helped me shift the focus from FIXING THIS (i can't) to protecting myself.

We went to a mortgage advisor recently and he directed every question at DH despite me answering them all. Then he went to fill out the form and said the higher earner had to go first (not sure if this is even true) turned to DH and asked for his occupation DH corrected his assumption pointing out I am the high earner.

I don't need to speak to him, but we would make large financial decisions together, we'd likely have thought it through before anyway. However, if a sales suggested it because they thought I shouldn't make the decision I would get shitty and probably drop them.

I don't take any shit from garages any more. We took MY big 4x4 in for some work and the guy there was directing his questions to my DH who said "dunno mate not my car" and walked off - I mean what business does a petite woman have driving a Man's car? I have literally said to someone before, don't speak to him it's not his, he doesn't know! Then never gone back.