Shopping with hubby

I'm constantly amazed at women who can't get themselves to the shops under their own steam. However will they cope if alone? Do you have no buses in your area (which I do sympathise with when in deepest Cornwall)? Or a taxi company? Is it not possible to learn to drive? I can't stand the idea of shopping with anyone at all, let alone my husband. It's just too much hassle.

I very rarely shop with my husband, but I do have my own car, so that makes things easier. I take my very elderly mother (nearly 92) shopping most weeks, but that’s just for food and household necessities. I do very little clothes shopping these days, but often buy online if I do want something. But tomorrow I’m taking Mum to the big M+S for a pre Christmas shop, she’s taking her walker which has a seat, so we’ll see how we get on. I do go shopping with my husband for anything to do with the house such as furniture, and I shop with him if we want to change either of the cars, although after we’ve looked, he often looks online and can buy the same car cheaper elsewhere.

My boyfriend is happy to go grocery shopping with me. However he draws the line at browsing and clothes shopping, which suits me as I prefer to look around on my own, anyway. On my lone outings I also usually get the added bonus of a £20 note from him to "spoil myself." As they say, "every little helps."

I am just the same and I HATE shopping with hubby but fortunately I have my own car. On the occasions when he asks to come along I usually say that I want some ME time which he accepts but then I feel guilty when he puts that little boy lost look on. I love my own space and maybe should be a hermit! Can you ask a friend to come along with you and maybe give her money for the fuel, if she drives? Or arrange to meet a friend somewhere and get him to drop you off there, saying that you will get a taxi back? Arghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! It drives me wild! x

If my DH wanted to come shopping with me (very rarely) I would leave him in the nearest cafe with a newspaper whilst I toured the stores.

I'm another who hates the word "hubby" - so twee and outdated, reminds me of the time when men referred to their wives as "the little woman"!

Mall seems to be a common UK term now describing those big mainly indoor collections of shops.
Mine likes the idea of shopping but has no stamina. Therefore I leave him to linger over his cup of tea while I head off. Sadly he can no longer read (aphasia following strokes) but has a lot of music to listen to on his iPod. We meet later at a bench somewhere preselected and I take him directly to whatever if I need a second opinion. He is much more tolerant of time I take than he used to be?

I have found a solution !
We live near a small market town and I don’t drive so got to let the old git drive me there .
2 hours is plenty of time for me to do the bits I need to do so while I do my thing he goes swimming , steam room etc and has a good gossip with the other old gits he meets there .
The pool is in the middle of town and has a cafe so if I finish early I go there for a coffee .
For big town shopping I stick him in a costa with his iPad while I get on with it and we are both happy .

I also assumed the Op was in the US kittylester from the word 'mall'. Not a term I thought we used in UK but have since noticed someone else upthread says it.

I would NEVER shop with my husband - much as I love him (but I drive so am independent). If we do end up heading to the shops at the same time, I give him a list of things that don't require any decisions (specific items and where to get them) so he heads off to get those, and I can do something more leisurely, and we arrange to meet in, say, 2 hours for lunch (he will buy a newspaper to read if he runs out of shopping). You use the word "mall" so I'm assuming you're in America? When we visited the USA, I was amazed at the lack of bus services, apart from in the big cities, so you may be dependent on a car? You just have to be honest with him; arrange to go with a friend; take a taxi; find him something-else to do. Good luck. (PS not too late for you to learn to drive ?? My aunt did it at 72).

Know what you mean. I have the same problem. DH really tries hard to be accommodating but it doesn’t work for me. I’ve accepted this and now I buy most things on line with exception of a rare visit to Toast, which he enjoys - and I love. Love buying and selling second hand clothes on line - in privacy! ?

Hubby? Dreadful, but “ hubs” EVEN worse!!

I hate it when hubby comes shopping with me. He hates it too so I don’t know why he bothers. If I say I want to go alone though I get the sulks. The problem is that he wants to get in, get what’s needed and get out. I’m a browser and like to take my time so I always feel rushed. He does, however, play golf so that is the ideal time to go. I find I do more online nowadays.

Shopping with mine is like having a ball and chain on my leg!! When I see something I like he always says something like "You've got one just the same as that" - Yes I did, but that was 15 years ago. He picks up stuff that I wouldn't wear if you paid me and I end up buying nothing.
Shopping with friends is almost as bad as I happily look at what they want to see and then we run out of time. I am a lone wolf shopper every time.

In all our 36 years of marriage I can probably count on one hand the number of times we have gone shopping together. I just go it alone. I have no desire to have any company and he has no desire to accompany me, so it works just fine. How about using the 'click and collect' option? Many shops do this now. You can either take your purchases home or you can try clothes on in store. You can literally buy anything these days using click and collect! You can browse online to your hearts content for the things YOU want. Might lessen the strain a little!

Oh, Flutterby1, I sense your frustration and feel your pain.....yes, partners are a blessed burden if they come with you when you just want some "me" time in the shops.

I always felt that mine was keeping a mental tally of any money I was spending and writing it up in some fantasy accounts book like a dissaproving Victorian Husband with a censorious comment in the margin, ie: "must have words with My Wife - acting like a frivolous, spendthrift with no thought to Fiscal Responsibility!"

Send him shopping with a list and on a different day. Tell him you’ll have lunch waiting for him on his return. Good luck

DH is very useful for holding my handbag on the rare occasions I try on clothes, for fetching another size if necessary(though this does prove challenging for him as he is never sure which style is which) and then for carrying bag with said item if I decide to purchase something. Fortunately my clothes shopping seldom occurs. Much prefer shopping for him, when I do the fetching of other sizes etc.

H and I had a row in Debenhams; he disappears and I had to get the office to tannoy him to no avail and much embarrassment. Finally found him in car; sulking. We now shop on line.

If and when I ever do go shopping with dh (very rare!) he nearly always contrives to disappear and I'm left tutting and/or fuming.

So here's a little anecdote on that subject which I hope might raise a laugh.
Years ago, not too long before Hallowe'en, we went together to Homebase to buy a besom broom (the ones that look like witches' broomsticks) for sweeping wet leaves off the grass.

I found the broom and paid. Dh had meanwhile done his usual disappearing act so I was left by the checkout, tutting and fuming (and evidently looking very scary) while clutching said broomstick - when I noticed a little boy of perhaps 4 or 5, peeping from half behind his mother's skirt, and asking fearfully, 'Mummy, is she a witch?'
?
The poor mother was mortified!
That went down in the annals - much merriment when dds were told - they thoroughly enjoyed telling their friends that Mum had been taken for a witch!

Poor you!
I did have that problem but it was solved by me encouraging my partner to take a car magazine into a great little local pub ( The Woolly Sheep in Skipton) for a pint of Timothy Taylors
‘Landlord’. Luckily I can drive so no problem with drink driving.
I can now shop to my hearts content until I pick him up !

Can you take a bus to the Mall so he doesn't have to drive you or go with a friend instead of him...I hate shopping with my husband as I know he gets bored

When my daughter was working in the USA we went to visit and she took us to a mall. My husband had a book so sat in a cafe to wait for us. When we eventually returned he’d finished his book and bought another!
When we shopped at Christmas we used to split up and meet for lunch or tea. Worked well.

This is funny not in a bad way but same as me, causing stress and untold guilt that I am shopping and actually enjoying myself, I love Ikea and it’s a major trip to it in miles but he comes and feel crap about buying things and feel so stressed with it, you have my sympathy

Either tell him your doing the shopping on line . Or tell him he can come but he can stay in a cafe or go for few pints in the pub .

It's other women's male partners that irritate me. Standing there like spare parts in everyone else's way. But men standing outsude shops just makes me laugh - very 1950s