Getting permission from your significant other

If you are co-parenting, in one sense your time really is not your own: the project of caring for children has to have first claim on it. So one really should get "permission" in some sense from one's co-parent(s) to absent oneself from the project. You can't just bail and expect them to cover for you: what if all the parents tried to do that at once?

But framing that as, oh, the woman is in charge of scheduling not just for herself but for the entire family, is a little worrying. One person doing it wouldn't be so weird, sometimes one person in a family really just does wear a sort of executive assistant hat and keep track of where everyone ought to be at any given moment and that's the way they like it. But if a lot of men are acting like this about a lot of women, you might have a systemic gendered labor imbalance.

I terms of what people mean when they say this, I think they probably think they mean Option 3, but actually have an Option 2 problem. To really figure it out you need to like check how much Gender and Women's Studies they know.

I do this. I don’t think it falls into any of those categories, for me. I just want to be sure that I’m not forgetting any other prior commitments, either scheduled or non-scheduled-but-still-anticipated. The former is just typical stuff like maybe my wife has plans with her friends that hasn’t had a chance to tell me about yet. The latter is just making sure my wife wasn’t just hoping to spend the night home with me, or has extra work to do at home and so needs me home to handle kids that might come out of bed.

Regarding phrasing, I used to occasionally say “ask the boss” or “check with management”, but do so less now (I’m mostly just following cues about the vibe of the conversation up to this point). Most anyone I hang out with is also friends with my wife— we are lucky to have good close friendships with other couples and each others friends— so the joke is a little thin.

I also make plans without checking with my wife, especially if I’m certain there is nothing planned at home, but I do still let her know and am willing to cancel if needed. I guess you could say I’m “asking permission”, by to me it’s just communicating intent and being okay with adapting my schedule if needed. Fortunately, she’s nearly always okay with me making plans even if it makes her evening slightly more difficult.

Many people don’t have such a good relationship so all of the above may not work for them. And all of your options I’m sure are true for some people, either individually or all at once. Apply explanations at your own risk.

My life comes down to planning and logistics.

Time is the constraint, so who does what when is a team decision. What has to be done then? What different things do we want to do? When?

It's all a big compromise.

I connote a certain "this isn't on the top of my list of priorities, so the partner can say no" to saying something has to be cleared with the boss.

"Getting permission" can also be about planning something in every moment squeezing out some of that precious family time. Not having something planned, but getting an affirmative to there being enough together-time.

Getting permission can also be about whether or not the partner has something to do that requires someone else to pay extra attention to the kids,

Checking can also be about ensuring there are no other plans they don't know of. Has someone promised the kid a movie or playdate with a friend I don't know about?

There are also certain things I decide unilaterally because that's "my domain" and things someone else decides because that's their domain.

I don't know if others split things in different ways, but I imagine there are as many arrangements as there are families. For instance; whoever cooks decides what's for dinner, wouldn't fly everywhere, but it's a lot of fun for me.

Can be a lot of things, difficult to tell without knowing what sort of person they are otherwise. I do have some additional thoughts.

If you do have kids going to have a fun evening means your significant other will have to take care of the kids for the entire evening. Not only does it need to fit in the overal schedule but you are also effectively asking them if they are okay with that for that evening. Considering that their spouse might also have a day job that actually amounts to "permission" of sorts.

Even if you are in an equal relationship where you each have your own things in evenings "permission" might still be involved if only to prevent scheduling conflicts. But also, again, to make sure it just works for the other person on that particular evening.

Then there is a pattern you'll see in a lot of relationships where on person is "in charge" of the schedule.

I think the language of "boss" is probably a joke regardless. Needing to check with one's spouse can be anything from being completely checked out from family scheduling and needing your spouse to handle all of that for you, to having a highly controlling spouse, to just wanting to make sure you and your spouse are on the same page before making plans so you don't mess up each others' plans on accident. I don't think making jokes like this tells you much about what the dynamic behind it is directly -- you'd have to surmise that from other evidence.

It’s probably option 2 more often than you’d think. In spite of the macho predisposition that men are in control, many men want to have a partner in control of their life to one extent or another. Some men want a wife who is a “mommy”. And that’s not bad so long as they are happy.

Relationships are complicated. Equal relationships are usually asymmetrical; one partner takes care of some things and another takes care of others.

I also think that the “boss” dynamic is more true than you and many others want to believe. One of the things that you don’t want to do with a partner is to disappoint them, so telling them you are going to do something without them may not literally be asking for permission insomuch as it is checking if it would hurt their feelings if they weren’t there for them at that time. But at the end of the day their partner does have a degree of control over them so describing them as a boss isn’t too much of a stretch.

Naturally unhealthy relationships exist as well, but for the most part this kind of behavior is completely normal and healthy.

While I think there are cases of all three scenarios in play for different people, I suspect that it is "option 3" most of the time. While I never refer to my wife as "the boss" like this, I always run things by her and she does the same for me because we have a particularly demanding family life where at least one of us has to be there essentially at all times. If I just go out, it could be preventing her from going to an appointment, preventing one of the kids from getting to or from an event, or who knows what.

I've had to make it clear to people that thought I was literally asking permission to do things like I was a subordinate in my own home. It is a matter of both respect to your partner and just general logistics.

I feel like it makes sense when you're married lol.

My wife is my best friend, and my #1 priority in life is making her happy (for now... no children yet!). When I say "I gotta check with the boss", I'm not literally asking for her permission - I'm usually just confirming with her that we don't have other plans that I may have forgotten about (which happens often).

I think the "check with the boss" phrase specifically is meant to imply "I would like to do this, if I don't have any other obligations" in a more lighthearted way.

Healthy partner and parenting relationships have already been covered. One thing I didn’t see mentioned is specific to this scenario of meeting up to play. Aside from “boss”, I’ve heard countless variations of your second example “I got permission! I can go to the after-work game” said as a light hearted joke from both husbands and wives (and roommates) since it reminds people of asking their parents if they could play with friends as kids.

I wanted to make another comment because this touches on a pet peeve of mine that I really hate.

That's using tired gender stereotypes as a sales tactic. Very often, I'll be in situations where I'm likely to be sold to with my wife. That could be walking around home depot, going to a trade expo, going to a really touristy spot on a vacation, and so on.

My wife and I are very similar in that we're both extremely skeptical of people approaching/cold calling/advertising to us about anything, but especially when they're clearly selling something. Both of us would rather just immediately say no, and if we want the thing that is being sold, we come back later after actually weighing our options and deciding if it's a good deal.

One thing that sales people do, and I'm very sure this is intentionally taught at their stupid training retreats, is to try to use my wife against me. They'll say things like "oh, well I understand, your husband doesn't like to spend money, that's rough", or "you know you're supposed to take care of your lady right? Don't you care about making her happy?". They'll try to sell directly to her and cut me out of the conversation if they don't feel they're getting anywhere with me, or they'll try to form an "alliance" with my wife to get her to help them pitch me.

Thankfully, this basically never works, but the entire idea of it is really disgusting to me, and using it will 100% guarantee that I'll go out of my way to never do business with their company again.

It draws on the same old well of tired stereotypes thats behind "wife=bad" humor, or "happy wife happy life" , "gotta ask the boss" and so on. The idea that women are humorless hags with full control of their husband's life and wallet, and that a husbands role is to desperately perform for their wives for the rest of their life to escape being bitched at and nagged.

It's not the kind of relationship dynamic that anyone I know would ever want to be in, and it annoys me when people not only assume that that's the dynamic of my relationship, but try to use that assumption for personal gain.

I think it's largely option 3, at least as I see it anecdotally. Once you're in a family unit, you generally have to check with the family (or the family calendar) before booking your time.

IMO it's not a gendered or boss/subordinate thing. It's just how you respect each other. I always assume people who frame it that way are joking.

Going deeper, I can say I've never heard the phrase "check with the boss"used by a woman or about a man; only by men about women. I think a lot of times it's because they rely on their partners to manage their schedule, putting their partner in the position to say yes or no.

It sounds like the relationships are pretty equal honestly. Doing something fun that takes time away from family/parenting is a privilege, and it just makes sense to clear this with your spouse first before agreeing, and being excited that you can take some time away from the house is also just....fine? I've never used my family as an excuse not to do something I simply didn't want to do, maybe some people do that. What I would say is that compared to prior generations, Millennials spend more energy on childrearing, and have generally more equitable relationships in regards to who spends time with the children. It'd be insane if I didn't try to work with my wife on childcare plans, just this past weekend I was playing Twilight Imperium with friends so we made sure our daughter was with her grandmother for that time period, so it's not just me having a fun day and my wife being saddled with a toddler with no escape or recourse if she was with her by herself, that's not a good way to manage a relationship and I'd rather my wife be happy even if it means I might miss out on other obligations. Even now, we might have to recuse ourselves from playing a legacy game with the group we started with since the last time we committed the 30hrs over a few weeks we didn't have kids, and we might start playing right when she gives birth to our second. It's an unfortunate reality that I may not get to spend as much time with my friends that don't have kids, that they can game as much as they want and I'll have to miss out from logistics of being a parent....but that's my choice and I'd rather be a good father/husband and I can always pick the gaming back up when they're older. Just my two cents

I pretty much don't do anything without checking with my wife first, unless it's a minor inconvenience where a quick "hey I'm doing this" text will suffice. The reasons are many-- I genuinely forget things we have planned so in that way she is "the boss" because her memory's much more reliable than my own, I don't want her to worry while I'm out, I want to make sure she's OK with having solo "kid duty" for a while, I just genuinely want to check in with her so we're on the same page with whatever's going on, etc.

Likewise she usually checks in with me about things ahead of time for the same reasons. Honestly we both ask each other for "permission" to do a lot of things...money, how we spend our free time, etc. Not because we have to, but because we want to be on the same page about stuff.

As for the specific language being used, it's probably just a joke. A friend and I are both married and like to joke around like "My wife said I could hang out, did yours?" Not in any sort of sexist "my wife is effectively my mother" kinda way. Just like the idea of that is so absurd, therein lies the joke, also "haha, we used to have to ask for permission to do things as kids", I guess?

When you have kids you always have to check something.

If the couple is in constant communication and each has its own agenda with their appointments for the week and weekend, you don't need to check with your partner. You just look at your agenda, which reflects your conversations with your partner.

If you are not very organized (or maybe it's too early in the week...), then yes, you have to check with your partner. So it's not much permission but rather "honey, do we have anything scheduled for that date and time? Oh yeah? And your mother can't watch him ? I see. Got it. I remember now".

The "permission" is often just a schedule with the things you previously agreed to.

It's almost definitely 3. There are many real people who fit category 2 but they wouldn't be talking about it that way because it would hit too close to home and feel humiliating (IMO).

In a couple with kid(s) it's just a reality that you need to coordinate your plans. It can grate on you and it can feel like you have to "ask permission" to make even simple plans, even though your partner often comes to you with the exact same kind of requests. So it's understandable that people will joke about it.

I would guess it's a joke, even though it's in poor taste.

It reminds me of home automation posts on reddit where someone would inevitably say their solution aligns with the "wife acceptance factor (or WAF)." It's sexist and pretty cringy to assume women aren't as capable of using an app to change the color of a lightbulb.

I do understand the posts saying there's likely a bit of truth to it, but I agree with your statement of how the language used needs to go away with the older generations who used it.

I'd like to offer a possible option 4:

The person feels bad asking for the time to play board games. Yes it's a good social activity and these days it's less "weird" but some people still will see games as a waste of time. Maybe the partner thinks the games are stupid, and it's a hard sell when they go home to ask for the time, then it feels like "asking for permission".

That said, I'm completely in the camp that it's unique per relationship, you'll never really know unless you know the people really well. Could be any option, combo of options or something you've not guessed. Maybe some dude calls his wife "boss" in the bedroom and thinks it's fucking hilarious to do it in social company, you do know.

I think it likely is option 2, which is pretty sad.

I'm married, but if I got a sense that I needed permission to do things, I don't think I'd be married for much longer.

When someone asks me if I can do something that's going to take a while, I don't ask permission, but I do talk to my wife to see if we have anything planned. If she says yes, I will tell them no 99% of the time, because keeping plans with my wife is more important to me than whatever the other thing is. If the thing we have planned is something we're both kinda meh about, and the alternative is great, I'll tell her that I'm going to do the other thing.

I'm an adult, I don't need anyone's permission to do whatever I want.

Part of being an adult is accepting that you have responsibilities though. One of those responsibilities is caring about your spouses feelings, and if I just randomly decided to do things that impact plans we've already made, I wouldn't be living up to that responsibility.

The only issue I ever have with my wife on this front is that sometimes, she will make plans up in her head and not tell me until right beforehand, or have some sort of an expectation that we will do something on a certain day but never let me know that, so if I do something, even after I tell her about it, it disappoints her.

I've had conversations with her about it, and it's just her personality. She's a lot more passive and less willing to actually ask for what she wants than I am, so I have to be careful to not just trample all over her ideas. She's gotten better about actually communicating her future plans with me as well.

It could be that a lot of people are in a similar boat and just use the "permission" thing as shorthand for that.

Every relationship is different, and they change over time. Could be that all of these are true because you’re talking about several people.

My partner has told me he will occasionally do this when he’s invited to something he doesn’t really want to do, but doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s a socially acceptable reason to say no for any reason.