Having wife / girlfriend as dive buddy

[Azza]

Good luck

For crying out loud!!! Have you never heard of a COKE ALERT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[Azza]

OK I dive with my missus on a regualar occasion. I wanna know how to stop her pulling me up on anything. I mean we dont buddy check in a formal kind of way. I check her out to make sure nothing is amiss, and she does the same, but we dont stand there going B, W ,R, A, W etc. However if something is amiss by chance, on either her or me, she gets cranky with me. OK so nothing has to be amiss and she gets cranky anyway but thats not the point.
Ahh I forget the point now.
Good Luck is all I can say. You're gunna need it...

 

[gehadoski]

Marriage has it's disadvantage. This is one of a long list, good luck with rest. My advice to you is :2ar15smil and get to the bottom of it


just kidding.

 

[crpntr133]

Now you know why I don't want my GF to become a diver. Yes, it would be nice to have another DB but she would drive me nuts. I threatened to shoot my instructor if he talked her into taking dive classes.
Also you have to have "the boys time out". The chicks usually don't dig going to Hooters after a dive.

The class idea sounds like your best shot.

 

[gehadoski]

you are totally right, we must have a time for owrselves. My wife doesn't know how to swim . Lucky me.

 

[miketsp]

Fortunately my wife doesn't like it when I try to help her. She complains that if I do it or help she doesn't learn. So I just keep careful watch and answer the odd question now and again. After 170 dives she's starting to become independent.

 

[Kim]

My wife is amazingly stubborn in most things. She is also a very aware safe diver (with a lot better air consumption than me!) However one of the only times she will actually listen to me and do what I say is when it concerns our diving. I wish I could say the same about her driving! :11:

 

[RP Diver]

Am I unusual here? My wife is the best dive buddy I've ever had (and vice-versa, I hope). Aside from the not uncommon male/female issue of air consumption, we have always been very compatible as divers, and we work around the air issue most of the time. Maybe it helps that we were both professionals in the industry before we ever dove together (we met working classes for the same dive shop).

As to how to resolve your problem... I agree that some additional training might be the key to encourage her to be more self-reliant, as well as more aware of what's happening around her. Good buddy skills, like good general diving skills, are learned by practice, but proper training teaches you how to practice it correctly.

 

[616fun]

I'd say get her to pair up with a very experienced diver or an instructor that you know and respect. Have them give the feedback and not you. They don't have to wake up next to her in the morning.

Could be that they'll give you the feedback to relax. I find myself becoming overly protective of my wife when we dive together.

 

[boxcar]

Hi all.

My usual dive buddy is my wife. I'm try to be very thorough with my equipment checks, etc. and as a result she is not. Some things she just won't check because she is used to me double-checking and fixing any equipment issues she might have. Another issue we have is if she has a problem, for example her mask is not confortable, she'll focus ALL her attention on the problem and forget about EVERYTHING else - sometimes this causes her to drift away from the buoy line, or she might be negative buoyant and sink while she is fiddling with her mask - making me rush down and frantically try to inflate her BC.

When I dive with her I struggle to keep my air consumption low - without her I don't have any issues at all. My instructor remarked that since I worry so much about her all the time it causes me to use more air.

How can I handle these issues diplomatically without insulting her or coming over too strong? My worry is that she has a false sense of security when I'm around which I don't want her to have - she must be responsible for her own safety as well. I worry about her diving without me because an unknown dive buddy won't go out of their way to accomodate her. She struggled to get comforable in the water, she is doing fine now so I don't want to put too much pressure on her.

HI Mordred...
This post stuck a chord with me...I dive with my wife about half of the time...the rest of the time I dive with folks in a local club...I noticed some of these same tendencies in my wife that you mentioned above...not being as thorough, me worrying about her...her struggling with gear, getting distracted...Eventually, an accident (near miss which could have been much worse) scared us both enough to talk seriously about (a) improving our buddy skills for each other (b) getting more training (c) getting more/different/better gear and getting more comfortable with it [her] and (d) her taking more responsibility for her own diving...The accident scared the $h1t out of us, but looking back I think it was a very good thing...

So far, things are going well...she got a new BC (Zeagle Zena, with a GREAT fit) and is much more comfortable in the water, we also sorted out her mask and got a more comfortable mouthpiece on the regs...I've been patient and taken an educative approach to diving with her...We have done a couple of confined water sessions...worked on buddy skills, got her used to the new gear...I spend time explaining why I do what I do, asking her why she does what she does, working on developing good habits, noting good/safe practices in others, slowing down, making it clear that we're partners in the sport...I can see her getting more confident and comfortable with every outing...

We're signed up to do a course in the near future and I've got a pretty good feeling about it...I still go diving with the boys regularly, but me and missus are enjoying diving with each other more than ever.