Helpful communication tips and habits to practice when diving with spouse

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Z Gear

Contributor
Messages
831
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194
Location
San Diego
# of dives
50 - 99
I like diving with my spouse. One of the things I like to try an do is be there for her if she needs me. It's no big deal it naturally forces me become more of what I should be, "considerate". Some times certain things we do can actually benefit us in different ways. I take this opportunity to grow in an area that I may have slacked on before.

Everything from planning our dive. To getting our gear on and making sure we have checked of all our gear and we are safe and ready. We don't rush this and I can see she appreciates that. I always offer to carry some gear of hers if it is a long walk to shore. Once we descend I try to let her set the pace since she has a bit harder time sometimes equalizing. I do my bet to go down with her at the same time as I am facing her. When we reach bottom we usually give our selves the OK sign if everything feels good and we get on with the dive. I check out the compass and give her a direction with my hand of which way we are heading. She normally stays almost parallel to me, so we can easily reach each other and communicate. We do have a slate to write stuff down on but we are getting better at communicating with out it.

Developing patience and having a good attitude while diving with my spouse.has forced me to practice a few good habits which tend to stay with me for a while, if I start to slack we just go diving again and I am good for another round.

Who would have thought?
Frank G
 
I absolutely love diving with my wife. My son is a natural and matches me in skill and gas consumption. My daughter is less experienced but sticks with me, even in more difficult circumstances, and has great gas use. My wife is more timid, takes it easy, uses more gas, but, is my favorite buddy. I'm a very lucky man to have a diving family
 
I love diving with my wife. It makes dive travel etc. very special. That said...treating her as anything other than a completely competent dive buddy in her own regard is just asking for trouble. Leave the chivalry on the surface. Once we submerge, she's got my back and I have hers. That's how we roll...:). YMMV IMHO.
 
I love diving with my wife. It makes dive travel etc. very special. That said...treating her as anything other than a completely competent dive buddy in her own regard is just asking for trouble. Leave the chivalry on the surface. Once we submerge, she's got my back and I have hers. That's how we roll...:). YMMV IMHO.
Yeah I here you. I do know how very important it is to have a dive buddy who is there and you can depend on and we do look after each other.

But it's the smaller less important things that I do that seem to leave a good vibe with her, and I have taken notice.

Frank G
 
I love diving with my wife as well, we are one another's most common buddies. It does her (and me) good if we each dive with others as well. Best to learn from as many others as is appropriate.

My wife was raised in a developing country where the man takes precedence in all things. This has been a bit of a conflict for us from time to time :-) and diving is a great metaphor for being self-sufficient, taking care of oneself first, then helping others.

- Bill
 
You people are a lot more trusting than me - I think "Never buddy with your life insurance beneficiary" should be taught at the same time as "Equalize early and often" and "Be a S.A.F.E. diver."

(Yeah,I know I used this joke before in another thread - Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield reused jokes too!!)
 
Kinda jealous reading the first few posts of this thread. Reminds me that we should probably get some dive couple's counselling. :oops: My hubby and I are generally good buddies, but once, when the sh*t hit the fan, so did our buddy skills. Boy, did the situation deteriorate fast! Just glad that it was during a 20 feet shore dive very close to shore.
 
Kinda jealous reading the first few posts of this thread. Reminds me that we should probably get some dive couple's counselling. :oops: My hubby and I are generally good buddies, but once, when the sh*t hit the fan, so did our buddy skills. Boy, did the situation deteriorate fast! Just glad that it was during a 20 feet shore dive very close to shore.

Don't forget that everyone on ScubaBoard is a "expert" wishing to pass on their "knowledge" :-)

Yours is no doubt the more common experience.

- Bill
 
A couple of great points have been made here.

First, as AdivingBel said: you should work to develop comparable skills as a team. I have a lot more experience than my regular dive buddy, but we are both working hard to develop her skills to the point where she can have my back in any situation that arises. And the communication part is an important component of this. We discuss/plan each dive in detail and then do a post-dive discussion to see what worked and what didn't. We're in the process of developing some particular communication hand signals and procedures that work for us.

Second: as mentioned by Dogbowl and billt4sf: Everyone can think their skills are great until things truly go south. This is probably the biggest benefit I've seen of my tec training. Yes, the additional skills are important, but the emphasis I've received in terms of detailed dive planning and "what if" scenarios have been gold. My buddy is not a tec diver, but bringing that kind of planning to even recreational dives has made us both better divers.
 

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