mother-in-law taught me discover scuba and....

[Slater]

Two sides to every story but as others suggested, start over with a different instructor & see how that goes...
If she didnt teach you to clear your mask, clear water from your reg, before dropping down to 12 feet, what skills was she teaching you? Was this a pool session?

 

[fnfalman]

Maybe mother-in-law is looking for a new daughter-in-law?

Anyway, I've seen many family members teaching each other and the experiences tend to not work out well for both.

Ask for an instructor outside of the family.

 

[Quero]

That's a pretty tough one. It seems to me that there are three, or possibly four options:
1) Soldier on and get training from MIL, and hope that the experience isn't so traumatic as to completely spoil your future enjoyment or put you at real risk during your course and afterwards.
2) Tell hubby and in-laws that you want a non-family instructor. It may be more than a simple lack of patience on MIL's part--you may be experiencing performance anxiety as well, wanting to do well and impress hubby and MIL, and with a non-family instructor that aspect is simply absent from the equation.
3) Get parallel instruction on the side from another instructor in order to sail through the course with MIL and get her name on your cert, letting her think that she was your only source of instructional input.
4) Choose not to get certified at this time, leaving the door open for the future--maybe a trip to somewhere fun where you get the urge to do the course and then go home with cert in hand.

Every single one of these options has drawbacks, ranging from a lack of enjoyment of your course to offending your MIL to subterfuge to delayed gratification. You need to weigh all of these and figure out which ones you can/cannot live with.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

As others have said, go try it again, with a different instructor. Personalities matter. And, frankly, teaching ones family is a difficult and sometimes impossible situation to deal with. The dymanics are totally different.
My wife is a student at the dojang where I teach. My oldest daughter and my son have also been students there (but have since moved away). Although I have worked with all of them, I do my best not to be their direct instructor. I avoid judging them during competitions and I have managed to completely avoid judging at their promotions.
Your MIL would likely be well advised to adopt a siimlar rule of thumb.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Business acquaintenances can become friends, but I I avoid doing business for friends who were friends before business aquaintenances. I had a bad experience with a friend trying to sell my house, and friends as clients expect something for nothing on occasion. I count family as friends in this discussion, and frankly, its best to use a porofessional instructor in scuba with whom your relationship, is striclty that- professional. MIL 's can also tend to want to dominate DIL's, and the inequality in the instructor/ novice relationship is one just begging for abuse. Now while I am sure there are some wonderful MIL/DIL relationships , perhaps most of them, there are also abuses. Start fresh with a professional not a friend or family memeber and you will have a much better time. NOTE to instructors who are nice and teach their friends and family: Good for you. I am glad you can do it. Not everyone can.
DivemasterDennis

 

[FinnMom]

Family can always be prickly. Get another instructor and see for yourself if this is something that would be fun for you.

The youngest kid in a big family, I've been given my share of marching orders & heard demands to know why if they weren't followed. My best tactic seems "Never complain, never explain". Don't criticize the MIL or your Discover Scuba Experience in any way, just do what you think is best and ignore any demands to explain why you go and pay for what MIL would have done for free. Just cheerfully change the subject and it will go away sooner or later. You're entitled to make your own decisions and you don't owe explanations to anyone. Be nice about it and they will except this fact. The experience might even save you some grief over future decisions

 

[turnerjd]

I think that there might be a simple explanation here.......

Your Husband is from a family of divers, they sound like they eat, sleep, and drink diving, did the MiL assume that your husband had explained things to you before you did the DSD? Happened to my wife.... Instructor assumed that as we were married, I had explained everything to her, or that she had magically absorbed the knowledge (by osmosis?) simply by spending time with me.......

just an idea.

Jon

 

[RJP]

Step 1 - go do a Discover Scuba program with another instructor. Maybe diving just isn't for you? I'd find that out before I completely upset the apple cart family-wise.