Need advice - will my love of diving wreck my marriage?

[escapeartist]

I'm a newlwed married to someone who loves diving, so I can't say from personal experience. I do, however, know that my father-in-law and his spouse have been together for 15 or more years. He LOVES diving and takes multiple trips a year....she doesn't, but goes along. They find places to go where they both have fun (she likes to laze on the beach, read, check out markets etc). They've been to Bonaire, Roatan, Cozumel and many other places TOGETHER. It can work...of course it can. I think it just takes compromise and understanding on both parts. I don't think you necessarily have to take separate vacations to do that.

Best of luck!

 

[escapeartist]

That's just great....I didn't spell newlywed properly....and in a thread with Diver0001 in it, no less

 

[Web Monkey]

We have talked about the possibility of when I take a dive trip (once per year or once per 18 months) that she could take a trip with her daughter to have some mother-daughter bonding time. My wife and I are very keen on the positive and negative energy levels of certain situations and when it comes down to it I'm pretty sure that me taking an expensive liveaboard trip to Australia or Palau or Papua New Guinea etc. will probably not go over well - all my trips are liveaboards (which I pay for by the way), not good for non-divers. The first trip or two over a couple years might go okay, but after that I see her getting tired of me taking those trips.

Marriage is about compromise. Everybody has to give in about 75% of the time.

The trick is to pick vacations that might not be exactly what either of you want, but are make both of you happy.

I dive and my wife doesn't. From her perspective, and ideal vacation would be a week or two someplace warm where she can do some shopping and snorkeling and eat in fun restaurants. From my perspective, a week on a really nice live-aboard would make me happy.

Instead, we've gone to Bonaire, which has enough of everything for both of us, and on cruises where I spend the morning diving on a new island every day, she spends the morning on a tour with the ship, then we both go shopping in the afternoon, try out the restaurants in the evening, then hang out on the ship at night. It's not absolutely perfect for both of us all the time, but it's close.

"Separate but equal" doesn't work for education and it doesn't work for marriage.

Terry

 

[Rhone Man]

Marriage is about compromise. Everybody has to give in about 75% of the time.

I was always told: "Marriage is about sharing tasks fairly: the woman must make 75% of the decisions and the man must make 75% of the concessions."

 

[themagni]

My wife doesn't dive and is mildly claustrophobic and acrophobic. (In other words, she'll never dive.)

One year for christmas, she bought me a "learn to dive" package after getting tired of me saying how I'd like to learn how to dive.

With our MOD policy towards spending, it keeps us in check. I don't spend tons of cash on my diving, she doesn't spend tons of cash on her hobbies.

We've been married for more than ten years now. So yes, you can have a great relationship with a non-diver.