Wife will not let me dive without a dive master..
- Thread starter Mscdex
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
USC8791
Contributor
Ditto!
Primalchrome
Registered
'Dex, I think it is pretty obvious which of these posts could give you some help. ..and it's equally obvious which ones are blowhards or folks that probably feel that only the Man should have veto power in a relationship. Silly...but also sad.
She has a perfectly reasonable position for concern (especially if you have kids or dependents). Scubaboard will go from "SPLIT FINS WILL KILL YOU" to "driving is more dangerous" in a heartbeat....but at the end of the day there are inherent risks when you start breathing compressed gas at depth. Period. The key is allaying her concerns through your own actions. If she is reasonable, you should be able to accomplish that through :
- experience (More dives, perhaps beginning with more experienced dive teams.)
- continuing education (Whether you take a class or not, read up on skills. Talk about them in her presence. Bore her with the new scuba concept of the day. She will realize how seriously you're taking it and that you are taking steps to mitigate chance accidents through diligent book study.)
- dedication (Pull out your gear on non-dive weekends and go over it's config. Change it. Change it back. Determine if you can easily reach your SMB on your shoulder or if it would be better on your belt or bungeed to the tail of your backplate. Show your dedication to improving not the quantity of your diving, but the quality of your skills and knowledge of your equipment.)
- communication (Make sure you are telling her about all these things. What you're learning. The amazing things you're seeing. The people you are meeting.)
Marriages are generally one of three things....apathetic, dictatorships, or partnerships. Mine has worked for 16+ years as the latter. We both have veto powers....but I think only three things have come up in that period that one of us felt strongly enough that that power was exercised. I respect her opinion and she respects mine....so at the end of plenty of discussion and negotiation when the veto is whipped out, we agree that the relationship is more important.
She has a perfectly reasonable position for concern (especially if you have kids or dependents). Scubaboard will go from "SPLIT FINS WILL KILL YOU" to "driving is more dangerous" in a heartbeat....but at the end of the day there are inherent risks when you start breathing compressed gas at depth. Period. The key is allaying her concerns through your own actions. If she is reasonable, you should be able to accomplish that through :
- experience (More dives, perhaps beginning with more experienced dive teams.)
- continuing education (Whether you take a class or not, read up on skills. Talk about them in her presence. Bore her with the new scuba concept of the day. She will realize how seriously you're taking it and that you are taking steps to mitigate chance accidents through diligent book study.)
- dedication (Pull out your gear on non-dive weekends and go over it's config. Change it. Change it back. Determine if you can easily reach your SMB on your shoulder or if it would be better on your belt or bungeed to the tail of your backplate. Show your dedication to improving not the quantity of your diving, but the quality of your skills and knowledge of your equipment.)
- communication (Make sure you are telling her about all these things. What you're learning. The amazing things you're seeing. The people you are meeting.)
Marriages are generally one of three things....apathetic, dictatorships, or partnerships. Mine has worked for 16+ years as the latter. We both have veto powers....but I think only three things have come up in that period that one of us felt strongly enough that that power was exercised. I respect her opinion and she respects mine....so at the end of plenty of discussion and negotiation when the veto is whipped out, we agree that the relationship is more important.
When I first saw this thread I did have a chuckle - but with further though, Yes she has a right to be concerned especially with only 4 dives in say a year? You know diving is all about experience. When we we all 16,18,21 , 25 etc we all though we know it all and it wasn't until we were older we actually realised how little we knew at that time. After 30 dives, 50 even 100 you still have lots more to learn you start of at the beginning making huge learning steps. As the dive count increases the size of the learning steps decreases (assuming you remain as just a recreational diver)
I'm fortunate I met my soon to be wife through diving. She has 400+ plus more than me, and while she'd freely admit that I understand the technical side of gear, health and physics and the mechanics of diving far better then she (I'm a geeky engineer) there are still times even though I'm at 130 dives (110 in the last 18 months) when perhaps we're in a screaming current being tossed around like clothes in a washing machine, that her greater experience shows - maybe little things but at the time they're important and are only learned having been is a similar situation before.
Ending on a lighter note - the only issues I have is when buying new gear I tend to have to buy 2 - one for her too
I'm fortunate I met my soon to be wife through diving. She has 400+ plus more than me, and while she'd freely admit that I understand the technical side of gear, health and physics and the mechanics of diving far better then she (I'm a geeky engineer) there are still times even though I'm at 130 dives (110 in the last 18 months) when perhaps we're in a screaming current being tossed around like clothes in a washing machine, that her greater experience shows - maybe little things but at the time they're important and are only learned having been is a similar situation before.
Ending on a lighter note - the only issues I have is when buying new gear I tend to have to buy 2 - one for her too
Texasguy
Contributor
Divorce. Marry a DM. That will show her!
skullmancan
Registered
i would still recomend taking a dive buddy but i would also recomend getting your rescue diver class so that way is something were to happen to your buddy you know exactly what to do in the situation
violamama
Contributor
Do any of your diving friends have cool wives you could invite over for dinner? Sometimes having other reasonable minds around can shed more light on a situation. Camaraderie can be a powerful comforter.
Has she recently read or seen something about a diving death? Did you talk about some of the safety/testing situations in your classes that might have opened her eyes to potential dangers?
Imagining a marriage without input on a spouse's free time, hobbies, and risk-taking sounds a bit sad on both sides. I promise I "let" my husband do stuff on his own once every four weeks. If he's been good. (Seriously, though, people calling her names or calling for divorce should she persist in this thread are a bit silly.)
Edited to add: I just realized, I think your use of the words "won't let me" in the title have led to all the craziest responses. I wonder if you had said, "My wife thinks I should dive with a DM until I have more experience" what the responses would have been...
Has she recently read or seen something about a diving death? Did you talk about some of the safety/testing situations in your classes that might have opened her eyes to potential dangers?
Imagining a marriage without input on a spouse's free time, hobbies, and risk-taking sounds a bit sad on both sides. I promise I "let" my husband do stuff on his own once every four weeks. If he's been good. (Seriously, though, people calling her names or calling for divorce should she persist in this thread are a bit silly.)
Edited to add: I just realized, I think your use of the words "won't let me" in the title have led to all the craziest responses. I wonder if you had said, "My wife thinks I should dive with a DM until I have more experience" what the responses would have been...
Similar threads
