Getting your significant other involved in the hobby

Having your SO involved would be great!! My wife is actually the reason I have a reef tank even though she is not that interested. I always kept FW and was afraid to make the jump but after we got married she complained FW fish are all boring and ugly. All she said was if we were going to have a fishtank in the livingroom it HAD to be SW and within a couple weeks I had bought a tank and ordered all kinds of stuff offline. My little "itll only be a few hundred dollars" turned into a couple thousand over the past year but thats ok lol.

She doesnt have much interest in anything but the fish and she is very particular about which fish she does like. She has picked out all fish in our tank though and even though she doesnt admit it grows very attached to most of them. She even wants to upgrade so we can keep the blue hippo as it gets larger. If only I could get her into corals she thinks theyre all bland and like looking at trees that dont move much. At the same time though she gets mad when I buy them all the time because I dont ask for her input. I guess thats good since it means she is A) paying enough attention to notice when I change anything in the tank and B) wants to have input. She also will inform me of any problems she thinks may be happening so I can t ake care of it. Thanks to her I stopped the alk overdose earlier this week before it got to out of hand!

 

My wife, while intelligent- has no real clue about my system- and that's OK though.

When I narrate and talk when we have guests, she always seems kinda of amazed I know so much about the tank/system.

If I get new coral, move them, etc. she really wouldn't notice, it is a 6 ft tank, and- that's OK with me.

Even my 9 and 12 y/o sons really don't take much of an interest, and again, that's OK.

It is in the Family Room, no TV in that room, and is quite the show piece.

 

I feel that pain. I say roofs that don't leak are for the rich folk! :

Then the next day she's telling me all the cool stuff that happened. I went, wait, last night you were up and down me about the money being spent and today, everything's awesome?

Her response: "I'm a woman, what do you expect?"

That's when I walked away. She's great and someone else mentioned that if it wasn't for their SO, no food would be in the house but that reef tank sure would look nice! That's exactly it...

 

I think if you continue to involve her in your purchases and ask for her opinion on things is the path to be on. I know a lot of "non tank" people really seem to like fish a lot more than corals. Perhaps she could pick out a fish that she likes and maybe it could be one that she can grow attached to and MAY need to be in a bigger tank down the road. If you ask for input and have her pick out something she really likes is the way to go.

Does she have her own hobbies? If she does, try and make an effort to find out more about it. Encourage her to get more involved in whatever it may be and find out if she's been wanting to get something or do something related and encourage that. If she's invested in her own thing and knows you support it, perhaps it will come back to you

^^ this is hilarious!

 

Mine is pretty much the same way.
I even have my equipment delivered to work so she doesn't see the packages and say what did you spend money on know and how much was it.

 

My wife actually got me started in this hobby. She bought me my first tank. I guess she got tired of all those trips to the LFS and me coming home satisfied with just looking at the cool display tanks.

 

My wife complains I spend more time staring at the tank than her. When I come home I go right to the tank to check everything out, when I sit ont he couch I stare at the tank, every time I go to the kitchen or bathroom I stop and stare at the tank. She says its like a magnet and shes gotten used to my bent over ass in the air posture from staring into it so much lol.

To appease I try to do all the maintence while she is at work on days Im off. Works out forthe most part but things pop up now and then. Cant help but feed them when shes home though which isnt a big deal and I try not to stare at it toooo much lol. Funny, the one thing she doesnt complain about is money. Im with whoever said it before, I try to order my stuff so it comes when she is working and Im home. She comes in to boxes no receipts nothing ever came!!! Order it from my personal overtime stash so it doesnt hurt the account too much.

 

That's true too. When I bought my 72 bow front the guy delivered it to the house cus he was passing by anyways. So I took off from work and met him, paid him $40 for the delivery and hid it in our bedroom, hahaha! so when we got back from work, she walks in the room and I am busting inside. she says " What the h*ll is that " and I am all serious and I walk in there and say " oohh my God! How did that get there, it wasn't there this morning when we left " she was furious! I said the landlord must of put it there, I told him I needed another tank and maybe he knew someone that wanted to get rid of it, it probably leaks. Eventually I couldn't hold back anymore and spelled my guts, hahaha! It was fun while it lasted. my wife is such a knucklehead.

 

+1 on this. She really likes the movement and colors of the fish, and has mentioned that we need to start getting some. I'm gun shy after losing my battle with ich, but am getting ready to pull the trigger again.

 

I can't seem to get my wife interested in this hobby. There was a glimmer of hope when I wanted to get coral a few weeks ago but decided to wait. She pressured me until I said lets go get some. However, that has been all. She doesn't seem to have any interest in it...