When your spouse is not on board

I've been prepping for more than year now and have been caught in more than one episode where I've laid in supplies and my spouse has turned a blind eye to my supplies. I wonder how y'all are working in the scenario where your spouse doesn't support your prepper ideals?

 

Watching Nat Geo's Doomsday Preppers I was 1) struck by how stupid some people are, and 2) unbelievably envious of those couples who were of like mind. We've been married five years, together for seven, and I've been prepping alone going on 15 years now.

While the Mr. appreciates never running out of his favorite marinade or toilet paper, he finds the whole notion of prepping to be silly at best. Mostly he turns a blind eye to my efforts. Occasionally I can get him to play the What If game... generally if we just watched a doomsday type movie or like now with Ebola running amok overseas.... but for the most part he's just not gonna take the bait. It's VERY aggravating because there are things I'd like to get that are higher ticket items (generator for starters) and if we combined funding we could do it. On my own, I have to keep kind of a tunnel vision sometimes because if I let myself take in everything I need/want I get overwhelmed and head for the liquor cabinet.

So I just do what I've always done. Buy what I can and go about my business the same as I did when I was single. Not going to nag him one way or the other. He's a grown ass man, and I ain't his mother. At least he's down with the firearms/archery equip/keeping freezers full.

 

Mine votes obummer. Nuff said.
This is a solo act.

 

Sailing your ship alone is not fully productive and even dangerous in bad circumstances. Just keep easing her into it by exposing her to friends who do prepare for their families future. You will be surprised when she finally catches on

 

Im / Were Lucky , we are both trying as hard as we can to be setup. My problem (male stoth) didn't plant enough fruit trees in 1990 , so in 2009 I started after seeing / driving USA first hand in 2007-8 .

 

My husband was all for it years ago but in the last two years has not done anything. I can bounce ideas and what I have learn, plans and goals off of him. He has no issue with my goals and he will build most anything I ask. Some things get vetoed but the other morning after watching the news he said, we are all dead. He is really starting to see how badly the world is falling apart. It is getting scarier. I am hoping that he will start educating himself, not just relying on listening to what I learn.

 

I've made some small headway by explaining, if I broke a leg on the job, (very possible) we would lose the house before I was back to work. Workman's comp only pays half of what you were making, and that is after two weeks of nothing.
If we have enough food set aside to ride it out, then income would cover mortgage and utilities, until my income was restored.
That, at least made some sense to her, but getting her to look beyond next week, is not easy.

 

That is a good example to get a spouse thinking @kellory. Many do not consider that. I always use our snow storm. We were fine but what if we go snowed in for a week plus again. What if the power and heat went out, since thinking of that we are set up with a generator, we will have power and heat as long as we have gas.

BTW- my husband tore his Achilles and was on crutches for a very long time. Most things fell on me. Think of if something happened and the spouse that is not on board had to do everything cause the prepared spouse is laid up. They may not be on board but for safety sake they need to know how to use/set up what we have prepared in case of emergency.

 

Rotor cuff tears are very common in my work. One coworker has had the surgery three times.
My spouse would have great trouble starting either of my generators. ( major breathing problems).

 

I got nowhere with that. Having been in a position of no job and living on my preps I'm all too aware of how they can quite literally be the only reason you're still eating or a have roof over your head. And it wasn't that many years ago his company laid off 3/4ths of its employees and he saw his own hours cut to 32 a week for almost four months. I point out that if he lost his job we'd be sunk. He just shrugs and says he'll get another job. Like there are just a million of those dangling from the trees.

For me at least, it's easier to just do my own thing and not worry about getting him on board because I don't need the added stress of making a blind man see. I'd have better luck herding cats through a river crossing.

 

All I can say is I truly hope you folks can get your Significant Others to join in and take an active roll...even if it is a small part of the whole. Being on the same page with your spouse is akin to a force multiplier - everything going the same direction rather than fighting each other's efforts.

The best of luck to you all!

 

Wow , reading this opens eyes. At least mine . Ms Sloth & I are basically on the same page .Im down next week into the USA that will bring most of what is posted , up to speed. Up here , Great Wet North of Nowhere's you don't get homeless or ways of not being CAT food( BIG CATS) , bear think we taste like crap , till the shark has scared the poop out of us
Sloth

 

It is indeed a hard row ta hoe..
My exwife gave it lip service, but that was all. I was great when the pantry was full, basement was full of preps, we didn't have to worry about the power or heat going out. Got to play after a blizzard when everyone else was w/o power...BUT wouldn't lift a finger to help. Didn't give a thought or #!%@ as to how or why all that stuff got laid in. THAT got old after a number of years. One who always takes and one who always gives doesn't make a partnership... I truly feel for those folks that have it "one-sided" and makes me that much more thankful that I have a wife that is if anything, more hard core than I.
The idea mentioned above about what would happen if one spouse was suddenly unable to work is a good one. I took a fall one Sunday morning and shattered my heel. I was out of work for 7 months. The lesson was lost on my ex because I had more than enough preps(including cash) laid in to cover. The biggest inconvience for her was having to wait an extra week to get her nails done....
Good luck Elessar.

 

you think having a spouse is bad, imagine being the only one prepared with 2 aging parents - one who can barely get around after having a broken leg and both hips replaced, and the other is in fair shape for 67 years old. they think i was crazy, until we were without power and stuff for a week. they arent still 100% on board, but they do see the benefits of having extra supplies on hand. take it a day at a time. work up to a week of preps, then 2, then a month... we are FINALLY at a month.

 

When you are with someone, you're supposed to have common goals and vision. You would not quit a job or buy a house without at least the grudging approval of your spouse; I see prepping as an analogous major life decision. The attitude of "well, I'm going to prep even if they don't like it" is understandable on some level, but it also suggests a disrespect for the relationship.

As preppers, we of course believe in what we are doing; we also have to accept that not everyone who chooses to be unprepared is irrational and ridiculous for their decision. The prepper groupthink "we are right and everyone else is a sheep" works only when applied to society as a whole; it's nowhere near that definitive when dealing with the person you go to bed with every night.

I'll play internet psychologist for a moment and posit that if both halves of the couple are not of one mind regarding prepping, or at least close, then there are other large unaddressed matters and the relationship is in serious trouble. The prepping disagreement is a symptom of something much bigger.

The question "how do I get my spouse on board?" misses the point. The answer is: Go fix all the other stuff that's wrong with the relationship (or if you can't, end the relationship) and the prepping thing will take care of itself.

 

I am so sorry for you. Friends don't let friends vote liberal.

 

With a free will, and a mind of your own, you have no choice but allow folks to make their own mistakes. I work at damage control, and picking up the pieces.

 

So very easy to say, so very hard to actually do.

 

You just gotta do what you know is right, plan ahead and plunge on.