The reluctant spouse.In Part I of this series, we looked at how to find out just why The Spouse is reluctant, and how to approach bridging the gap. We then recorded a podcast for for preppers to play for their reluctant spouses. In this part, we look at some common objections and ways to counter them. (If the objections are reasonable, of course, it’s the prepper who should be rethinking things.) .
Grant Wood – The Perfectionist
First up is a problem alluded to in Part I: When The Spouse is reluctant to even think about situations that would require preps.
Reluctant spouse objection: “I don’t want to think about it.”
Well, that’s natural enough; who really wants to spend time contemplating the awful? If not thinking about it would keep it from happening, we’d all be there. But no. So, there are two ways to go here. One is the “It makes perfect sense to not want to think about awful things we can’t control; but if we do make an effort to prepare, we can keep it from being so awful” approach.
Avoidance isn’t a logical tactic to start with though, so that won’t always fly. There is a work-around: Start with preps for the minor, not awful but inconvenient situations. They’re still useful — far more likely to be useful than preps for the Zombie Apocalypse after all — and they’re less disturbing to think about. Which leads us nicely into another objection this approach is good for:
Reluctant spouse objection: “It’s silly to put this much of our resources into something that will probably never happen.”
Try these on your reluctant spouse…
The Zombie Apocalypse will probably not happen. Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, ice storms, and chemical spills happen every day, somewhere. One of them is very likely to impact your lives at some point. So start with prepping for those. Perhaps The Spouse will like the sense of security and get more fully on board, perhaps not. In any case, you’re better prepped than you were before.
Then there’s the Insurance argument. It’s very likely your house will never burn down either; but I expect (and hope) you’ve insured for it anyway. We buy insurance for things we don’t really expect to happen because they might, and we can’t sustain the cost of them without the insurance. Prepping for major events is very much disaster insurance.
Reluctant spouse objection: “We don’t have the money.”
Your reluctant spouse may respond to these…
Prepping can be expensive … but not every prep is. Perhaps The Spouse is right to an extent and it’s not reasonable to spend as much as it would take to do all you’d like to do. That is no reason not to take other steps. It doesn’t cost anything to put lots of water in re-purposed 2 L soda bottles in the bottom of a closet. It doesn’t cost anything extra to buy ahead on items that should be in the house anyway, such as meds. It costs little or nothing to do one of the most valuable preps that many people overlook: Learning.
Another approach comes from Salty, who used it to good effect on me when promoting the acquisition of some extra Mosin-Nagants. If a material prep won’t lose value, and may even gain value, it can be used as a tangible form of wealth storage as well as a prep. Sure, I knew he just liked Mosins; but we weren’t out anything. (In fact, we’re up quite a bit; Mosins don’t sell for $79 anymore.) To be fair on this one, make sure the tangible assets are insured for more mundane disasters such as house fires or theft.
Reluctant spouse objection: “I don’t want our neighbors/friends/family to think we’re nutty.”
Try these as well on your reluctant spouse…
We have a whole category of posts here called ‘Stealth Prepping”. Not every prep looks like a fortified bunker … in fact I hope none of them look like that. Some of the best preps are the ones that do double duty. If we lose the ability to just buy all the groceries we wanted (for whatever reason), I’m betting I’ll be very glad I put in the effort to plant all of these perennial food plants. In the meantime, I’ve currently got fresh, organic fruits and vegetables in abundance either in the fridge or in the back yard … for close to free. If The Spouse doesn’t like the look of a vegetable garden, there are plenty of ways to build attractive and tasty plants into a well-kept yard.
Stealth preps are often a good way around the ‘not enough money’ problem too, as many of them are dual purpose use now/use later options. We think of The Place partly as a prep, but I also like just hanging out there with my wild neighbors and the sound of wind in the trees instead of traffic.
Language also goes a long way. My teammates might think I was nutty if I started calling it a ‘Bug-Out Bag’ or using some tacti-cool acronym, but they think nothing of my ‘car bag’ that I keep ‘in case I end up at the cabin or something’ other than they’re glad I’ve got a stock of aspirin or duct tape or whatever else they seem to need.
We have had some reader feedback and some questions raised including other objections like “Things like this never happen here” and “The Government will help us, that’s their job!”, so we will continue C topic in the near future with a Part III. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them in the comment section below.
Why all the fuss? Kindly acknowledge you understand they feel that way. Then quietly do it anyway. The only suggestion I have would be to start with food, water, gun(s) and ammo. If discovered you can say it is prudent to have a well-stocked larder plus the means to get meat by hunting.
Trust. Hiding things from your mate, spending family resources by sneaking around behind their backs is a bad thing for a lot of people. It’s a deal breaker.
Some partners would consider going against their expressed wishes, behind their backs, as breaking faith with them. That is a bad thing.
I didn’t interpret Cat’s comment the same way. I read once that 60% of all marital disagreements are never resolved. I’m not sure how they figured that out. My spin was you acknowledge the partner’s feelings and then proceed, not behind your partner’s back, just not with their agreement or participation. In my own case, my wife is not a prepper, but she recognizes that it is my choice if I prep. I’m not lying to my wife, but she doesn’t have a veto on my decision to prep.
Making practical “preps” first can help. Setting up the reluctant spouse with a “car bag” of things like Fix-A-Flat, jumper, gloves, flashlight, rain poncho, etc. will be better received as it’s doing something -for them- with -their- safety in mind. A “car bag” can be gently expanded into a Get-Home-Bag.
Other preps can start out as practical safety things which work as preps. That seemed to have coaxed my wife around. As long as a prep has some nearer-term value (rain barrel for watering garden, etc.), then she’s fine with it.
— Mic
The “car bag” is a GREAT idea! Especially if it is a good looking bag that she will like. Does Louis Vuitton make a back pack? Hummm.