Increasing awareness and vigilance in my spouse

[TonyDedo]

My wife is a wonderful person. She is kind, caring, selfless and has a good heart. If the world was full of people like her, we wouldn’t have a need for locks on our doors.

Unfortunately she is one of the most unaware, sheltered people I’ve ever met.

Just to give you an idea of her mindset, she always leaves the doors to the apartment unlocked when she’s home and routinely forgets to lock the door when she leaves.

She leaves her purse and wallet in plain sight on the front seat of her car overnight, in spite of the fact that we park on a public street in a lower middle class neighborhood and many people walk past our cars every day and night to get to a nearby bus stop.

I’ve bought her several canisters of pepper spray, but I doubt she could tell you where they are.

And when I talk about things like home security or disaster preparation, she goes along with whatever I want to do but I can tell she doesn’t take it seriously (or follow through when I’m not around).

In general she has a blissful ignorance she has of all things “bad” with the world, a combination of never having had anything bad happen to her or anyone she knows, and a “it could never happen to me” attitude.

We’re expecting our first child in August, and she’s going to stay home for the first year or two. I’m thrilled that she’s going to be able to be a full time mother, but honestly I’m terrified for my family’s safety when I’m not around.

Can you suggest any way to in awareness and vigilance in my spouse, and encourage her to take a more active role in protecting herself and our home?

However, I post this with one caveat – I DON’T want to use scare tactics. I’m not going to post every newspaper article about crime in the neighborhood on the fridge, or accost her with local crime statistics, or any of the other stupid ideas I’ve heard. I appreciate any offers to pretend to mug her, but I'll pass. I don’t think scare tactics work, and I think they can cause a lot of damage.

Otherwise, any thoughts?

 

[Cesiumsponge]

It's hard to convey the severity of being robbed or killed unless the person realizes exactly what's at stake. If I wanted to leave my doors unlocked, I'm only risking myself. With a child, you're the first and only line of defense. You have a responsibility to protect the child. Does she wear her seatbelt? Why? Is it because she plans to get in an accident? You secure yourself from harm on the off chance it visits you. Unfortunately I don't know if its possible to convey the seriousness of personal security without a little fear.

 

[TonyDedo]

I think the problem is that in her mind, she never thinks these things could happen to her.

She wears a seat belt, but she's been in car accidents before. She knows people who've been in car accidents. It's a threat she accepts as real.

Robbery, assualt, etc... I don't think she accepts those as real threats.

 

[xXxplosive]

My wife is similar.........wants to live a "Normal" every day existance without living in fear. Doesn't like hearing about local bad news or seeing it on TV.....but she does lock the doors and has a young fella that follows her around constantly when she is home....our 4 yr. old Male German Shepard....unfortunately having a newborn is no time for a new dog.

I worked in Newark NJ for over 20 yrs. and have seen everything one could imagine on the streets. I know what preditor types can and will do and have seen death in front of my eyes...but my wife is oblivious to this....so I guess it's been my job to provide security for all these years and rightly so.

I agree that scare tactics are not the way either.....I could only suggest that you take it a step at a time by getting her to better understand home security for her and yours on the way. Other than that it's up to you to provide the best and safest enviornment for your family to live that you can provide.

 

[Loosedhorse]

Otherwise, any thoughts?

Hi, Tony--always good to talk to a fellow MA sufferer.

I'm not sure I have anything helpful. First, I try to accept people, especially loved ones, as they are. You can educate someone as to why they "should" do something, and it seems you have. I don't think you can make them want to do something they don't.

Maybe: next time your birthday rolls around, say, "You know what I want for a present? I want to teach you to use pepper spray, and I want you to carry it with you every day (with license, of course!), all year. That's what I really want, because your safety is important to me."

But...alertness and awareness (and a cell phone!) are so much more important than a can of spray. Again, I don't think there's a way to make people want to do that.

Couples Tae Kwon Do classes? Other than that don't drive yourself (and her) crazy trying to do what you cannot.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

You're in a tough spot. You want to make your point known, but not come off as a jerk. I've been in the same boat in the past and I was unsuccessful

I guess the incremental thing is worth a try. It's not so much fear as being simply aware of your surroundings. Chances are you're going to walk into a pole or get run over by a kid on a skateboard walking down the street before getting mugged. Maybe you can teach her to use condition yellow with emphasis on environmental hazards? They aren't as scary as muggers. Maybe you can use panhandlers as the bad guys in your examples because they are a common issue in populated areas. I'm ashamed to say I've been snuck up on by a panhandler before. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

 

[95XL883]

I'm glad you brought this up. I'm in a similar situation. Two thoughts came to mind as I read the posts.

First, since my wife likes doing little things that make me happy, I'm going to ask her to just acknowledge that not everyone is good, even in our very low crime area, and to just be a little bit more aware of people as she drives and before she gets out of the car. (It's strange that the 13 years she worked as a probation officer are now almost totally forgotten. Weird.) I've already set the stage by telling her I prefer to fill up her car to keep her and our little boy safe. She seems to easily do little things for me or for our child that she won't do for herself. She may go for that just to please me.

Second, I'm going to let her see me be more aware without me becoming an anti-social paranoid. For example, "There is a family in that car." "There are two males in that Dodge Magnum like Matt (our grown child) has." "There are four people in this convenience store." I'm just going to say the observations out loud in a happy kind of way. In other words, I think she may have the concern that she has to stop being a nice person to be observant and careful. (She has clearly stated her concern that I'm going to become a mean paranoid now that I just got my CCP.) If I can show her I can be observant and careful and still be a nice person, she may be more inclined to be observant and careful.

 

[TonyDedo]

Ahhh, that's another thing she does that drives me crazy: she refuses to fill up her gas tank. She won't go to the gas station until she's running on fumes, and then she only fills it halfway up. Drives me nuts...

 

[Serenity]

Tony, see if you can get her to go WITH YOU to an NRA "Refuse to be a Victim" class. Find one that is taught by a woman. Ask around in your area for one that is taught by someone who engages the class (not just reading from the book). It is a four hour course and starts covering all aspects of household safety and eases into safety from Bad Guys and then into safety outside the home and outside the home from Bad Guys. There were three 15 year old girls in my class who were entirely comfortable the entire time, despite being nervously giggly at first. If you can find a class taught by the right person, it would be a really good tool to open her eyes and the door for discussion, without you being the jerk or without making her shut down.

 

[Driftertank]

Some people cannot be taught the value of caution but must learn, unfortunately, from experience. Another issue may be YOUR caution. Are you her protector, who keeps her safe even when you're not there, in her mind? Silly sounding notion, but i've seen it. I have a friend, former active USMC, whose wife tends to be lax in security considerations because: A. She's been fairly sheltered her whole life, and B. Her husband has everything planned out and set up so well that she'd never have to deal with something like that, at least in her mind.

The harsh realities of how scary the world can be, even within our relatively sheltered society, can be hard to convey secondhand. Wish i had more useful input, but i've wrestled with this issue in the past and never found any way to get awareness across to someone who refuses to acknowledge it.

 

[jimmyjackjones]

Reminds me of my wife before we had a home invasion last year. Now we have a security system that is armed at all times. She use to tease me by calling our boxer "LD" (last dog). Now she says that a dog is essential to home security. Before she was uncomfortable that I carried. Now as we leave the house she asks "do you have the keys and your gun".

 

[Driftertank]

Amazing what a shock a little firsthand experience can be, and how completely it can change someone's whole outlook.

I've never been someone who believed it couldn't happen to them, really. When I was 7, someone broke into my dad's house when he wasn't home and stole everything from our ATV's to the food from the freezer. A few years later, AFTER he'd installed bars over doors and windows and set up a "mickey mouse" alarm, somebody pried the bars away from the door and broke in again.
My mom's been a nurse my whole life, mostly OR, sometimes ER. Sometimes we'd hear about the people who came in with gunshot/stabs. All ages, all social classes.
When i was in 5th grade, one of my classmates and his brother had to move after his estranged father broke into their house, killed their mother, and burned down the house, killing their sister who'd been hiding in a closet. At the time, we lived in a sleepy mountain town, pop. 2200. It was a rude reminder that violence can happen anywhere, at any time.

 

[Derry 1946]

Good question. Possibly the arrival of the newborn (congratulations!) will give her a more obvious reason to be security-minded. It's not just her safety at stake anymore. If she won't do it for herself, perhaps she'll do it for Tony Jr. Have you ever asked her why she won't lock up? Does she simply forget, or does she have a philosophical objection? If she forgets, perhaps different locks would work better -- locks that make it more obvious whether it's locked or not. If philosophical, consider exploring with her whether she has thought about it recently in the context of the baby. I was in the same boat, and the new bab(ies) sharpened my wife's awareness. She's smart and wise, and adaptable. I wish your expanding family success!

 

[leadcounsel]

I dated a girl like that. Her blissninny ignorance and "it can't happen to me" attitude was too much for me to take, so I broke it off. I could not see myself putting up with the ignorance and attitude, and could not be happy in that environment.

I work in a violent profession as a Soldier with multiple combat deployments, and as a former prosecutor and now defense lawyer I also see a lot of violent crime (from the victim and/or perpetrator perspective). The world just ain't a nice place - we are just typically isolated from 99% of the real bad stuff out there. But it easily bleeds into daily lives of the sheltered.

As for changing her, you can't. She'll either go through life never being a victim, or one day become a victim and change, or change on her own. You are just along for the ride.

 

[jeepnik]

Sad to say, all the talking, videos, lectures and whatnot won't really do any good. Developing the skills and awareness needed have to come from an internal desire.

You might get lucky and have someone close to her become a victim. I say that's lucky, because the only real alternative is that she become a victim, and that's what you are trying to avoid.

My wife was pretty much sheltered when we married. Went from her parents house to our's, and always had someone to look out for her. My break came when I was stationed in Spain and she came along. As safe, and Spain had an amazingly low crime rate at the time, as it was, there was one threat that couldn't be ignored.

That threat was the possibility of Americans becoming targets of the ETA (Basque separatist movement). When an American officer was machinegunned outside his home, she realized that anyone could be a target. She suddenly started taking her personal safety seriously. And, it's has lasted. Heck sometimes I think she's more aware of what's going on than I am.

 

[MachIVshooter]

In general she has a blissful ignorance she has of all things “bad” with the world, a combination of never having had anything bad happen to her or anyone she knows, and a “it could never happen to me” attitude.

Unfortunately, for people with that mindset, it usually takes a personal, terrifying experience as a wake-up call. My mom was that way, as was my stepfather. they'd go on horseback rides and camping way back in the sticks. They never saw a need for protection until about 5 years ago when a group of drunk jerks came into their camp and started raising hell, loosing horses, damaging vehicles, etc. Lucky for them, the group they were with significantly outnumbered the thugs, who changed their course of action when they realized how many opponents they'd have. But it could have been very different. After that, they adopted one of my weapons and learned to use it.

We’re expecting our first child in August, and she’s going to stay home for the first year or two. I’m thrilled that she’s going to be able to be a full time mother, but honestly I’m terrified for my family’s safety when I’m not around.

She may develop a more profound sense of duty to protect that child once he or she is born. Whether or not you'll be able to exploit that and help her gain an awareness is another matter, but she might be better able to "see the light" when she thinks for a moment about the fact that she can't just run out the back door and get away frm an intruder, leaving an infant in the crib to fend for him/herself.

 

[Jeff22]

awareness

Most people don't really have much of an idea of how the world works in a big picture sense. They only understand events within the limits of their own experience.

I have never been a victim of a violent crime. (Getting punched by some guy I was in the process of arresting doesn't count). But I know that bad things and unexpected things and dangerous things can happen in the world, without having personally experienced them.

Absent relevant personal experience, most people have a hard time visualizing a set of circumstances where having a firearm available for self defense would benefit them. And sometimes, people who DO have that experience continue to live their lives in denial, even though they should know better.

Some people just don't get it, even when they have personal experiences that should lead them to a greater understanding.

Right out of High School (over 35 years ago now!) I dated a girl for a while. Some years later she was going to college in Minnesota. She lived in the Twin Cities area. One night about midnight she had just got off work and was returning to her car, which was parked in a public parking ramp. A group of three or four gang-bangers accosted her. We don't know if they intended robbery or rape or worse. She managed to get inside her car and lock the doors. One of the gangsters tossed a chunk of concrete through the window, and she was hit in the head and received a severe concussion. Some passers-by witnessed this and chased the gangsters off and called for the PD and an ambulance.

She was in a coma for 36 hours. (May have gotten a "minor" skull fracture -- I don't remember any more)

A couple years later she got married, and a few years after that her husband got hired on by the Sheriff's Department and I trained him in the police academy.

Despite all this, she still doesn't like him to be armed off duty. Her excuse is: "I don't want him to go looking for trouble." Well honey, you weren't looking for trouble, either, and trouble came and found YOU and you almost got killed.

But the reality of the situation is uncomfortable and challenged her assumptions about how the world worked, and so she just ignored the lesson

 

[Certaindeaf]

Some people are a certain way. That's just the way it goes. Maybe get some sort of subliminal tapes/media and play it around the clock.

 

[leadcounsel]

I'll add one more point: I dated a very naive blissninny recently. I tried having this TV show on called "I survived," which is premised on victims of near death experiences recanting their stories - from shark attacks to plane crashes to violent crime victims. It's a great show, albiet redundant after each commercial break. I like it because it's a wake up call and actually both entertaining and informative - from an S&T standpoint.

Anyway, she hated that show and refused to watch it. She didn't want any "waking up" from her peaceful naive little world. She was the poster child for "that will never happen to me."

 

[Certaindeaf]

I'll add one more point: I dated a very naive blissninny recently. I tried having this TV show on called "I survived," which is premised on victims of near death experiences recounting their stories - from shark attacks to plane crashes to violent crime victims. It's a great show, albiet redundant after each commercial break. I like it because it's a wake up call and actually both entertaining and informative - from an S&T standpoint.

Anyway, she hated that show and refused to watch it. She didn't want any "waking up" from her peaceful naive little world. She was the poster child for "that will never happen to me."

I hear you. Life is too short. No sense shortening it via heart attack or worse.

 

[Loosedhorse]

My wife is a wonderful person. She is kind, caring, selfless and has a good heart.

Sad to me that some choose to reduce such a good person to the stereo-typed, devaluing label of "blissninny." I doubt such a label will make her loved ones feel better if she is ever attacked, so I wonder what purpose it serves.

 

[Nushif]

Here's something to consider ... "exposing" your wife to a daily barrage of horror stories, shows about animal maulings, rape, murder, plane crashes and whatever else TV, "News," and the NRA dredges up as some worst case scenario isn't anymore grounded in reality than pretending these things don't happen.

Just like in a lot of things in life there is a happy medium. And just because some people feel they need an alarm system, several attack dogs, a rifle leaned against every window frame and door, with a half mile standoff fence and cleared alleys of fire, as well as an elevated firing position ... doesn't mean there's any kind of indication in reality that it's a *requirement* for a healthy, long and most importantly safe life.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared. But living in an apartment or a slightly less than upscale part of town isn't an instant death sentence either.

Hells, if I believed half this forum on preparedness I couldn't pursue any kind of lifestyle, since I ought to stay away from crowds, young people, places where people *gasp* drink, places with loud music, any neighborhood that either is poor middle class or upscale, a job site, isolated places in the wilderness, foreign countries, various states and what have you. All these things are deemed to be "security risks."

Remember in all dealings scale. I am not saying you shouldn't try and be prepared. And you're probably not going as overboard as I made it out to be. But it is very important in tailoring your lifestyle to the scale of threat.
I swear. Not every person you walk by on a street is a serial killer, rapist, murderer, meth head or gangbanger. And frankly with so much intake of this panic literature sometimes people lose perspective of that.

Call me a blissninnie all you want, but if the wife suddenly came home and started subjecting me to constant worst case scenarios about the dangers of being alive, under the guise of "Hey, honey, let's become educated and prepared" I'd be peeved too.

Again. I am just trying to say that I appreciate preparedness. But I also appreciate not fearing life. Does this make sense?

 

[Fred Fuller]

There should be a workable medium between whatever the two extremes are, especially for two people who are married. I wouldn't want to behave in such a way that my wife felt obligated to worry about me, for example. And I wouldn't much care for it if she did things that made me worry about her. Fortunately for both of us, we see pretty well eye to eye on the things we both consider important.

She had a career in criminal justice, starting out as a turnkey in the state youth authority, and some of the teenagers in her custody were violent. She went on to finish a PhD and just retired from the university classroom teaching criminal justice. Locking doors is second nature to her, and she carries everywhere it's legal to do so. We're both in Memphis right now, for Tom Givens' Polite Society conference at Rangemaster this weekend.

What it takes to make someone more aware of the dangers around them, I don't know. Some people deliberately choose to avoid this awareness, I have seen it before in other people and I don't understand it. But it's what some people prefer to do.

Ignoring reality might be an option, but the consequences of ignoring reality sometimes are not optional.

 

[Shadow 7D]

There was a thread not long ago about a guy who seemed to be facing divorce over gun and being security conscious

the final gist was that his wife disliked him because he shattered her ignorance and continued to remind her that all is not sunshine and lollypops.

Dorthy may get VERY pissed off when she realizes she's not in Kansas anymore.

CorneredCat.com is a good read, it's a site by a member here and a FEMALE firearms instructor. It's entirely likely that your wife is HAPPY or accepted the compromise of dealing with YOUR being security conscious and is fine with being oblivious. Many women are 'group' focused and take being concerned about themselves as being selfish.

They avoid 'self centered' things and prefer to be 'self sacrificing'

That said sacrifice maybe the ultimate sacrifice is not in the thought process. You MUST explain to them what it means if they FAIL to take care of themselves, how your family will suffer and why they must take of themselves so they can take care of others. And that this means they stay SAFE.

It's a long path, somewhat convoluted and based much on 'logical emotions'
IOW, something a woman should get. Doesn't mean she'll be willing to do anything, don't be surprised if she says 'you take care of that' and refuses to discuss it further.

 

[Serenity]

Shadow has a good point except that I would say that the women I know don't "prefer" to be self-sacrificing. That's just the way they were raised and have never known anything else. Since you have to work with what's in front of you, you appeal to what WAS and IS encouraged in women; their protective instinct. Use that expected baby, not to scare her but to coax out her inner mama bear.

And I will tell you a secret: women are protective of our husbands, too. We just don't tell you.