# Getting the Mrs. To prep....



## n9neside (Sep 3, 2015)

Well hello there, I thank you ahead of time as I assume you clicked on this topic to give me advice on how to get my significant other into the whole "being prepared so we don't die to a natural disaster or some type of war/emp". I recently invested in a "tactical bag" or "bug out bag" I use either. The point is I want her to be aware that something COULD happen. so during the time it would. 

Thank you.


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## Genevieve (Sep 21, 2009)

You can't make her do anything hun. You can try and talk to her with your point of view. And you can give her reasons and examples ( katrina,"super" storm sandy,hurricanes,etc)but you can't make her do it if she doesn't want to. some people just don't want to think about something/anything going "wrong". it scares them. they don't realize that if they know what to do they'll have more control over their environment.

If she's resistant then you'll just have to do it for both of you on your own. also this is more of a lifestyle. it's not something you use a check list with and then you're "done".

You have your bag but have you made one for her? and remember she will need things you don't.

Do you live together? if so, does she know how to turn off the gas and water? do you have back up power? if so does she know how to use it?

she may not want to learn but you have to be straight with her and tell her " you NEED to know how to do this" in case you're not there at the time.
( myself I made up large index cards with the information and how-to's and then laminated them and keep them all together in a notebook that is labeled for emergencies)

does she like to read? if so there is a person who writes (just for the fun of it apparently) paw fiction with a female slant to it. there are recipes and of course some "romance" along with some adventure and danger.
Here is her main blog with the list of stories. some are not finished some are. http://motherhensstorytime.blogspot.com/
her biggest story to date is: Mom's Journal of the Zombie Years. ( very informational and I consider a must read)

I started on my own with my husband not bothering to help. Then years later he started to listen to who ever I had on the tv or radio and kind of "woke up" to what was going on in the world and where it could lead. Now we're in it together. Yea it was slow going when I did alone but it got farther than not doing anything at all.


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## bigg777 (Mar 18, 2013)

As long as your relationship is strong and you have mutual respect for each other, continue to prepare for whatever emergency situations you believe are probable first and possible next.

As in so many aspects of life, the more mature must lead the less mature. By this, I do not mean that your wife is immature, what I mean is that those that see the need must lead those that do not. Respectful, loving inspiration through action is usually very effective.

Carry on.


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## IlliniWarrior (Nov 30, 2010)

I don't see an indication, in your posting, that you have even talked to her about prepping - much less met resistance ....

explain where you're coming from - put together a BOB for her own good - if she's not interested in prepping - you're on your own guy .... you won't be first or the last prepper widower ....


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## jnrdesertrats (Jul 3, 2010)

If she is an outdoor type lady you could do actvities that would be helpful that do not scream prepper. Activities like hiking, fishing, hunting and camping. Also exercise, simply being in good shape would be an asset. Lastly do not pressure her that is certain to turn her off. There are many members that went it alone and one day the light came on for thier loved one. 
Good luck


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## JAR702 (Apr 1, 2015)

You know your wife, ask her why she is resistant to prepping
Is it:
Use of money that could be used other places
Doesn't believe there will be a problem
Not understanding the current situation 
Not feeling like she will have the time to prepare
Not having enough room for preps
Start small and let her see the positive aspects of prepping
Could you find another female that could talk with her, I know I see "prepping " differently than my spouse, he is guns, guns, ammo and stuff that is manly; me I look at water, food and supplies


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Start small. Say, what if we had to leave our house for 3 days and stay in a hotel due to water main break, gas problem, mold issue etc. What would you want with you if we had to leave quickly?

What if there was some bad weather coming our way and we had to go a couple towns over for a few days on short notice? How would you want to handle that and what are the ways you would like me to help?

I find asking questions that have the end goal of me being able to better care for my significant other seems to be a good low impact way of broaching the subject and getting thoughts rolling.

Also watching the news is good. Anytime there is a natural disaster express concern for those involved and ask how she would handle the situation. Not all the time though. You don't want to come off as a paranoid scaredy cat. Hard to recover from that impression and be taken seriously. Good luck.


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## n9neside (Sep 3, 2015)

Thank you to everyone who posted, I'm defiantly going to try and go over things such as where things are around the house and slowly introduce camping and what not. 

I have tried to talk to her before and she didn't think anything would ever happen and she seemed a bit scared about everything. We shall see how things go. Thank yall!


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

You need to keep it simple and use smaller more local disasters to explain things to her. Think earthquakes, floods, fires, tornadoes, blizzards, job loss, death etc.


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

Do you have children? If so, ensuring their safety and health in difficult times may help her consider the need to prepare. It took three years for my spouse to recognize the need to prepare - and his recent changed perspective was not my doing, but rather from listening to people he respected say the same things I had been saying. Are there political figures or church figures that she respects that share your views? Also, the anniversaries of Katrina and 9/11 are close...have her watch some of that footage and listen to those interviewed. That may change her perspective.


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## n9neside (Sep 3, 2015)

Where we live is super open to hurricanes, we live not far from Galveston bay which is where hurricane Ike hit, & super close to where Katrina hit 10 years ago. 
I'm going to use the local disasters as a way to open the convo.


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## Genevieve (Sep 21, 2009)

camping can be real romantic like.....just sayin 

all those stars in the sky........

a little wine and such.........

lol


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Nothing like sailing through a small "disaster" because of preps/ skills to open a persons eyes, Some people also think that if they deny things they don't exist, is your wife of this mind set??


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## n9neside (Sep 3, 2015)

Nothing like sailing through a small "disaster" because of preps/ skills to open a persons eyes, Some people also think that if they deny things they don't exist, is your wife of this mind set??//quote


Yes she doesn't like to think of bad things, guess it is a good and bad thing. I'm gonna go with the romantic camping route. Thank yall


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

So you live near open water, it doesn’t matter where you live is a good idea to have some supplies at home for whatever comes your way and especially during the beginning of hurricane season and let’s be realistic here and real I`m not talking about the end of the world as was predicted by some guru on top of a ant hill, is a good idea to have things period is more of a common sense thing than survival preparetions,survival sounds like a doomsday scenario anyway .My biggest advice for you and wife is to learn as much as you can on been self sufficient ,some first aid would help ,food preservation ,canning ,drying ,etc; I personally don`t overdo it I live here in Miami and I just cover what mother nature can bring my way and a little more I happen to enjoy food preservation and canning so I do it as a hobby with the many prayers that mother nature don`t blow my house away.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

For food prep, ask her if she's noticed how much the price of food has gone up in the last year. Suggest it might be a good idea to start buying more when things are on sale. If you can get her interested in trying to abate the high cost of food, that is a good start to introduce to prepping at a slow pace.


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

My wife was neutral on prepping when we were married. A few years into the marriage I convinced her to let me buy a generator. She was always kidding me about the money we spent. Then a year or two later we had an ice storm and we lost power for almost a week. During that time, we were comfortable with heat, hot water, TV, microwave, and lights. 

She has never question me again since that time about spending money on preps. In fact she has become a prepper and will tell me what we need to get or when we are running low on something.

To the OP amazing things can happen if you stick to your guns and keep prepping.


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## jimLE (Feb 25, 2015)

n9neside,you might try talking with her,about everything thats taken place since yall moved into where yall live now.like hurricanes,tusanumies,power outages,to haveing no running water for what ever reason(s)...take power outages for example.do you have a way to cool the home dureing the summer,or heat the home dureing the winter if the electric should go out?how will you keep the food in the fridge and freezer from going bad during a outage?


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## n9neside (Sep 3, 2015)

So what you're saying is I should do some secret prepping then pray for something to knock out lights off for a couple days?  just kidding...

I'm going to talk to her today about what we can do, it's hard to do a lot of prepping as we have a tight budget and live in an apartment.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I think you need to prepare for an economic collapse because that's coming soon. That's not an easy thing to convince somebody about because things look normal even though they're not.

These things are in the process of happening:

Massive Fed money printing leading to hyperinflation.

The Petro-dollar system is dying because of US tilting towards Iran and because oil is $40 a barrel and not $100. Soon OPEC oil will be sold in Yuan or gold or Rubles instead of dollars. When that happens America will become a third world country virtually overnight.

Saudi Arabia's extra production has destroyed the fracking industry in the US. Massive amount of debts from that industry are becoming toxic. That alone will create a bigger financial problem than we had in 2008.

The US economy continues to shrink by at least 5% per year. I think the slowdown is accelerating. 

Almost 100 million Americans aged 16 to 65 are out of the work force. Some states have more people on welfare than they do paying taxes. 

Obama and his willing accomplices are fomenting race war because they want enough violence to declare martial law. They might get it just by devaluing the dollar by 20% or 35%. That's coming too.

World War 3 is coming. Obama continues to engage in financial warfare with Russia. China is getting involved too.

There's a massive stock market collapse coming. The derivatives alone could take out the American financial system when the stock market collapses.

The US government is on the verge of bankruptcy with trillion dollar deficits and nobody in their right mind wanting to buy our junk bonds at 2%.

There's a student loan bubble with a trillion dollar debt about to go bad. 

There's another real estate bubble about to pop.

There are massive numbers of high risk new car loans about to go belly up too.

Even if we don't have a grid down scenario, life in America is about to get a lot worse. Possibly very soon.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper (Aug 15, 2014)

n9neside said:


> So what you're saying is I should do some secret prepping then pray for something to knock out lights off for a couple days?  just kidding...
> 
> I'm going to talk to her today about what we can do, it's hard to do a lot of prepping as we have a tight budget and live in an apartment.


Romantic camping is a good thought. Tent in the living room, candles for lighting (not in the tent), camp stove/small bbq on the balcony for an affordable but tasty dinner by candlelight. Start stashing goodies under the bed. Dollars to donuts she is like most people and doesn't clean under there hardly ever. So yes, start doing some secret prepping. Get a package of life straws and hide them at the back of the closet. Get a toilet seat and a bucket. You will be a hero when the lights go off. More romantic camping instead of stress.

Do the best you can with what you have, to prepare for the world going all Greece on you. It's all you can do.


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## Gians (Nov 8, 2012)

n9neside said:


> So what you're saying is I should do some secret prepping then pray for something to knock out lights off for a couple days?  just kidding...
> 
> I'm going to talk to her today about what we can do, it's hard to do a lot of prepping as we have a tight budget and live in an apartment.


Communication is key, I'd let her read these posts. It'd be good to let the Mrs know this didn't just start happening, my father-in-law got us into it back in the 70s. Reality is what's pushing prepping along, more people sharing less, terrorists, crime and the extremes of mother nature, "It can't happen here." just doesn't fly anymore, times have changed.


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## Genevieve (Sep 21, 2009)

Gians said:


> Communication is key, I'd let her read these posts. It'd be good to let the Mrs know this didn't just start happening, my father-in-law got us into it *back in the 70s*. Reality is what's pushing prepping along, more people sharing less, terrorists, crime and the extremes of mother nature, "It can't happen here." just doesn't fly anymore, times have changed.


yep. 80's for me. total electric house, 2 kids in diapers, one handicapped, and the power went out. for days. no water, no way to cook.

woke me up and I started making sure my kids were taken care of as best I could back then. It just morphed more so after y2k and katerina. just upped the skills and such.

it can and will happen to everyone. no one is immune.
just have to decide....are you going to be a victim or are you going to take charge of your situation. how your head is screwed on makes all the difference.


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