High_Side wrote:Advice to the single guys out there: Find out if they like bikes early on. My first date with my wife was on a then-new '90 Ninja. She was a keeper
A Good point.
Several people told me make sure I bring the bike "into the marriage". IE Don't buy it after we are married lol.
Unfortunately not everyone knows what they want to do right away in life so sometimes down the road we end up making changes :\
Those points are all important and so is keeping th wife happy. I also increased my life insurance and got my wife involved. It takes time but if you show her that it means a lot to you and you are a serious/responsible rider she'll buy in to it eventually.
Dani
All of you who have wives like this ...... so sorry.
Yes I'm married ..... 15 years ...... and I am just going to take the MSF this week.
My wife is 100% supportive .... of everything I want to try and I try to be the same. She is actually excited that I am doing this.
Everything in life has risks ..... the point is to minimize them .... but still live your life and have fun.
I don't get the whole life insurance thing as an argument ...... see dear ..... I love you and will make you a rich woman when I die on my bike...... I wouldn't even bring up the insurance aspect.
Get yourself some good stats on the internet ...... accidents per 100,000 riders, deaths per 100,000 accidents ...... etc. Use logic.
Make sure to ask her WHY she feels the way she does - and try to put yourself in her shoes. Maybe she personally knows someone who has died or been seriously injured on a bike? If the person was seriously injured ..... ask if she knows whether they still ride.
Does she ski? Skate? Scuba Dive? Sky Dive? Cook in the kitchen with sharp knives? Light and use a gas BBQ? Use a hair dryer in the bathroom around water? Dye her hair? Use makeup? Get a mammogram annually? Talk on the cell phone while driving? Ever had a car accident that was her fault?
You see ...... all of these things have a risk ...... some more than others. Is it a reason not to do it ...... No .. you just need to minimize the risk.
If the little sit down fails -- you BOTH have a (or more than 1) choice to make -- yes .... I said you BOTH. This is NOT an all or nothing .... remember .... you are in a marriage. Offer to postpone getting a bike and riding till spring so that you both can think about it and discuss it again. Don't be a pest but periodically discuss BOTH your feelings.
No .... I'm not a marriage counselor ... just
Diecast61
'95 Shadow VLX (VT600C)
Life is a journey.... new experiences...... always something new to learn ..... so keep your eyes and ears open.
With a child in the picture, life insurance is a great idea. "Scan" and I didn't have a good amount of life insurance until we took up biking. I think that was a mistake anyway - we really should have had more than we did -, but adding a new level of risk to our lives (no matter how you slice it, biking does add some risk to life), the importance of life insurance became much more evident. His policy is larger simply because he's the paycheck monkey of the family. If he were to die, I shouldn't have to right away be worrying about how to keep our home from going into foreclosure. There is absolutely no way that my skills could get me into a job that would make enough money to maintain things financially. So his policy makes it so that I can have some breathing space while I get my life in order. My policy is smaller, but it's enough to cover my funeral expenses, and to provide "help" around the home while the kids are younger. As the kids become older, the policies become smaller. It's not about "getting rich" at the expense of someone else's life - it's about having some financial security if the worst were to happen.
I was the one who wanted to get into biking first. "Scan" was highly opposed to the idea, for many of the same reasons that your wife has mentioned. But like some of the others here have said, I gradually got him involved in a way that was easy for him. He took the MSF course a couple of weeks after I did, and now, four years later, he's more addicted to riding than I am.
I don't know what I would have done if he never got interested and kept his foot down. Would I have trashed my marriage and family dynamic over it? Probably not. Maybe after the kids had grown up I might have put up a bigger fight. But everyone's life is unique, and you'll have to decide what is more important to you. I think it would suck if your child grew up knowing that mom & dad split up over motorcycling! It's hard to say who your child would hate more - you for loving the motorcycle more, or mom for being too controlling and stubborn. In the end though, you'd both be viewed as being petty. There's a lot to be said about personal freedom, but when you make a commitment to share a life with someone else, you have to figure out where the compromises come into play.
Good luck - I know it's a hard place to be. You don't want to lose your family over this, but you don't want to live out a life feeling like something is missing. You might just have to "work it" for awhile. I'm not sure how old you are, but even though I wanted to ride since I was a wee lass, for many reasons I didn't get on a bike until I was 36 years old. But here I am!
Cheers,
Loonette
FIRST RESPONDERS DO IT WITH LIGHTS AND SIRENS!!
Find 'em hot, leave 'em wet...
One can never predict how life will turn out for another person, even when all the details might be the same.
I am married and have two kids, one almost 3 and one 6 months. My wife knows how to ride, but doesn't have her own license, and really is not a fan of cycling. For her, the pain of seeing her mom involved in 2 cycle crashes has really made her very aware of what the real fall out can be from a crash. One accident was a rear tire blow out, the other was taking a turn where an earlier car crash had left radiator fluid on the road. Neither are situations we can predict or really safe guard against. Both her mom and her step-dad were around 200+ lbs each and that 500 plus a fully loaded Harley was a not recoverable situation. Both my mother in law, and her husband are mostly fine now, but the 3 weeks my wife watched over her mom in a coma in a remote hospital has made up her mind over cycling.
And yet still she had a moment of lunacy where she mentioned that if we moved to this "new" house, we'd need a second vehicle to get around to work etc. and that 2nd vehicle could be a motorcycle.
All that background to simply say, that if you continue to love your wife and put her needs before your own, she will loosen up about trusting you in this subject, or simply use your desires to further her own in some moment of lunacy.
I got my wife involved in the process. I kept showing her pictures of bikes and asking her her opinions. She doesn't care or acknowledge engine capacity, hp or anything like that, but she does know a pretty bike when she sees it.
After a while she came to the conclusion: "I guess he's not going stop talking about buying a bike and, of the bikes he's shown me, I could see myself on the back of bikes x, Y, and z." And on my birthday we went and I got my Guzzi. She then discovered she doesn't really like riding pillion which is usually fine with me anyway.
I guess my advice is the same as most of the people here, which is to get her involved in the process. Getting my wife excited about a few models helped a lot.
While the Vulcan 500 is a great bike, a different bike may excite her more, and if you can get her on board you might end up with a bike you end up liking even more. Now that I got my Guzzi my keeps mentioning she likes Bonnevilles and Buells, so she'll probably be on board for a xB12s or xb12x as my next bike in a few years.
When the devil came, he was not red,
he was chrome and he said "come with me"
-Wilco
i totally agree, my mom was dead set against me gettin a bike. but i just kept talkin ti her about it and she finally realized that was what i wanted and was actually going to be safe about it. So just keep on and they will eventually cave. hopefully. heh my girlfriend is still dead set against it, oh well cant win them all.. yet.
I think encouraging her to take the BRC would be a good idea. Even if she never intends to get the motorcycle endorsement on her license, she will gain a better understanding of what it's all about, and meet responsible people who appreciate motorcycling.
Certainly, motorcycling is riskier than driving a cage, but then driving to the grocery store is more dangerous than sitting on the couch. Many people have a very difficult time understanding degrees of risk, and for simplicity's sake put things into two buckets - safe and unsafe. Right now your wife has motorcycling in the "unsafe" category. Showing her statistics probably won't help. Having her get to know other reasonable people (including women) who ride may help.
Good luck.
2006 Triumph Sprint ST (silver)
2003 Triumph Bonneville (red)
macdaddy wrote:I think encouraging her to take the BRC would be a good idea. Even if she never intends to get the motorcycle endorsement on her license, she will gain a better understanding of what it's all about, and meet responsible people who appreciate motorcycling.
As an FYI here in Jersey you need to have passed your written test to take the BRC. I'm not sure if your wife has passed that already or not but I wanted to make sure you knew
my wife hates it everytime i ride, but she does a good job of dealing w/ it and handling it.
I try to educate her and even show her how much fun it can be.
I am honest too. She knows that if i end up getting hit by a car, it wont be pretty. Id rather be honest and let her know the trust than to BS her and her finding somethinig out or watching something in the news and have her totally panic.
Doesnt help when there is a bike accident w/ a car 1 time a week in the news or ( no offense) when some stunner wheelies down my main street in my area....
she thinks i do that w/ my 650 cruise..ha ha
