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The Annoyed Man wrote:Since I last posted in this thread, I've had several enlightening conversations with my wife about her feelings concerning guns and shooting them. Here's her concerns, what I took away from it, and what I did about it...

Her concerns:
When I probed - gently - as to why she was so hesitant about shooting, she finally said that when she goes shooting with me or my son, she feels like she is being tested. I asked her if she felt like I was testing her, or if the gun was testing her. She said that it was the gun that was testing her. She said that she really did feel like I was being sweet with her when we shoot, but that she felt a self-imposed sense that she might somehow mess things up or do something wrong, and that self-imposed pressure made it difficult for her to enjoy the experience.

What I got out of it:
What I realized was that I had to stop thinking of myself as the best person to introduce her to the sport. I had to stop being "paternalistic" about it. My paternalism was motivated out of love, but it was wrongly directed. My wife understood that about me, and being a pretty selfless person, she did not hold it against me. Our conversations had also revealed that she might be more comfortable learning to shoot if she were doing it with other women at first, rather just with my son and me.

What I did about it:
Since we are still relatively new to Texas, we don't have many friends here outside of the context of our church, and I only know two or three who I know are shooters, and they are all guys. So the first thing I did was to consult separately with both Crossfire and CompVest, both of whom gave me helpful suggestions with a range of options. All of these options centered around A) introducing my wife to other female shooters, many of whom are qualified instructors who are enthusiastic about helping other women to get involved; and B) doing what I could to facilitate opportunities for my wife to get together with those women. So, a couple of weeks ago, we both joined the Dallas Pistol Club. This coming Saturday, my wife will be participating in her first "women only" shooting event at the club, at which she will hook of with some very capable women shooters, get to try a lot of different guns, no men allowed. She told me just this morning that she is really looking forward to it, AND she asked me if I would take her to the local Bass Pro range this Friday afternoon!