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.
Shadow is speaking of me. And he sums up the whole situation I put my wife and I into quite well.
I'm that guy that came out of blind ignorance myself years ago (I was a typical blind, I'm gonna live forever teenager, like many of us) and in the process took my wife to a bad place. Things are improving now. Thanks to many responses I received from my thread, I was able to ask myself questions, explore avenues I hadn't thought of, and come to my own conclusions on how to move forward with my wife. Guns weren't the issue, as a originally thought. Her disklike towards them was a symptom of something deeper.
The key lesson is patience and understanding. There is nothing worse than removing the bright, sunny cloak of innocence too rapidly from a person who believes "it will never happen to them", even if it is removed unintentionally. My wife went from one extreme to the other, because I was not careful and patient. I didn't even go overboard on scare tactics, though I did employ them infreqently; looking back now I should not have done that at all. I didn't intend to harm her, but I did because I did not acknowledge the possible (and highly likely) concequences. And she resented me greatly for it, and still does, but as I said there has been notable improvement on that front lately. She even got herself a baseball bat to keep under her side of the bed, and she has expressed interest in keeping pepper spray in her purse. She is learning to be aware without being fearful. It is a slow process, but don't be tempted to rush it along. I've now learned that there really is very little you can do, when it involves someone who has such a naive, child-like, innocent view of the world.
It's a lot like explaining the concept of death to a young child, like I've done with my 5 year old recently. Be truthful (you can't hide the fact that great grandma is gone), but keep it simple and short, on a young child's level. Too much information can be damaging, just as it can with your wife and becoming more aware. Take baby steps, I rather like the idea of calmly,matter of factly "speaking out loud" about your observations of other people when you out and about: "check out the guy with the tatoos and pants around his knees, how ridiculous is that?"
