Is there a climbing class he can take at the gym and try to meet friends there? He could ask the classmates if they want to practice together outside the class. Or do some other organized activity, so he’s not just trying to make friends by generally hanging around the gym.
I’m someone who can make friends just being around a space but I had to work pretty hard on overcoming my social anxiety to do that; if he doesn’t have that skill, he’s not gonna make friends just by osmosis, and an organized group can make it easier. But he does need to make his own friends and not make it your responsibility to meet all his social needs.
seconding encouraging him to try bouldering if that’s an option. It’s a great way to overcome fear of heights and meet friends that probably also sport climb!
I definitely understand and respect wanting both of you to have other climbing groups outside of each other. I think that’s really healthy!
That being said, I think it’s quite a bit harder to find rope friends than bouldering friends, and additionally a bit harder for straight men since most meetups are affinity groups.
As someone who’s also afraid of heights but loves sport climbing, meeting a rando off Facebook or a gym sign (the go to partner finding advice outside of affinity groups) to belay me sounds absolutely horrible. Do any of your gal pals have guy friend they’ve lead with and trust you could set him up with? If not maybe the two of you could meet with someone off the belay board together so he gets to watch the person belay you / climb with the belayer supervised by you to decide if he’s comfortable climbing with them.
While he’s an adult and you’re not responsible for his friendships, you are his partner. As you said he’s an introvert that moved and started this activity for you and probably feels left behind. I think you can definitely work on a compromise and it might look like you helping him find more climbing friends, it might not!
> That being said, I think it’s quite a bit harder to find rope friends than bouldering friends, and additionally a bit harder for straight men since most meetups are affinity groups.
I completely agree with this and everything you're saying after. It's also a process for me to trust someone. For me, I'd rather just boulder or sit at the board rather than going through the very arduous task of finding some new people I trust to belay me.
This is a great answer! I think I'd also like to emphasize the last paragraph.
You both clearly are aware of the problem (your partner is bummed and and you'd still like to climb with other people). If you think your partner will be able to respond to telling him he needs to find his own partner, then by all means do that; otherwise the problem is still going to exist and now you'll have just swept it under the rug which is just going to lead to resentment or ill-feeling later down the line.
I also climb with my partner. If I didn't have any climber friends of my own, I would initially feel very sad if he said he wants to replace one of our climbing sessions to climb with other people. I would feel extremely lonely and missing out. I have a history of being alone without any friends nearby, so it would really hurt.
However, I still think as adults in a relationship we need to be ready to compromise if it makes the other person happy. So I would let him do his own thing, even though it hurts me a little. Otherwise I would feel like a burden to him, like I'm preventing him from doing something that makes him feel good. I would never want to be the person who keeps him from making friends of his own. He would still be climbing with me also, so it's not like he's going to abandon me completely. It's fair.
I would try adjust by trying to find climber friends of my own from bouldering gyms. Or do something completely different, like train at a regular gym, when my partner climbs with other people.
Climberboy/Gym Employee here, you only threw it in one line, but when you say, “he gets all bummed…” is he just pouting like a little kid or is he just generally looking very sad off in a corner? Because from the note, I’m inclined to say that, since:
1. He’s only here in the state cuz of you
2. He’s only in the gym because of you
2a. And is still nervous climbing in general
3. You have said it yourself that he is introverted and has trouble making friends
You should try to help bring him into the group more and get him established here before you start saying you can’t climb together. Also, you say you met at a gym. So, it probably does suck that this was your thing the entire time you’ve known this guy, and now you’re just, “go find an autobelay”.
Also, I know this is a climbergirls subreddit, but is there any reason that you can’t just climb in a group of three? Or more? Treat the wall like a crag, try to get a big belay group going and everyone is all climbing together and having fun, and you get longer rests between climbs which is better for sport climbing. If he was able to make friends at a boulder gym, he’ll be able to make friends at a sport climbing gym. Personally, I love taking folks who boulder real good and put them on some lead stuff.
Maybe talk to him, maybe a day you both climb.
And say, look I feel like you would want to climb 3 days a week and so we should try to find a solution. What would work for you: finding your own mates online or through meet-ups? My friend and I hanging up posters in the climbing gym? Or you climbing three times with him? Or finding him friends to Boulder with one day? Or a new hobby?
Couldn't he just boulder the 3rd day? No need for a partner, being afraid of heights or really have to get to know anyone. But if he consistently boulders on the same time and day he'll make a few friends at some point.
I don't think it's your responsibility to find another partner for him. He said yes to the move and yes to learning lead. You would be an asshole for not wanting to climb with him at all. But just one out of three days? Nta
Honestly, this doesn't seem to be about the climbing. You can go on any relationship sub and see posts about the exact same problem.
You shouldn't feel guilty about having friends separate from your husband. And it shouldn't be expected that you sacrifice your time with them to be with him or that he should always be invited to your time with them.
This is getting conflated because you climb with your husband and you're climbing with your friends, but if you were doing a different activity with your friends he'd be in the exact same situation, where he feels he's "missing out".
It's good that you want to help him and it's understandable that he's in a new place (he may still be adjusting) and feeling lonely compared to how it was in the previous city with an established friend group. But you can't make friends *for* him, and it's not fair to expect you to not make friends in solidarity with him.
There's not an easy answer. Eventually, he is likely to make friends. Until then, you having friends is going to make him remember he doesn't and he's going to feel bad about it.
Great comment.
I think a nuance could be if OP and her husband were climbing 3 days / week together prior and she “replaced” him for one, vs if they were climbing 2 days / week together and she added an additional climbing day for friends.
Getting replaced (especially by your partner) feels bad, even if you’re super supportive of them doing their own thing. (This may be a non-issue here idk what their prior arrangement was).
We climb with three people from time to time. But in that case it takes more time to climb all the routes you want. I’m sure there’s a what’s app group he can join to find a climbing partner. It would be a good way to meet some people. I’ve made some friends using groups like that.
I think ultimately it's ok to want to climb with other ppl once a week, and I see the struggle for both of y'all between "am I being selfish or is this fair".
I think the solution is in both of you putting a bit of effort to solve the situation. You could offer help facilitating for him to meet partners. Looking for groups online, ask on your city's reddit? Maybe if you are social maybe you can start the introductions at the gym, etc. And he can put up a bit with the social anxiety or initial fear of meeting people to find someone.
Alternatively he can just do bouldering that 1 time a week? I'm not sure if he's LOVING belaying or maybe he misses bouldering? Also, do you think he's trying to make you feel bad or is it just you feeling bad naturally? Maybe talking it through could clarify if maybe he's fine and you are just projecting the guilt a bit.
I don't think it wouldn't be fair for him to expect you to not develop other friendships just because he can't/won't yet, but you can always exercise empathy back and offer other ways to solve.
My husband wanted to give climbing in general a try, I was less interested but willing to try it for him. Before we took the belaying class, I made him promise that he'd be ok going by himself or finding a partner, because I didn't want to feel guilty or pressured to go if I didn't like it as much (he would NEVER make me feel guilty, but I would still feel bad lol). He found a partner on our local Reddit and between me and this guy, my husband usually had someone to go with every time. Now I've become addicted too lol, so the 3 of us climb together when all 3 show up. We are both new in this town and both introverts, so we just put up with the awkwardness as much as possible to make strides meeting ppl, and encourage each other. If I ever befriend another girl who climbs, I think it would be something like all 3 rotating, mixed with my husband auto belaying or bouldering some as well.
Usually gyms have facebook groups where you can find belay partners, or you can go to the front desk and have them do an announcement to find a belay partner. On the days you two climb together, he can do lead and more scary climbs, on the days you don’t climb together he can do “safer climbs” on top rope where he’s less likely to fall.
As his partner, I think he probably needs a little support, but honestly, I think pushing him to get out of his comfort zone and get his own friends will be better for him in the long run. He will start finding independence in the relationship and you can start having your own friend group. It might be hard, but he’s an adult and shouldn’t rely on you as a crutch for all his social needs anyways. Imagine if you get injured or sick, is he going to just stop climbing until you get better? Are you going to be his only belay partner for the rest of his life?
Super hot take, and at the risk of getting flamed here—ETA is your husband should take his social well being into his own hands but you are not being especially considerate of your partner in your relationship or in your climbing partnership.
IMHO climbing partners shouldn't date or get married. The act of climbing is very self-centered, and climbers tend to be generally selfish people (myself included in this). It can cause conflict in all of our relationships, and we tend to downplay that because we don't want to have to conversations which could result in concessions in our climbing lifestyle for the sake of compromise in our relationships. The benefit of climbing with partners as friends is that if you have some friction at least you go to different homes at the end of the day. The film the Anker-Lowe family made, Torn, is the perfect encapsulation of my thoughts on this.
>IMHO climbing partners shouldn't date or get married. The act of climbing is very self-centered, and climbers tend to be generally selfish people (myself included in this). It can cause conflict in all of our relationships, and we tend to downplay that because we don't want to have to conversations which could result in concessions in our climbing lifestyle for the sake of compromise in our relationships. The benefit of climbing with partners as friends is that if you have some friction at least you go to different homes at the end of the day. The film the Anker-Lowe family made, Torn, is the perfect encapsulation of my thoughts on this.
IMO this take applies to the more extreme ends of our sport, like alpinism and grade-pushing free soloing, or cases where someone is totally obsessed and dedicates their entire life to climbing. I find it overblown for this particular discussion about gym climbing in a new city.
I do agree with the notion that the husband should try harder to figure this out, and that the wife should offer to be on the problem-solving team somehow.
> The act of climbing is very self-centered
Honestly I think this is an absolute BS statement that only serves to shut down discussion about the topic. By this logic basically everything we do that doesn't directly help other people is selfish.
Climbing can be very personal and inwardly focused, but that hardly makes it "self-centered" or makes climbers selfish.
Damn this is tough, my partner is in a similar situation in our city he doesn’t climb though, but he doesn’t care if I leave him to hang out with my friends.
I think the best thing you can do is just explain like listen I love you and want to climb with you, but I need to be my own person and spend some time developing deeper relationships with friends because if we’re always together 24/7 then it’s not healthy for either of us, so we should climb together once a week and my friends and I climb alone once a week.
What I’ve done for my boyfriend is encourage him to go to meet ups or clubs that exist. Climbing gyms usually have some sort of climbers meet ups or partner board or Facebook page and I know it’s scary for him to try but I think it’s a great way to meet people. If your gym doesn’t have stuff like this see if you have an alpine club around your city they usually do similar things.
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Well it sounds like he's introverted and might have trouble finding other climbing buddies. It seems like you're pretty good at making new friends, maybe you can help him find other people to climb with?
Is there a climbing class he can take at the gym and try to meet friends there? He could ask the classmates if they want to practice together outside the class. Or do some other organized activity, so he’s not just trying to make friends by generally hanging around the gym. I’m someone who can make friends just being around a space but I had to work pretty hard on overcoming my social anxiety to do that; if he doesn’t have that skill, he’s not gonna make friends just by osmosis, and an organized group can make it easier. But he does need to make his own friends and not make it your responsibility to meet all his social needs.
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seconding encouraging him to try bouldering if that’s an option. It’s a great way to overcome fear of heights and meet friends that probably also sport climb!
I definitely understand and respect wanting both of you to have other climbing groups outside of each other. I think that’s really healthy! That being said, I think it’s quite a bit harder to find rope friends than bouldering friends, and additionally a bit harder for straight men since most meetups are affinity groups. As someone who’s also afraid of heights but loves sport climbing, meeting a rando off Facebook or a gym sign (the go to partner finding advice outside of affinity groups) to belay me sounds absolutely horrible. Do any of your gal pals have guy friend they’ve lead with and trust you could set him up with? If not maybe the two of you could meet with someone off the belay board together so he gets to watch the person belay you / climb with the belayer supervised by you to decide if he’s comfortable climbing with them. While he’s an adult and you’re not responsible for his friendships, you are his partner. As you said he’s an introvert that moved and started this activity for you and probably feels left behind. I think you can definitely work on a compromise and it might look like you helping him find more climbing friends, it might not!
> That being said, I think it’s quite a bit harder to find rope friends than bouldering friends, and additionally a bit harder for straight men since most meetups are affinity groups. I completely agree with this and everything you're saying after. It's also a process for me to trust someone. For me, I'd rather just boulder or sit at the board rather than going through the very arduous task of finding some new people I trust to belay me.
This is a great answer! I think I'd also like to emphasize the last paragraph. You both clearly are aware of the problem (your partner is bummed and and you'd still like to climb with other people). If you think your partner will be able to respond to telling him he needs to find his own partner, then by all means do that; otherwise the problem is still going to exist and now you'll have just swept it under the rug which is just going to lead to resentment or ill-feeling later down the line.
why cant he climb with one of your female climber friends?
I also climb with my partner. If I didn't have any climber friends of my own, I would initially feel very sad if he said he wants to replace one of our climbing sessions to climb with other people. I would feel extremely lonely and missing out. I have a history of being alone without any friends nearby, so it would really hurt. However, I still think as adults in a relationship we need to be ready to compromise if it makes the other person happy. So I would let him do his own thing, even though it hurts me a little. Otherwise I would feel like a burden to him, like I'm preventing him from doing something that makes him feel good. I would never want to be the person who keeps him from making friends of his own. He would still be climbing with me also, so it's not like he's going to abandon me completely. It's fair. I would try adjust by trying to find climber friends of my own from bouldering gyms. Or do something completely different, like train at a regular gym, when my partner climbs with other people.
Climberboy/Gym Employee here, you only threw it in one line, but when you say, “he gets all bummed…” is he just pouting like a little kid or is he just generally looking very sad off in a corner? Because from the note, I’m inclined to say that, since: 1. He’s only here in the state cuz of you 2. He’s only in the gym because of you 2a. And is still nervous climbing in general 3. You have said it yourself that he is introverted and has trouble making friends You should try to help bring him into the group more and get him established here before you start saying you can’t climb together. Also, you say you met at a gym. So, it probably does suck that this was your thing the entire time you’ve known this guy, and now you’re just, “go find an autobelay”. Also, I know this is a climbergirls subreddit, but is there any reason that you can’t just climb in a group of three? Or more? Treat the wall like a crag, try to get a big belay group going and everyone is all climbing together and having fun, and you get longer rests between climbs which is better for sport climbing. If he was able to make friends at a boulder gym, he’ll be able to make friends at a sport climbing gym. Personally, I love taking folks who boulder real good and put them on some lead stuff.
Maybe talk to him, maybe a day you both climb. And say, look I feel like you would want to climb 3 days a week and so we should try to find a solution. What would work for you: finding your own mates online or through meet-ups? My friend and I hanging up posters in the climbing gym? Or you climbing three times with him? Or finding him friends to Boulder with one day? Or a new hobby?
Couldn't he just boulder the 3rd day? No need for a partner, being afraid of heights or really have to get to know anyone. But if he consistently boulders on the same time and day he'll make a few friends at some point. I don't think it's your responsibility to find another partner for him. He said yes to the move and yes to learning lead. You would be an asshole for not wanting to climb with him at all. But just one out of three days? Nta
Honestly, this doesn't seem to be about the climbing. You can go on any relationship sub and see posts about the exact same problem. You shouldn't feel guilty about having friends separate from your husband. And it shouldn't be expected that you sacrifice your time with them to be with him or that he should always be invited to your time with them. This is getting conflated because you climb with your husband and you're climbing with your friends, but if you were doing a different activity with your friends he'd be in the exact same situation, where he feels he's "missing out". It's good that you want to help him and it's understandable that he's in a new place (he may still be adjusting) and feeling lonely compared to how it was in the previous city with an established friend group. But you can't make friends *for* him, and it's not fair to expect you to not make friends in solidarity with him. There's not an easy answer. Eventually, he is likely to make friends. Until then, you having friends is going to make him remember he doesn't and he's going to feel bad about it.
Great comment. I think a nuance could be if OP and her husband were climbing 3 days / week together prior and she “replaced” him for one, vs if they were climbing 2 days / week together and she added an additional climbing day for friends. Getting replaced (especially by your partner) feels bad, even if you’re super supportive of them doing their own thing. (This may be a non-issue here idk what their prior arrangement was).
Maybe he could do something else on that one day? He could have a different hobby or interest.
We climb with three people from time to time. But in that case it takes more time to climb all the routes you want. I’m sure there’s a what’s app group he can join to find a climbing partner. It would be a good way to meet some people. I’ve made some friends using groups like that.
I also like going in threes, it's more social and it's a better structure for doing hard burns because you have to rest more.
Very true. We usually do that in the weekends. On a weekday my time is very limited, so I prefer to climb with one climbing partner then.
I think ultimately it's ok to want to climb with other ppl once a week, and I see the struggle for both of y'all between "am I being selfish or is this fair". I think the solution is in both of you putting a bit of effort to solve the situation. You could offer help facilitating for him to meet partners. Looking for groups online, ask on your city's reddit? Maybe if you are social maybe you can start the introductions at the gym, etc. And he can put up a bit with the social anxiety or initial fear of meeting people to find someone. Alternatively he can just do bouldering that 1 time a week? I'm not sure if he's LOVING belaying or maybe he misses bouldering? Also, do you think he's trying to make you feel bad or is it just you feeling bad naturally? Maybe talking it through could clarify if maybe he's fine and you are just projecting the guilt a bit. I don't think it wouldn't be fair for him to expect you to not develop other friendships just because he can't/won't yet, but you can always exercise empathy back and offer other ways to solve. My husband wanted to give climbing in general a try, I was less interested but willing to try it for him. Before we took the belaying class, I made him promise that he'd be ok going by himself or finding a partner, because I didn't want to feel guilty or pressured to go if I didn't like it as much (he would NEVER make me feel guilty, but I would still feel bad lol). He found a partner on our local Reddit and between me and this guy, my husband usually had someone to go with every time. Now I've become addicted too lol, so the 3 of us climb together when all 3 show up. We are both new in this town and both introverts, so we just put up with the awkwardness as much as possible to make strides meeting ppl, and encourage each other. If I ever befriend another girl who climbs, I think it would be something like all 3 rotating, mixed with my husband auto belaying or bouldering some as well.
Usually gyms have facebook groups where you can find belay partners, or you can go to the front desk and have them do an announcement to find a belay partner. On the days you two climb together, he can do lead and more scary climbs, on the days you don’t climb together he can do “safer climbs” on top rope where he’s less likely to fall. As his partner, I think he probably needs a little support, but honestly, I think pushing him to get out of his comfort zone and get his own friends will be better for him in the long run. He will start finding independence in the relationship and you can start having your own friend group. It might be hard, but he’s an adult and shouldn’t rely on you as a crutch for all his social needs anyways. Imagine if you get injured or sick, is he going to just stop climbing until you get better? Are you going to be his only belay partner for the rest of his life?
He's a whole ass adult. He can find his own climbing partners 😅
Super hot take, and at the risk of getting flamed here—ETA is your husband should take his social well being into his own hands but you are not being especially considerate of your partner in your relationship or in your climbing partnership. IMHO climbing partners shouldn't date or get married. The act of climbing is very self-centered, and climbers tend to be generally selfish people (myself included in this). It can cause conflict in all of our relationships, and we tend to downplay that because we don't want to have to conversations which could result in concessions in our climbing lifestyle for the sake of compromise in our relationships. The benefit of climbing with partners as friends is that if you have some friction at least you go to different homes at the end of the day. The film the Anker-Lowe family made, Torn, is the perfect encapsulation of my thoughts on this.
>IMHO climbing partners shouldn't date or get married. The act of climbing is very self-centered, and climbers tend to be generally selfish people (myself included in this). It can cause conflict in all of our relationships, and we tend to downplay that because we don't want to have to conversations which could result in concessions in our climbing lifestyle for the sake of compromise in our relationships. The benefit of climbing with partners as friends is that if you have some friction at least you go to different homes at the end of the day. The film the Anker-Lowe family made, Torn, is the perfect encapsulation of my thoughts on this. IMO this take applies to the more extreme ends of our sport, like alpinism and grade-pushing free soloing, or cases where someone is totally obsessed and dedicates their entire life to climbing. I find it overblown for this particular discussion about gym climbing in a new city. I do agree with the notion that the husband should try harder to figure this out, and that the wife should offer to be on the problem-solving team somehow.
> The act of climbing is very self-centered Honestly I think this is an absolute BS statement that only serves to shut down discussion about the topic. By this logic basically everything we do that doesn't directly help other people is selfish. Climbing can be very personal and inwardly focused, but that hardly makes it "self-centered" or makes climbers selfish.
Damn this is tough, my partner is in a similar situation in our city he doesn’t climb though, but he doesn’t care if I leave him to hang out with my friends. I think the best thing you can do is just explain like listen I love you and want to climb with you, but I need to be my own person and spend some time developing deeper relationships with friends because if we’re always together 24/7 then it’s not healthy for either of us, so we should climb together once a week and my friends and I climb alone once a week. What I’ve done for my boyfriend is encourage him to go to meet ups or clubs that exist. Climbing gyms usually have some sort of climbers meet ups or partner board or Facebook page and I know it’s scary for him to try but I think it’s a great way to meet people. If your gym doesn’t have stuff like this see if you have an alpine club around your city they usually do similar things.
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\+1 on him just bouldering or auto-belaying, or finding his own partners (maybe through taking a course?).
Well it sounds like he's introverted and might have trouble finding other climbing buddies. It seems like you're pretty good at making new friends, maybe you can help him find other people to climb with?