I am super lucky to be married to another Deadhead but I've heard tons of stories about mixed marriages...

i had a long time girlfriend, not into GD one bit--she had an insecurity that i loved them more than her, let's just say we're no longer together

My wie is Indonesian (I met her at work) and she just does not like live music and thinks the dead sound like they are outdated and old. Me I love it and think they are the shizz....

She got mad because this year I went and saw the two NYE shows, I'm flying up for the Shoreline shows without her, she and I are going to NYC- I'll see the Jones show without her and then she'll come home as I head to GOTV (that's 2 days of us on our own in NYC). Then there's the 2 Greeks shows I intend on seeing. And of course, I needed a three day weekend to go camping (she hates that, too) because I needed time to myself.

The only real vacation we took is a 10 day trip to Indonesia to see her fam and a few days in Bali on our own.

But all in all- she is good about it. It's starting to bother her but I just point out I thought my dead days wre largely behind me and every show I see is one more day of bliss beyond what I thought I could have. She puts up with it so far.

my girlfriend knows i love the dead more than her haha. i have two things that make me happy in this world, the dead and my lady. and my lady likes the dead! shes going to her first show july 21 im excited.

BEW wrote:



Me too... Don't think it would have worked for me any other way. We got it...and still get it.

We met in the Spectrum parking lot, March 86 tour. I proposed at Telluride in August 87. Married Oct 88 (not at a Dead show, but our reception band ..not dead related --- surprised the hell out of us and everyone when they did a La Bamba Good Lovin) and saw Furthur at Tower with our 21-year-old Dead spawn in March.

Blair Jackson did a blog on this subject that got lots of cool responses here:

www.dead.net/features/blairs-golden-road...blog-mixed-marriages

Me and my wife have been married 16 years, we jumped on the bus together, but she jumped off. I stayed on, she complains about me going to shows but she knows how muck I love it and she deals with it.

I pity the fool!

Im a lucky one. Wifey is on board 100%

I married a deadhead & then we divorced, but we never stopped going to shows together.

We've been touring together since '85.

Next up is the Vibes.

I could not consider a marriage to a guy who is anti-dead, but I could welcome someone who was willing to embrace it.

My friend just married a guy who is totally into becoming a deadhead, he is just so interested in the whole scene and enthusiastically joining in with it. I wish that for myself.

Semi-mixed: The wife's a purist, thinks the whole thing died with Jerry. Has relatively little interest in RatDog, Phil & Friends, Furthur. I, on the other hand...

I am the head while my wife is not. There are times when I wish she was on board so that we could share experiences together, but there are other times when I am happy that this is just "mine". She was totally cool enough with it to let me fly up from Austin to see Furthur at Barton Hall on Valentines 2010 and, as time goes by and our kids get older, it is an easier and easier sell. She sees it as a hobby and as long as it doesn't get too expensive or take time away from the family, we're good.

The difficulties for me are not really in just seeing shows or finding the time, but in trying to relate the more esoteric matters of being a Deadhead. The spiritual quality of the experience is hard to convey without sounding new-agey or cheesy or off-the-wall. With many other Heads, you can look them in the eye at times and just "know" and, in knowing, you have a bond. There are places that your average Deadhead have travelled to that your average straight person has never seen - shared emotional territory. There are times when I crave that mutual understanding and wonder what things would be like if we shared that.

On the other hand, I can also recognize that the fact that my wife is not a Head has saved me from getting into some pretty awful situations that, alone, I couldn't have avoided. Having her there to balance out some of my more unhealthy behaviors has been a god send.

All-in-all, with respect, we've made it work thus far, but it isn't easy. If it was, what fun would that be?