Getting the wife involved...advice?

Well, I believe it's important that the two of you find a mutually desirable solution. Like many things, that may take work. How much time does she spend on the smaller boats with you? Does she ever take the helm?

Perhaps, the answer isn't a yacht but something just a step up. What kind of boating does she enjoy? Don't rough it but go to fun places. Go to a resort or go 50 miles to a location with a great art gallery if that appeals to her.

Discuss and find out what her reservations are. Is it being gone a long time? Does she find a boat boring? That means perhaps more creature comforts on one.

Perhaps find out where in the world she'd like to go on a vacation and agree to try her destination on a charter boat.

We enjoy being on the boat, just on the water. However, we also very much enjoy the great places we go.

Perhaps crewing on the Feadship left a negative taste. If she pictures herself being crew on this boat, I can see how she wouldn't be excited. Are you going to have crew? What size boat? Your wife had likely worked hard, as have you to reach a certain point in life, a certain level of comfort and luxury, maybe even of being spoiled. She may have reservations that she'd be giving some of that up, out on some boat instead of in her home where she's very happy.

Ultimately, the two of you might agree initially to a certain number of weeks a year, less that you'd like, more than she's enthusiastic about. You try that and then you're honest.

Give her a major role in boat selection and in destination planning and activities in the destination. Even if the trip along the water doesn't thrill her, perhaps if it ends with a date night, a five star meal and a trip to the ballet, she'll feel different.

Boating is your dream. Share it, but find out what her dream is and see how you match the two up.

My wife is obviously all in and has her Captain's license, has done everything I've done. However, an interesting couple among our best friends is a Chief Engineer and a Chief Stewardess. The Stew never had any desire to operate a boat. She loved the water. So, they used a center console we have a few times and he wanted to teach her enough to handle an emergency. Well, she found out she enjoyed it. Then they bought a 52' Riva and she operates it. She's not about to touch the engine but she's developed a love for aspects of boating she never expected to. She doesn't want to captain a megayacht, but she enjoys their time on their boat and enjoys operating it under his watch. It took a 39' center console to magically expose her to a new aspect of boating and shocked even her that she enjoyed it.

+1 to all OB posted. A few other considerations: if your wife likes the destination more than the journey, let her fly to meet you in port. Then together take short jaunts to nearby ports or islands. Plane tickets are cheaper than selling the boat. Being crew on a yacht is hard work. So is being 1st mate. Hire day help. For any of the duties that your wife might not do at home should you have household help, pay for someone to do them onboard. If your wife doesn't scrub toilets at home, scrubbing them on the boat will not endure her to the boating life. She should have a piece of the "refit" budget for however she wants to make the boat specifically hers. Find out if there are certain types of boats more appealing due to the seakeeping conditions and interior volume.

Keep your priorities in tact.

You are already boating, that helps a lot. My wife grew up on her dad's big express cruisers, I grew up working on big and small boats, but we didn't make boating a priority and didn't own one. When we decided to get a boat, we started looking at ski/play boats, jet boats. We walked the docks and talked to boat owners, got invited aboard a lot of boats to get a feel of them.

Our goal kept getting bigger the more we looked. In the end I decided my wife's mild claustrophobia would not make an express cruiser enjoyable, and she agreed. When I asked her, in decades out on her parent's boats, she never spent time down below. So we started looking at boats with salons with windows, which meant a bridge to me. Once we figured out what we both really wanted, we got serious about looking, and found a killer deal. She gets excited about saving money.

The first time she saw the boat was when I pulled into the customs port to import it from Canada. She had all kinds of decorating stuff, excited about her new floating cottage. I'm not really sure what excites her about having a small yacht, is it the decorating? She loves that the kids want to go out on it, loves taking sunset cruises with other couples, loves "playing house". She really wants to visit a lot of the quaint ports up and down our coast. Our 500-mile run home was not a lot of fun, as we were on a tight schedule and the waves were big through much of it.

I was actually the one who needed convincing, like your wife perhaps. I grew up working on boats, and I still equate boats with working. It is going in the water for the season today, and I've been hurrying to get the deck windlass switches re-bed to the deck, canvas back on, batteries topped, all the winter indoor projects that didn't get done. Once it is in, I have a flurry of projects I need to do. I'm looking forward to them, I like working with my hands, but when I'm under time pressure I get anxious. There are times I don't consider boat ownership fun, maybe your wife is thinking that same way.

Twin nine year olds are adaptable and generally love the water and would love a charter.

Now, at some point I might suggest a 3 or 4 day course together in anticipation of the possibility of larger. Perhaps that's why she didn't like operating the Malibu, never trained to do so, and you may well not be the one to train her.

Larger boat, talk about what you'll do and what you'll pay others to do. That may relieve some concern.

The Chief Engineer and Chief Stew I mentioned gladly work on the boats of others but on their own boat pay a management company to keep it up. Oddly, a management company that technically they work for. They just separate work from pleasure and when working, they serve others, when on pleasure, they are served by others.

Crewing on a 150' Feadship in many cases is not boating. It is waitress, maid, janitor, hospitality. It is buried in the bowels of the boat doing laundry for 12 while those 12 are enjoying a nice day on the beach. It is sometimes working thirty 16 hour days in a row. It includes going to exotic places but not seeing them. Have you ever watched Below Deck? If not, I'd suggest it and you might be shocked at how much of that she tells you is real, how much she has experienced and worse. She can also tell you what is bogus on the show.

Communication communication communication. The key. The equivalent of location location location to real estate. You told me something when you said that it never occurred to you that she might not consider her crew time favorably. It doesn't sound like the two of you have ever really talked about that time beyond just perfunctory mention. Maybe you tried and she didn't want to.