Hydrophobic:
For Kestrell: If I was you, I'd hope my wife didn't read that thing about her not being able to "deal with the situation effectively." Of course I'm not you.
No, it is fine. She would agree. She is an excellent diver for her (and my) experience, however, we are both relatively new to diving and I just happen to take to it more naturally than she does. I also almost never panic; which is good too. Besides, while I may currently be leading things under water, above water she and I share the decision-making responsibilities 50-50 in a mature partnership of mutual love and respect (or so she's told me).
I think the problem is that since I pick up diving more readily than she does, she is more likely to defer to me, or look to me to figure some things out for her. Not that she doesn't tell me to bug-off and let her figure things out too, I just sense that she is looking to me first and not trusting her judgement, and honing her skills and instincts the best that she can. You would also have to know what the situation was that I was refering to, which I posted in "Near Misses" a few months ago, to fully appreciate things.
Honestly I have no doubt that we will both become skilled divers. We have been systematically challenging ourselves with our diving, talk and read all we can about diving, and strategically plan future learning (classes and dives). I was just trying to take a look at all aspects of diving and ask questions.
Quite frankly, by pointing out that I was not sure my buddy would have been able to respond to me in an emergency as I responded to her was not in any way meant to imply a failure on her part, but rath just highlighting a gap in our ability as a team. But if there is any failure at all, it lies with the both of us together, and that is how we will solve it; together.