Anybody who knows the history of ballroom dancing would know the name Henry Jacques British Champion 1934-36. I was at a Medal Night which he was the judge and followed with a discussion on dancing, the year was 1953. He said If you are already married and take up dancing there is a future, But he said statistically to marry your dance partner is a mistake. You are most likely marrying for the wrong reasons. Sooner or later the dancing comes to an end. Then what.
Myself through the years I have seen it happen over and over again . Fortunately there are exceptions.

Angelica and any others whos husbands are afraid of looking ridiculace.
When I Dance
I don't Dance to be better than any body else .
I only Dance to be better than myself.

Print that and hange it on the wall.
Myself when I am on the floor I am not aware of who might be watching. Frankly I couldn't care less. I have enought to contend with, with the music, and leading the partner. The footwork and so on. Being that it is impossible to think of two things at the same time. There is no space for worrying about what other people think.
So it boils down to being able to concentrate

Pivotingfool - Don't get me wrong, I did not give my husband an ultimatum for him to either start dancing or I would leave... after speaking to him he realized how dancing is important to me, and that he indeed doesn't hate dancing, he just was afraid to try... We are doing this for each other, and I can only see good things come out of it!

Thanks everyone for all comments! I like the quote from Cyd and the sports analogy! My husband loves sports...

If you like the sports analogy let me run this one by you! My wife of 30 years loves to dance, me not so much. At parties & weddings I'll get up so she can enjoy herself but I do little more than shuffle my feet & arms in a crowd. She has talked about trying Ballroom Dancing for a couple of years and I have encouraged her to try it. Recently I felt she needed a distraction because of other things going on in our lives and bought her a beginners package from Living Social. She started
( by herself) and was hooked. She knows I don't like to dance nor do I have any sense of rhythm. I will accompany her to the socials but she is on her own for the lessons, practices & workshops. We have had an agreement from early on in our courtship, I agree to go to ballet & opera with her, she goes to hockey & baseball games with me, she doesn't expect me to tango and I don't ask her to play third base. It works for us and is a good compromise, it isn't a statement of our commitment or fidelity to each other. Don't over think it!

Cyd,

We are not talking about people who are already dancers.

We are talking about men who are asked to go out and try to impress their wife when the wife is already far ahead, and when she is already dancing with men who are well established.

If you think a little slogan about "what should be, can change what is", more power to you.

However, in reality, most men have egos that are easily brused. Most men don't want to look worse, (Or in this case not nearly as polished.), than the other men in the room. (Espically in front of their wives.)

It is easy for an established male dancer to say that he isn't competing with anyone.

On the other hand, if your team is playing like the Washington Redskins, and you are schedualed to play the New York Giants, you might not feel so non-competive.

I bet if you were one of the Redskin players, you would want to play a little better than you have been,--- if you wife was watching.

The male ego gets us into a lot of trouble. However, just wishing it away, isn't going to change it.

My wife did not like dance very much, but I love dance, . I don,t have partner to dance

as a single guy myself:

I admit my reason for wanting to dance was when I started seeing different womens' profiles and seeeing that 99.9% of them loved to dance I figured dancing would be a good skill to add to my repertoir to help me meet women more easily.

And, yes, we do have egos. My idea of learning to dance was I wanted to be that one flashy showy guy on the floor that all the ladies swooned over. Little did I know it would take eons too reach that level. But I rememberbeing at dances where everyone else was dancing but me, and it was because I didn't know how to do what they were doing, but yet it looked fun and they were having a good time. And one of the hinderances in taking lessons is that you don't want to look lioke a fool for not being able to do it. Now for any guys who are still hanging on the fence who might happen to read this .... you are going to have to start somewhere. Preferably at the begining. It is going to be a slow painful process. AND you are going to make PLENTY of mistakes before you get it right. If you are going to start at all you have to be willing to look like a fool, and you will look and feel like one, and approach it from the view point that says, "I'm not that flashy guy on the floor ....YET!"

and since I have started dancing ....
I don't consider myself to be the most attractive guy, but I have been dancing for a few years now and it amazes me the amount of women who WANT to dance with me because I can do it and show them a good time (my enjoyment is in making sure the lady is enjoying herself), some of them some really beautiful exotic women, hmmm

rgswoohoo

I WISH you would repost this on EVERY singles listing there is. I can not tell you how many guys I hear complain.... "where are all the great gals to date." I tell them we are at the ballroom dancing every Friday or Saturday night. They look at me like I've suddenly grown an extra head. They don't beleve me that when tell thme the single guys all end up with a table full of ladies to dance with each week. A gal who is not regulars at his tabels have to snagg the guy before he comes off the dance floor if they wish to dance with him.

Yes we all started somewhere! We ladies WANT more guys to learn to dance. We are willing to help them learn (if they wish it). We encourage them as we hear about their dance lessons. What a way to make friends of all ages, heights and shapes. I've seen many marriages happen this way. Oh and those guys still dance with lot of other ladies and their wifes dance with lots of other guys.

I found the comments most interesting to read. I met my husband at a social dance attached to a dance school 37 years ago. We picked up dancing again after our children grew up but didn't know of many local places to do ballroom dancing at the time (it all seemed to be disco dancing). However the last 2 years we have been learning Sequence dancing and we go out twice sometimes three times a week now and love it and have met lots of new friends. I agree that new bachelor men would be welcome as there are often lots of ladies around needing partners and often having to dance together. I feel very glad to have my lovely husband. I should say that I live in England. I just came across this website today and believe it's American.

This is the deadly spite that ails me.
My wife plays no Golf
And I no Dance.