I was not ever snake phobic, but my husband, oh yes, he was terrified. He use to tell me "you will never bring a snake into my house, hell will freeze over forst" and a few other colorful things. One day we were in our local pet shop, I fell in love with a young bp, I wanted her sooo bad, but feared my huband would just never give in. My daughter who was 12 at the time and had and still does have her Dad wrapped around her little finger saw I wanted that bp so bad, so between walking around the store with her, and my daughter and I pretty much begging, with my daughter doing the biggest part of it, we managed to talk him to the point that he asked what all this snake needed if he agreed, so I started listing all the stuff, and while I stood there like a fool listing it all, he stared and said, "well, why dont you have all that stuff in the cart by now, you wasted all this time telling me instead of getting it and telling me as you went". I was so excited! After we got our new bp, and got in the truck, he said not to expect him to hold her - ever. I was fine with that cause I knew he would come around eventually. Within a month, he was taking Betty out of her cage on his own to hold her himself, and confessed to totally falling in love with her and feeling confortable with her. Soon after that, came my boys (bp's). soon after that, I reminded him that hell must have certainly frozen over cause we now had 3 bp's. Then I took interest in boas after many years of not having one. Bri said, "no way I am letting one of those in the house, not ever, period, over my dead body". Within a year, I had him taking me to pick up a rescue boa. Not so long ago, I reminded him what he said, and told him, his body did not look dead to me.. he just smiles and laughed it off. He is fine with the boa now, to a point, Caleb still makes him nervous, Bri wont reach into his cage for nothing unless I am not there and he HAS to do anything, but he will hold him and interact with him as long as he is out of his cage. Now almost 3 1/2 years later, Bri is just addicted to reptiles as I, and he even has a few of his own in this collcetion we have amassed.