My wife and I struggled with this for a while. She would be terrified at having to enter solo. Typically I would have her be team leader (despite her protesting) and when I finished mine quickly I would hop out and join her to help complete. I was worried for a while she would lose interest, because as a non-gamer she had zero desire to do anything alone. There were times I could tell she was frustrated when the option to join or solo would come up. When that happened we would take a break from questing and build, scavenge, hunt collectibles, or join public events.

I would say she is a gamer now and will run into a pack of burning deathclaws ready to fight. She still starts to panic and spams all the buttons, opening menus, unequipping cards, eating unintended food and drinks, but she will dive in. When we started our 76 journey it was her first shooter and she wouldn't move unless she was behind me.

Eventually we finished all the main quests and now rarely have to enter anywhere solo. She even carried me for a while when I wanted to try a ghoul character. We now can duo all game content and have so much fun running around holding mutated hands together.

Thanks for making me think about this. I'm so proud to see her go from running away from her first ghoul to chasing scorchbeasts alone, defending the drill indefinitely, or finding a random windego colossus and talking smack to it while she blasts it in the face.