Happy -

"Traditional tuner" reminds me a little of a guy I attempted to play with a while back.

"Traditional" maybe means "plays mostly alone" - at least that's what my guy did. He was also pretty good, and could sing a little along with his playing, but never owned a tuner and didn't know how to use one. Offering your tuner may have been, to him, like asking him to set the clock on your VCR.

Wife's commment about "hates to tune" may mean that he "does it the hard way," and is frustrated enough that he just doesn't want to face "getting in tune" - since he sees it as an ordeal, rather than just something you do as a matter of course. Chances are, if he "dislikes tuning" he doesn't even have a good, systematic, understanding of how to get in tune with himself without just "messing with it until it's good enough."

Unfortunately, if he's only around on rare occasions, there's probably not much you can do to help him - but a sympathetic approach may be more effective than criticism, since - if the above view is close - he's probably already more than a little defensive about the whole subject.

On the other hand - I met a spectacular player who tuned his Dulcimer to Eb just to be sure noone tried to play along.

John