The Importance of Dreaming Together

Growing up, dreaming about your future comes naturally. When you met your partner, how did you dream together? You probably dreamt about your wedding, buying a beautiful house together, and creating a family together. This dream motivated you to take that first step together (get married). The honeymoon phase goes quickly and before you know it, you’ve taken the second and third step. Life moves fast and all of a sudden your reality can look like this:

After the honeymoon

You drag yourself out of bed to spend energy in the morning to pack lunches for the children, while also trying to get ready yourself and rush out the door to your job where a thousand emails with requests are waiting for you. You barely make it to lunchtime for a quick breath, or maybe you don’t even have time for lunch because you’re so busy. By the time work gets finished you have to then focus on who is picking up the kids from whatever activity they are in. You barely have time to make a meal for the family and are feeling brain dead. You aren’t feeling connected to your spouse because there’s no time in the day for that. Yet, dishes still need to be done, baths need to be taken, and homework needs to be finished before you can finally collapse on your bed next to your partner. You quickly chat about coordination for the following day before falling asleep. Rinse and repeat every day.

Have you stopped dreaming together?

Through the routines of life, people often forget to keep dreaming. When was the last time you and your partner dreamt about the future? What about the personal dreams you held so dear growing up? When a person stops dreaming, life can feel meaningless. How do you reinvigorate the passion of pursuing dreams together? Here are some questions you and your partner can ask each other to start the conversation:

• What was a dream you put on hold when you created a family?
• What was a personal dream of yours about your family?
• What are the things from your childhood growing up that you loved doing?
• What are the things from your childhood that you wanted to avoid for your own children?
• How did you visualize your marriage being when you were dating?
• If money wasn’t an issue, and you could skip work tomorrow, how would you want to spend it?

I challenge you to spend time talking to your spouse about what you want to accomplish in the next year, or the next five years together. Give yourself permission to pursue things that make you happy. Some couples spend the first 18 years of their kid’s lives dedicating everything to them. What happens when your child goes off to college and there’s an empty nest? You might say “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t even know what I enjoy doing.” Remind yourselves why you decided to do life with your partner. If you’re struggling to do so and you want to get back to dreaming together, find a Lifeologie couples counselor near you.