One of the things that attracted me to my husband is that he is a dreamer, just like me. His brain went a million miles a minute. I loved to hear what was possible and what could be achieved someday. We were so much a like. I loved potential and saw potential everywhere. Until we got married.
No one told me what it was going to be like to be married to a dreamer. My husband has 50 ideas a day. 50 x 365 days x 12 years of marriage = a whole lot of ideas, ideas that all required $$$$, time and energy that we didn’t have. He had so many ideas… restaurants he wanted to open, one crepe place, one food cart that serves only fresh salmon salads, one that is an omelette house or the personal pizzaria…..this is just in the food department. There are so many more ideas pouring out of his brain. He loves to dream. Some of them were great ideas, some were ideas that I thought could and should be flushed….away….forever.
Early in our marriage, I felt the need to let him know which ideas needed to be tossed. I told him exactly how and why his ideas stunk. I told him that we didn’t have the money to support these crazy ideas. I told him just how much time it would take to make these business ideas work.
Slowly, I saw his spirit starting to wither. We argued more. We argued about lots of things, not just business ideas. The thing was, my husband was a very successful business owner. He did know what he was doing, but these other ideas scared me, so I felt the need to squelch them…and along with the ideas, I squelched his spirit.
Then…I had a chat with one of my friends, who was a about 15 years older than me and very happily married to a guy that reminded me a lot of my husband….a dreamer. I asked her how she dealt with all of his crazy ideas…and her advice changed my perspective and our marriage. What did she say?
She told me that she loved all his ideas and when he shared them with her, she enjoyed every minute of it. She cheered him on and yelled “hurray” as he talked about all the details. A light turned on in my mind and I knew that I had been doing it all wrong!
As my husband’s one and only wife, I had the privilege of getting to be his sounding board. How would I feel if the ideas I was excited about were shot down every time I shared them?? I would slowly stop sharing those ideas….and eventually, I don’t even think I would share at all.
I soon put my plan into action…saying, “that sounds like a great idea, honey!” no matter what the idea for a new business, a new restaurant or whatever. My greatest fear was that our bank account would be drained and we would be left in ruins. Guess what, it didn’t happen! What did happen, was that I watched as my husband’s withering dreaming spirit come alive to dream again. His ideas started flowing again and he felt good, like the man I married. It was all by my choice to support the man I chose to marry and not let my fear of his or our failure get in the way.
As wives, we get to be our husband’s most loud, most excited cheerleaders! It really doesn’t matter what it is, our husbands need us to perk up and be excited to hear what they are saying, no matter what it is. Its our privilege. Make no mistake: they will have cheerleaders- in the workplace, at the coffee stand and wherever he goes. But its one of our jobs and a choice to cheer our husbands on.
Their dreams can be our dreams. We can help them achieve what they were meant to do, what God created them for.
We can also help them fail and never achieve anything….or just the minimum.
Let’s take our role as our husband’s most amazingly supportive cheerleader seriously. Our marriages depend on it!