Well, every time I tell my husband I’ve finally figured out what I want to do with my life, for sure, he just sighs and says, ‘‘That’s nice, dear.’’
It annoys me when he’s dismissive of my process. I am a dreamer, a person of introspection and epiphany and creating meaning. I am trying to figure out where I fit in my own life narrative. I can’t work it out without a sounding board. I have to try on new roles, even if just for a conversation, to see what they might be like.
This isn’t ‘‘playing,’’ it’s who I am. The creative impulse is a fundamental part of my identity.
He, like you, finds it a little tedious sometimes. He has always known with 100% certainty what he wants to do with his life, to the point that he doesn’t even view his career path as a choice. I have been questioning all my life. Yesterday I spent the day bitching about how much harder grad school is than I anticipated it would be, and then promptly informed him of my decision to apply for a Ph.D. program this summer. He was decidedly ‘‘WTF’’ about my thought process and since we’ve had, oh, eleventy billion conversations similar to this one already, I can understand how it might get exhausting.
That said, it’s who I am. It’s not going to change. It is the way I function.
He’s found a way to be supportive by helping me analyze the pros and cons of my ideas without endorsing them in such a way that I would feel bad if I changed my mind. He helps me figure out the logistics and identify the realities, he prods me to reveal my motivation and reasoning, in essence he is that sounding board I need. He does that in conjunction with the sigh and the ‘‘that’s nice, dear,’’ to dampen the blow. (I did change my mind, by the way, approximately one hour after our initial conversation. I’m nothing if not predictable.)
I am in agreement with the general perception that you are compartmentalizing his behavior as something frivolous he does rather than a fundamental part of his personality and how he navigates his life. Maybe he will act on his dreams someday, maybe he won’t, but sometimes it’s not the outcome, but the dream itself, that has value.