I mean as a person, a man and as your partner? Maybe I am reading this wrong but you say that he is a good dad for your son, but then say that you gave him an “ooh” because he managed to bath your kid and not make him cry.
Maybe I read this wrong but to me it appears that you seem to have a condescending and dismissive attitude towards him. His dreams don’t match your interpretation of useful reality . You call him your “dreamer husband” and say its like being married to your dad?
ADD? Anyone else got any hilariously random diagnoses of mental disorders that can be pulled out of arseholes over the internet?
Hey, Superhal, based on nothing at all other than one post rolls dice I reckon you are a homicidal maniac. No evidence, like, but what the fuck given your standard - it’s easy to tell- isn’t it?
You’ve posted a bit lately about being unhappy and frustrated with cetain aspects of your life. Did you make a diet and excercise plan to lose the weight you want gone? How is your anti-depressant working? Did you find a better therapist? I only ask because I know it’s hard for me to be enthusiastic about anything when I’ve got internal frustrations and feelings of something’s not quite right in my own head.
How do you think he feels about it? Have you asked him? He may not be joking at all when he says he hates it.
Crap.
I think I just realized that I’m a dreamer too.
And this might explain why my first GF broke up with me- She eventually got tired of hearing about all the “what if…”
Wow. And this would explain why she broke up with her first bf: he was a TOTAL Dreamer (at least I was some what proactive, it was a hobby more for me than him) and she HATED him for it as she would tell me.
And the funny thing is- she’s now practically engaged to someone who’s got the same attitudes of having a dream, but she’s hoping he’ll follow through or else she’s going to have to leave him too.
Man, it’s a crazy cycle of patterns that I never realized was there. I never realized that this was kinda part of the problem, and I always wondered what was ‘off’ in that relationship, because neither of us were really able to elaborate on why we parted ways…
Dreaming and doing are unfortunately two different concepts that rarely seem to land in the same body.
I could probably sit down and write down about two dozen ideas for businesses.
4-5 of them might be practical.
2-3 of them are just downright fucking cool but probably not practical at all without massive funding I will probably never get close to.
IMHO as a dreamer, we tend to think bigger. Often much bigger than we could ever do short of someone handing us a couple million and a decree to make it happen.
I wonder if I might do as well if not better as some kind of business coach/consultant. Come in look at what you have and dream up new ways of utilizing it and or new angles that a business might take to expand.
See that…it just happened.
There are plenty of feilds where creative and imaginitive people can do very well, unfortunately many such people never end up in such places.
I used to be like that, but these last few years I’ve been so busy surviving and coping with family illness and death that I’ve stopped dreaming. And that’s sad. It feels like another old friend has died. There’s a certain tragic sadness when you’re out of dreams.
That’s a good thing.
I think you are hurting your husband. I really do. I don’t think you mean to do that, but to someone who is a dreamer “you and I both know you aren’t going to follow up on it” is not a kind thing to say. How do you know that? He’s not joking at all when he says he hates that.
You don’t seem to support him at all unless he actually starts doing something towards an idea, until then you seem convinced he won’t do it at all. And how much support are you offering him? He has half a novel, and you offer to read it? Seems to me that support would be more along the lines of making sure he has an uninterrupted hour (maybe even two) a day in which to write, or encouraging him to join a writer’s support group - which may mean he’s away one evening a week working on his writing while you watch the kid, but THAT’s how you support someone wanting to be a writer, not by simply offering to read a half-finished novel. Supporting one of his dreams means that you are helping him make time and space to pursue such a thing.
When I was learning to fly my husband had to put up with me setting aside time to study, and being away from home and him for several hours several times a week, sometimes entire days from sun up to sun down. Due to the cost he also went without some things he wanted at times so I could have the money to complete my license. When I expressed doubts or something scaring happened he was there for me. Without that level of support I doubt I could have done it.
Likewise, when he was pursuing a musical career I had to put up with a LOT of noise, we spend a lot of money on a top quality instrument for him, costumes for performances (which I wound up ironing and sometimes mending as well), he was gone many holidays, many weekends, sometimes days at a time. I traveled literally thousands of miles some years to help out with gigs. I fielded phone calls at all hours… there was some real sacrifice on my part to help him pursue that dream.
I don’t think you’re standing in his way, but you aren’t supporting him as much as you think.
Look, if you’re not enthused, you’re not enthused. That’s OK. But don’t say “we both know you’ll never…” just say “I know you’re excited about this, but I don’t know enough about the subject to really have an opinion on it.” He needs someone to talk to about these things - so encourage him to spend time with people of like interests. That’s what clubs are for. And on-line forums. As long as his interests aren’t screwing with his responsibilities or taking away all of your “couple time” then his having an outlet for this is healthy.
No, no, I think it’s Bi-Asperphrenia Affective Disorder.
Anyway I don’t really have much else to say than what’s already been said. I don’t really want to “+1” or anything like that, but I want to reinforce that he’s probably not joking (or at least not mostly) and you’re probably, even if he pretends to brush it off, hurting his feelings.
And I don’t think the OP understands how bad this could be.
Depending on how it actually plays out in real life, this could literally be as bad as tellling a woman with weight issues "are you eating again already ? " every time she consumes food.
I feel much as others have already stated in this thread. I’m very much like your husband. Ultimately, it’s not so much a behavior as a fundamental perspective or personality component. I understand that it might annoy many, but those are people who probably shouldn’t get involved in a close relationship with me, for both my sake and theirs. I can think of few personality traits that turn me off more than negativism. I come up with a lot of crazy ideas, most of which never happen, and I’m not as cool as I would be if I actually did them, but I’m also otherwise a generally successful person; clearly these ‘dreams’, while I’d love to follow through on them more consistently, don’t *adversely *affect my life at all. In fact, I find that when I’m with people who have an enthusiastic and encouraging outlook, I’m much more likely to actually get things done.
Sometimes, yes, it is self-serving. Asking you what you think about my idea to zipline across Turkey might just be my version of asking if my butt looks big in these jeans. But everyone has their own kind of big-butt question.
A very wise woman once said to me, “There’s one thing sadder than someone who can’t dream . . . someone who can ***only ***dream.”
Strictly speaking, nobody has the power to kill your husband’s dreams except himself . . . and he’s apparently doing that without your help. But you are definitely an enabler.
Your husband has a disconnect between his mind and reality. He believes that the products of his mind are doomed to fail in reality. He believes that not only can he not succeed, but that he doesn’t deserve to succeed. Sadly, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I agree with Broomstick. It would be unimaginably hurtful to have someone, especially my husband, brush my dreams off like that. Broomstick also had some good suggestions on how to encourage him.
Is there something else that’s making you feel this way? Perhaps you don’t want to stay home with the kids? There’s nothing wrong that. Maybe you feel like you have dreams, too, but he’s not listening to you? Or maybe you don’t feel he’s supporting you the way he’s asking you to support him?
Either way, I don’t think it’s healthy for you or your marriage to feel that amount of irritation at him when he tries to talk to you about something important to him. It’s also not good to just bottle it up.
So, maybe you need to think about why you continue to say things to him that you know might hurt him.
Oh yeah - every time I pick up a new hobby, I picture myself as being awesome at it. And most times, I’m not particularly awesome at it, but if I enjoy it, I keep at it. It’s important to have people like this in the world, too - it’s important to have people who have selective amnesia and just keep on trying new things.
Well, thanks everyone for your responses. It seems I need a heart to heart talk with my husband, and some apologies on my part are in order.
I’m glad that for at least two posters, Ro0sh and myself, my thread was helpful in explaining something about the dynamics of living with a dreamer.
I also realised that I don’t value ideas and creativism in themselves. I come from a very creative family; my dad’s an inventor, and… well, suffice it to say that his co-workers/volunteers once made a plaque for him that said: “Speed limit: no more then 50 ideas an hour”. Idea’s are ten a penny where I come from; it’s the doing that makes a difference. I would probably think differently if I came from a family that had other strenghts and weaknesses.
I also realized that my husband is not supportive of my dreams either. I don’t need a sounding board, like him; but I do need some enthusiasm and doing power to set my own ideas into action. When I say to him: “How about you and me going for target X” he will usually say something so non-comittically that my plan peters out into nothingness. He won’t say no so I can make other plans alone or with somebody else; and yet he won’t say yes so I can start making detailed plans. It is as infuriating to me as the cold showers I throw on his dreams must be for him.
Some recent examples include him procrastinating putting his name on our mortgage, so we can finance some home improvement that he actually wants as much as I do. Or how he passively opposed my plans to go through with weight loss surgery, so I had to ask a friend if she was willing to take care of me for one or two days while I would be at home recuperating.
Maastricht, you sound like a smart woman who wants to make her marriage work. It also sounds like he’s not pulling his share of the marital load, and that you both owe some apologies. May I pull a Dear Abby and suggest you and he attend some marital counseling so you both can communicate in a safe, non-judgmental environment?
I wish you the very best of luck and a very happy future.
Thank you everyone. There’s a lot for me to mull over here.
I can’t answer for the OP, but Broomstick partially hit the nail on the head as far as my feelings are concerned. It IS very difficult to support a dreamer when you’ve been shouldering family illness and deaths, among other things.
I have not read all the threads in this post, but being dismissive of your (male or female) spouse’s notions, ideas, hopes and dreams even if they are impractical and unlikely is a HUGE part of the reason people have affairs. The willingness to listen is often far more attractive than a pair of big tits or a killer smile.
“My husband doesn’t listen to me” and “My wife doesn’t understand me” are cliches because they are so common.
I’ve been on both sides of the equation re being dismissive and being dismissed. People who think they are being practical by being abrupt with a do nothing dreamer are utterly missing the point of listening to someone. A lot of the time people don’t want analysis of their plans, they just want attention and to be acknowledged. If you are not willing to play that game then you should never have gotten married to the person you did. Being dismissed is a huge soul crusher and eventually it will cripple or destroy relationships.
Reading this, I don’t think you should talk to your husband yet–because this reads like the script of a marital trainwreck: you are superficially forgiving “It seems I need a heart to heart talk with my husband, and some apologies on my part are in order” but really you are still angry and miserable and both blame and resent this. You’ll start out the conversation with “I am really sorry” and then, without even meaning to, blindside him with “but you’re a lousy husband and worse than me”. This won’t just mean a bad night–though it will be a very bad night–it will taint the next time you talk to him about anything because he will be expecting an ambush.
You have all these issues mixed up in your head: your own unhappiness is tangled up with your opinion of him and you’ve got to find a way to separate the two. I think you’re angry at him for not being as miserable as you. That’s not logical, but its very usual and human. For the sake of your marriage, you have to find a way through it, however.
With relationship stuff, I always find it useful to remember that there are three entities here: you, him, and the relationship. The relationship itself is like a plant–it’s something that can grow all kinds of ways, and that has to be nurtured and taken care of. Don’t think about what you want your husband to be like–that’s largely out of your control–and think instead of the sort of relationship you want to have with him. If you don’t like the way your relationship is, focus on ways to change that.
Oh, he started the novel and stopped writing on it years before we met. And he has several hours a day to spend on whatever hobby he would choose. In fact, I actually encouraged him a couple months back to start some RL social activity and I said I would watch the kid that evening. He didn’t follow up on it, yet. Mostly, he spends his free time on his internet forums, work or work related play, or on gaming. We have a little couple time, but not as much as I would like. But that’s my fault too, we’re both just too tired.
