Why? I’m not saying to my husband: " You’ll never get this to work, so don’t bother me with your fantasies". What I am saying is: “Hon, that sounds fun, but it is just an idea, and if it goes like your last ten ideas, it will remain in the idea stage, so it’s hard for me to muster up much enthusiasm, especially as I still got my household waiting for me. But if you do get serious about the idea and want to pursue it, like doing research, I’ll see what I can do to help you”. Which is, quite frankly nothing more or less then the honest truth. My husband makes a point of not lying to me either. If I ask him if my butt looks big, he’ll say: “Yes, but I love you anyway”.
It sounds to me like you both may be laboring under the misconception that obstinate “truthfulness” is a key to a successful marriage rather than the base poison it actually is. There was a discussion here not too long ago on this subject:
BTW, that sounds a lot different from “That’s nice dear, but you and I both know you aren’t going to follow up on it.” I suspect the first picture was the more accurate one.
Neither one sounds remotely nice in my opinion.
Agreed. At this point, he knows how you feel about it. There’s nothing practical about repeating the sentiment if he already knows it; you should be looking at why you feel obligated to repeat it, even though he’s told you he hates it when you do.
All you have to do is smile and say, “That sounds like it would be cool, sweetie; you should go for it.” It’s a phrase that has stood us in good stead for years of vastly dissimilar interests and hobbies. You don’t have to jump up and down pissing yourself in excitement to avoid being Debbie Downer. All it really takes is a basic acknowledgment that the idea is there, that it’s valid, and that it’s something the other person is enthusiastic about. If you can manage to summon up some vague gladness that the other person is excited and happy, that helps too.
And let’s face it, if you had a coworker or acquaintance who had ten billion ideas and never implemented any of them, you wouldn’t say that sort of negative thing to them. It would be considered rude and mean-spirited, the IRL equivalent of threadshitting, and polite society frowns upon such. Your husband, whatever his faults and annoying traits, deserves at least as much kindness, consideration, and courtesy as some dude at work would get. It’s something I see fairly often that really bothers me, this notion that just because we’d walk through fire for someone we somehow are excused from basic niceness toward them.
I’m going to add two stories to this, my own and a former friends.
My lifelong dream has been to own a farm. Sadly, at the age of 47, my odds of ever accomplishing this are exactly the same odds as winning the lottery, because that’s what it would take for it to happen.
Six and a half years ago, when I was married (and 40), my then wife had the bad habit of not merely dismissing or squashing my dreams and interests, but actively pissing all over them.
I had told her about my dream of owning a farm. Many times. One day I was engaged in my usual hobby of looking at them on-line (something I am in fact doing right now in another browser session) when PsychoEX broke into hysterical tears and demanded that I never speak of this dream again, because not only would it never happen, but I was allegedly so broken down physically (she was constantly trying to convince me of this, it’s bullshit) that I could never handle it.
Now that was a soul crushing moment. 
Then there’s my ex-friend Gerald. Gerald is/was the kind of guy with big grandiose plans. Everything was about having choices and options with him. The only problem was that Gerald was pathologically incapable of MAKING any choices for fear that he would make the wrong choice, for fear of failure.
When we would play D&D, before we ever got started, or between sessions, he’d talk up how many ‘kewl powerz’ his character had, and what it was capable of. At the game table, he’d piss everyone off by spending 10 minutes every turn mulling over his choices, then deciding to do…nothing. Because he might fail.
In life, he was likewise incapable of making any choices. Because he might fail. Or something might go wrong. So he worked a crappy job, paid more in rent for a limited place in someone’s basement than I paid for my 1 bedroom apartment, never got in shape, never looked for a better job, never even broached the subject of whether or not he was allowed to use the kitchen in the house he was renting in (for that rent? my god man!) Hell, even when I pushed him on that subject, he didn’t ask his landlord, he just went out and bought a toaster oven and a small fridge for himself.
So in the end, Gerald loved to dream of, and contemplate all his options. But they were sterile, dead options, because he was incapable of making any of the effort to make them reality, and was incapable of making any true choices.
Because dreaming was fun. But reality was scary as hell.
If you don’t mind me asking – why is just a fantasy? Just curious, as I did it last year, and you might be surprised who does a thru-hike – lots of people do it in their retirement.
Not only do you not need an excess of truthfulness in a marriage, but it is also perfectly acceptable to not even talk about some things. If you have one or two small issues that will never get resolved, but otherwise you have a happy, healthy marriage, sometimes you just put those two issues on “ignore” and just leave them alone.
It’s not just a fantasy. I have lots of these types of plans in various stages of development and I am serious about all of them. I have already realized some of them like restoring a Pre-Revolutionary War house to pristine condition and taking lots of flying lessons because I love aviation. I have about a dozen elaborate plans and I am fully prepared to act on any of my dreams as soon as the circumstances allow it. I just don’t know which ones will pop up first.
Hiking the Appalachian Trail will take six months minimum and I can’t do that right now because I have two small children but there is a decent chance I will at some point. I also really want a beautiful Louisiana plantation house with large grounds and staff. I have been researching those for a very long time. I am trying to change careers at the moment to be a Medevac nurse and I am acting on it but the process may take a while.
Being a dreamer doesn’t mean that nothing will ever get done. It means that you throw a whole lot of good ideas out there and see what sticks.
Two sides to this coin.
Do you encourage the dreams or slap reality?
My SO has heard many of my ideas and dreams, and he has always supported me. Might I add that many of my (our) dreams have come true. Others have failed dismally.
Still, I dare to dream - aloud - because I know I have support. Sure, there are times I think “he thinks I am an idiot” and there are times he flat out says, “you’re an idiot”.
But there are other times where he says, “Do it!”
It is just the push I need…and it works!
Maybe I am just lucky…I have someone who will tell me the truth, good or bad, an encourage me to at least keep trying.
I have a dreamer BF too and I am the “practical” one. What bothers me the most about his dreaming is that even though he schemes all these ideas and plans what he wants to do (which he rarely follows through with), he is totally boring in real life! He is content to going to the same 3 bars every weekend with the same friends, never suggests anything new for us to do together, doesn’t like to try new foods, etc. My frustration lies more within the fact I know he has the capacity to think big yet is content to live a mundane life.
Any advice for a girlfriend who is dealing with this?
Well, the first thing to realize is that he may never change. It is a possibility, and better to find that out prior to marriage than after, just in case you were considering a truly long term relationship
That said - YOU pick a new place for the two of you to go once in awhile. Don’t wait for him to do it.
Realize that if you’ve got a “dreamer” MOST of those dreams/ideas/notions will NOT be put into practice. There just isn’t enough time in a human lifetime.
He might just need a nudge. If he suggests or mentions something that’s reasonably possible give him that nudge. As an example, if he says he wants to be a professional writer then make sure he has some time in the day dedicated to writing (as the organized person perhaps you could assist with scheduling?). If he wants to be a musician suggest the same - perhaps suggesting that when he comes home from work he practice his music for an hour before sitting in front of the TV or before hitting the bar on the weekend? It could be that all his life he’s been discouraged from following through on his ideas and thus he doesn’t know how to go about it.
Or maybe he just likes dreaming but is content with his boring routine.
I am the dreamer in our relationship.
My biggest slap in the face recently, the “this depression has gone TOO FAR” moment, was reading this thread yesterday, and realizing that… I have no more dreams. I gave them up. I figured that I wasn’t going to acheive them, so I should just let them go. Don’t allow them to happen, because they were just… dreams.
Folks, sometimes a dream is all there is standing between life and death. I’ve been perfectly willing, yea, eager, to die for the past year or so. What was there to look forward to? I’ll never own my own business, and I’d fail if I tried again. World travel isn’t going to happen. I’ll never find that perfect job that keeps me happy for more than 6 months. The cabin up north? The organic herb farm? Pffft.
Why live?
The other day I came across a very small dream, that I could set far enough in the future to give me some breathing room. It is a small dream, and by the time it comes due, I may not even need it anymore. But, it will keep me alive while I try to figure out how the rest of them got waylaid.
But enough about me.
You say your husband is tired, plays games and hangs out on the computer. Check. Doesn’t pursue dreams. Check. Doesn’t seek out new social situations. Check. You don’t communicate much. Check.
Depression? Please check. Dreams may be all he’s got, in his own heart.
(Oh - and just to be perfectly clear, my spouse, JustThinkin, is not the cause of my dream-killing - she is a practical, yet understanding model of “living with a dreamer”. It was actually the suggestion of a therapist I had been seeing. Didn’t realize until yesterday how badly that ended up.)
Just my own anecdote, as a dreamer.
My ex-wife was a dream-squasher. She actively and purposefully put down my dreams, because she felt I could better spend my energy pursuing something “practical”, which equated to doing what she wanted when she wanted. In the last few years of our marriage, I stopped dreaming, mainly because the only person I felt able to talk to them about was open about her dislike of dreaming in general. I fell into a deep and almost inescapable depression. Seriously, the only thing keeping me going was wanting to be a good father to my kids. I had lost all of my creative spark, my drive, and really my will to live.
The divorce should not have surprised me, or hurt me as badly as it did. It almost pushed me over the edge…but strangely, once I was away from her, out on my own…the depression started getting bearable. Now, a bit over a year later, I’ve begun to actively dream again. I find myself able to pursue my little spurts of inspiration, and that freedom leads to larger sparks, bigger dreams. Every time I pursue one, no matter how fruitless, it’s like I’m getting a bit of my soul back. I’ve been off depression meds now for nine months, and I don’t feel like I will ever need to go back.
My ex was not a malicious person. She just couldn’t see value in “dreaming” because it wasn’t practical to her. She thought suppressing my nature and trying to focus it in directions she found practical was doing me a favor. It honestly nearly killed me.
For what it’s worth, that’s my story. Take from it what you will.
Dreamers, all this talk of “squashing dreams” is starting to make me feel seriously misunderstood.
What I thought I was doing was saying to my husband: do something about your dreams! Choose the dreams you want to follow, and follow them! DO something about it!! Less talky, more doey! And please, be a little more realistic in your assesment of which dreams to follow.
What could be wrong about that?
Maastricht - But that wasn’t what you were saying, even if that was your meaning. You were basically calling him a loser with no follow-through, as far as I would see it.
If you want to encourage him, be encouraging. I can understand how frustrating it would be to see someone want to do big things and never take the first step. Many people dream big - most people don’t trust others enough to let them know their dreams. I think just saying something like - “That’s a good idea, dear. What would you need to start on first?” Or even just “That’s a good idea!” Not ever idea or plan can or will be foloowed through, but dreaming out loud is like taking a walk in a park, pretend you had as big a yard.
StG
Even if that’s what you’re saying (and your OP doesn’t sound like it), maybe he’s not looking for that. Maybe he’s exercising his mind. If he worked out on a treadmill, would you chastise him for not reaching a destination?
I have a vague memory here that I’ve always attributed to you ( or maybe Marinee, as you are both from that part of the world.) and if I am wrong, please correct me.
Doesn’t your genius-brilliant father live in third world countries developing useful things for locals?
This thread has given me a lot of insight about myself. I thank everyone for it.
Maastricht, I think you’re thinking of your husband’s dreams in the wrong way. To you they’re goals, or desires atleast. To your husband they’re just something to do. No more real then a game of Super Mario World. If he achieves some of those dreams they’ll be replaced with other dreams. The value to him isn’t in the doing, it’s in the dreaming.
If something is truly important to him he’ll figure out a way to do it.