I honestly don’t think you are trying to hurt your husband, but I also don’t think that you understand him very well at all. It really looks like you are judging him by YOUR standards, and he’s coming up short.
Sort of. My eccentric perfectionistic father lives in the same town I live, here in the Netherlands, but otherwise, yes.And the parallel I see is that he, too, has so much more ideas then he can put into action. But his dreams are not pleasant daydreaming, but instead he is whipped forward by them, but in too many directions at once, going nowhere like a cart pulled by too many wild horses.
I see it as doing him a favour to encourage a few horses, and cut the reins to others, so there is focus and direction. The way I see it, ideas need pruning, like a fruit tree, so some branches get more light and air and can bear fruit.
So, with the majority of my husbands ideas, I say, “don’t invest energy in that one, you’re not going to follow on that anyway”. But there are a few that I encourage.
And there’s something else. I just realised that my remark “You are not going to follow up on that idea” is also an shield against my own disappointment. When you are living with a dreamer, and that dreamer occasionally has plans that should benefit you both, there is a big likelyhood that you’re going to be, well, disappointed. By such a kinda bitter pre-emptive remark, I refuse to let him take credit for doing me a favour that, by long experience, (even when I did eagerly and encouragingly wait for him to follow up on his plans) I know he’s not going to do anyway.
Correct. To me, they are sort of promises, promises he makes to himself or to me.
Okay, I think I get this. (finally!:)) So, When my husband shares an idea with me, he just wants a sounding board? (I’m going to ask him too, but now I’m asking the other dreamers on this board). Because my irritation stems from feeling he wants credit for his ideas, (" Look how creative I am! You’re looking at the inventor of the next X breakthrough!" ). My dismissive attitude stems from my idea that he wants my opinion on how realistic an idea is. Which I guess he doesn’t.
I love this board. You guys are just as efficient as couples therapy, and a lot more fun, not to mention less expensive. 
Now for this, I’ve been there. According to what others have said, it’s not uncommon at all, and I’ve figured out my best bet is to smile and keep my mouth shut.
Remember what Jack Handy says: never criticize someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile away from them, and you’ve got their shoes.
My father, my sister and I are dreamers. My mother is not. More to the point, my sister, my father and I all execute on our dreams so we’re not the annoying never-do-its and my mom still doesn’t get excited for us (ex: I am 80% through b-school apps, my dad retired early and wrote a book and already has a few nibbles to publish and my sister is Chief Resident).
She doesn’t go so far as to crap all over us but it is Never Enough for her. No matter how much money my dad made, how many promotions he got, no matter how well my sister and I performed academically, fuck the fact that we chose careers SHE approved of…she’s so incredibly implacable about our excitement or eagerness to do stuff. When I got my GMAT scores and told my parents my father was jumping up and down and talking about which schools I was now qualified for and my mom was like “that’s so wonderful…now you really are never going to get married but it’s so nice that you studied hard and got your score. Maybe you could also think about getting married?”
Do we love her? Yes, it’s obvious she loves us intensely and my mom is a pretty formidable driving force with a way more stable emotional temperament who has done more than just sit around and quash us her whole life ;). But she bitches and moans that my sister and I don’t “talk” to her the way we do with our father and it’s because she has no tolerance for our imaginations so conversation with her is awkward. I mean, the last time I tried when I was telling her about surf camp and I started to get really excited about discussing Hawaii vs Costa Rica and she’s all “Thump, there’s a reason we call you ‘thump’”-in reference to the fact that I’m clumsy :rolleyes: My father loves her but having the same types of conversations with her over several years has resulted in him just tuning her out. That’s how they stay married, I guess. I just focus on letting her lecture me on her favourite subjects or talking about yoga and religion.
I guess it would be easy to hate her but I just end up feeling empathy because I know the background of why she is that way-but now I just tune her out and I don’t go out of my way to tell her things. I think that’s way more dangerous in a marital relationship than a parent-child situation.
Right. I have at least a dozen big dreams and my ex-wife and I have acted on a few of them to the point of being in magazines and newspapers but there is not a chance in hell that I will get all of them accomplished in my life although I don’t know which ones will work and which ones won’t. There are always lots of dreams held in reserve ready for when the opportunity strikes. That is a good thing in my opinion.
The only thing to be concerned about is if he acts on NONE of his dreams. That is stagnation and it is bad. Being a sounding board is part of being a good spouse so you should learn that skill anyway. Males and females are different and even people of the same sex have different personality styles. Listening skills are about the most important skills that you can have in any relationship and you usually don’t need to give any meaningful feedback. It is pretty easy. When in doubt, just say little to nothing.
Also, the comment about your son’s bath is incredibly offensive. Males are sensitive to that. I took care of my daughters by myself daily for hours at a time and often for days on end since they were 8 weeks old because their mother traveled a lot. I could do anything whatsoever for them (and still do) yet I got the belittling comments from people because I am their father and not their mother. Don’t do that. We don’t have the natural instincts to do it perfectly but fathers can absolutely learn to do it to as long as they don’t get their soul crushed just by trying.
Hmmm. I interpreted her comment about the bath very differently: I thought she praised him for getting the child to laugh instead of cry like he does when she gives him a bath.
That said, I’m something of a dreamer myself, and even I find myself being driven batty by dreamier people. I know from experience, though, that most of the dreams will run their course with time, so I try to be patient. I understand that it can be hard for non-dreamers because a lot of my “what ifs” have been met with oddly defensive “why are you asking me if X is possible? I don’t know!” when I don’t want to really know how to bring it about, but to just share the fact that I found the idea of X interesting.
Unless you are more of an expert on the subject/“idea of the moment” of the day than he is, your opinion of how good it is would be meaningless. And given that he came up with the idea in the first place, there is a fair likelyhood he has given it at least a little thought as well.
He probably doesnt need approval or praise for his ideas except a rare one now and then.
Like others have said, if you consider it a hobby/diversion of his, he doesnt need praise so much as not constant negativety about it.
Just don’t dismiss them outa hand. Its irritating as hell. My SO does the same thing once in great while. Not so much with grand ideas but just day to day life decisions. We can be planning to do something, I’ll have spent much time thinking about it (I am constantly thinking about things, mulling them over in my head). At some point, I might say something like rather than doing XZY, lets do ABC. And have good, logical reasons for doing so. Before the echo of the C in ABC dies out, she will blurt out her dismisal. She aint no dummy, but I doubt she has the analytical speed and mental prowess of Commander Data either. Now, upon SOME REFLECTION about the idea she might well come up with a “thats a bad idea because”, but give me smidge of credit. If I have spent hours or days mulling something over, chances are she aint gonna ALWAYS find a fatal flaw in a fraction of second from first hearing of the idea.
When people do that, I think its another unpleasant variation of the “I am always right” mentallity. Why bother to give it a moments thought? I am sure I am right.
Reverse the parents and the comment. The problem should become more apparent.
Not that it matters much irt the OP, but I see where you’re coming from there, but in this case, offence was neither meant nor taken. We both know that my husband is more patient with our son then I am. Two weeks ago, I was in a hurry and wanted to wash our sons hair, quickly. That resulted in our son getting really upset, and wary of the bathroom even weeks later. So the fact that my husband managed to wash our sons hair that day without our son crying was something my husband told me with justifiable pride, and I agreed completely that he did a great job.
That is a very good thing. Fathers are often treated as second-class parents to young children no matter how good a job they do with childcare. It is doubly bad for me because mine are daughters even though I have always been able to do everything but breastfeed just because I really wanted to. Compliments in that regard are always welcome to fathers of young children and it means a lot if it is truly sincere.
A sounding board, exactly! They aren’t likely meant to be promises to himself or to you, but more like flights of fancy, which he bounces off you to see if they seem fancy to you as well. It doesn’t mean they will go anywhere - it just means that he takes pleasure from thinking of these things, even if he has no intention of following them anywhere, and he wants to share that pleasure with you. Saying “wow, that’s a neat idea babe” is likely all it will take to soothe his creative beast - he doesn’t need a realistic analysis, he just wants to share a cool thought.
I think a decent analogy of how it feels to have such things rejected is to compare it to sharing an emotional response - say, wanting to give your spouse an affectionate hug. The hug is nothing more than that, a way of showing your spouse that you are thinking of them and care for them and want to include them. When a hug is accepted, it feels good. When a hug is rejected, it makes your affections seem rejected, and makes you second guess having them in the first place. His dreams are the same thing - his sharing them is a way of showing affection, by wanting you to be part of even his most casual flights of fancy. Rejecting them, even for practical/realistic reasons, makes him hurt in a similar way rejecting a hug would.
Ok, maybe that wasn’t a decent analogy…does anyone follow what I was trying to say there?
Sigh…so true.
Maastricht, I have a possible solution to your problems. The first part is to be supportive of every non-illegal idea he has no matter how dumb. For example, I fully support my boyfriend’s desire to take boxing or kung-fu or whatever. I do not let him get very far in the “let’s learn ninjitsu and then put up an ad to be ninjas for hire on Craigslist” idea. Anything you would hire a ninja for would be illegal and that is exactly what I told him when he asked why I couldn’t support that idea.
The second part is that if he mentions the same idea fairly regularly for 3 months or more sit down and help him figure out how to make it happen. I am helping my boyfriend study for the LSATs and taking them with him for moral support so he can possibly be a lawyer someday. When we talked about his desire to hike the Appliachian Trail he came to the realization that it is not something that will happen in the first half of his life unless we win the lottery and he hasn’t mentioned it again since that realization.
The third part is the dreaming game. When you are lying in bed at night talking about whatever random crap before going to sleep give him a hypothetical dream to work out in his head. I helped him dream up where we would go, what we would do, and how we would get there if our economic situation in the US gets too horribly bad or if the political crap gets to a point where we feel like we are in danger (highly, highly unlikely but it was an interesting hypothetical to start from) so now if we feel like we have to leave the country in a hurry we have our top 4 international places to live and we know exactly what we would do for employment,etc. It gave him a dreaming outlet without any expectation of follow through. Next time I can sense him getting antsy we will play the What Kind of Restaurant Should We Open if We Ever Opened a Restaurant game and he can fantasize about decor, food choices, etc.
We do that too, pbbth. We have long, involved discussions of complete hypotheticals, and I really enjoy those.
Danger Will Robinson, Danger!
You are >< this close to turning into a Star Trek nerd
Yes, and it actually is a good analogy.
That is an entire new thought to me. I have that with silly fun conversations, but not with dreams/wishes. Interesting.
Actually, it was a really good analogy.
Huge things are wrong with that. You don’t want to dream, and you don’t want him to dream. You want to do, and only do. That’s what’s wrong. Doing is well and good, and it doesn’t sound like your husband is failing to do what needs to be done. Dreaming isn’t about finding a life path, or making things, or dear lord in heaven, planning something. Really. It’s about the beauty of the idea, the dream itself. A leaf isn’t beautiful because it nurishes the plant, it’s simply beautiful.
Doing is important. Dreaming is as well, and a dream worth having is worth sharing. When my wife’s depression gets out of control, what hurts me the most is that I have no one to share the beauty of the world, or the beauty of my dreams with; the hateful greyness takes that away from her.
As for the frequency of ideas, well, the sun rising over the water is pretty common where I live, but it’s still worth stopping to look at every morning. I hope I never reach a point in my life where I can’t see the sunrise as anything more than glare, or a dream as anything more than noise.
I have nothing really to add to this thread, but a sincere “thank you for starting it.” It really helped me realize that I’m not alone in my “dreaming.” My wife once asked me “Your mind is constantly racing, isn’t it?” (And it is! And she’s cool with that!) It’s like if I’ve got no creative outlet in my life, I manufacture one by coming up with ideas. Day dreaming, and planning logistics, is what puts me to sleep at night (and sometimes even keeps me awake!), and it’s what occupies my mind during flights, long drives, and free time. And it’s what fills up notebooks as I get the nuts and bolts out of my head.
Am I ADD or mental or weird? At this point in my life, I really don’t care. I’ve got a beautiful, supportive wife, a good job that keeps us comfortable, a beautiful baby boy, a great house…and lots of ideas to get me through the day. And I’ve got one big dream that I’m currently (and finally) working on turning into a reality, so that’s nice.
But again, thank you for this thread. It’s helped me realize that I’m not a borderline Schizo or unbalanced or alone. I just never realized that this “thing” that I do was an actual honest-to-goodness personality type.