“Help - I married a visionary! They have all these
great dreams and ideas for what they want in the future, but I have no idea how
it will ever happen. All I can think about is how much it’s going to cost and
how we are never going to be able to afford bringing all of those visions to
reality.”
Does this sound like a problem in your marriage? In
many relationships, there is often a dreamer and a more practical person. It
does not always start out this way, but there is an inherent need in life to
dream about the future while managing the demands of the present. Over time and
throughout marriage, we unofficially decide who gets permission to dream and
who gets to be practical. Why does this happen? Because each person has a
history that they want to fulfill; part of it is their personality, and another
component is station and place in which they live now.
Let’s start with history. Each of us draws heavily
from our childhood experiences and its influences. Our parents and our position
in the family (like it or not) heavily influence the way that we see the world.
Perhaps your parents told you to dream and shoot for the moon, which naturally
lays the foundation for a visionary. If not, maybe your parents expected perfection
and high marks in school, and for you, that meant hard work and discipline. No
time for dreaming there. While most of us probably had a blend of both
attitudes, it is these early years of our childhood, and our family values that
shape our orientation toward dreams and dealing with the practical matters of
living.
From our early influences, we start to see the
world in a certain way. That is the nurture component of who we are. The nature
component, on the other hand, leaves us with predispositions toward dreaming or
practicality. The formation of our personality is semi-fixed by the coding that
we are born with. Personality profile tests have shown the consistence with
which certain characteristics remain constant over time. A common example is
our preference for extroversion or introversion. Please note that I said “preference,”
which means most of the time that is
the way that we experience the world. We inevitably all experience to varying
degrees the other end of the continuum, too.
Combining our early childhood experiences with our
given personality type, we end up in the adult world ready to forge our path. Whether
we are aware of it or not, our history and personality shape the decisions we
make about where we live, who we spend time with, the type of work we engage in
and ultimately who we marry. It is in marriage that we find two worlds of
history and personality colliding over what we think is love, which in reality
is a deep need to be connected with another human and to have unfulfilled needs
met.
While in our culture we are infatuated with
romantic love, we must come to see that it is far more complex and dynamic. A
quick Google search of "types of love" will produce loads of
interesting results. Yet what is important to keep in mind is that there are various
types of love and needs we are trying to fulfill. The question is why? Often,
opposites attract to meet unconscious and unspoken needs. Fulfilling the need
to dream and to be practical is a major part of living and an inherent part of
the person that we marry. Every person has the capacity to dream and be
practical, but it is because of each person’s unique path in life that they
tend toward one direction or the other on the continuum. As one partner moves in
direction A, there is a natural need for the other partner to move in direction
B to keep things in balance.
Here is where it gets tricky: most couples are dynamic. One person is
not fully responsible for dreaming while the other is fully responsible for
practicality. The roles often shift given different areas of living, such as
parrenting, saving for the future, or careers. It is as if couples dance
through life trying to manage their unfilled dreams while meeting the demands
we all face. They are constantly calling their partner back into balance, as
their relationship can only handle so much tension.
Remember that when you are getting frustrated, angry or overwhelmed with
your partner’s preference for dreaming or practicality, it is often their
reaction to your opposite response. Spend time coming to the other end of the
continuum, it will change your dynamic.
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