Why Dreaming as a Couple Benefits Your Marriage

Most marriages face easy seasons and difficult seasons. This has definitely been the case for my marriage! I’ve noticed that, regardless of what type of season we’re in, my husband and I are happier and closer if we keep dreaming together about our future.

My husband and I are big on setting goals, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. When we set goals, we’re identifying specific things we are going to take concrete steps to achieve by a specified date. Dreams are just things we’re thinking about. They may inspire us to set goals, but they themselves are often unrealistic or just for fun.

If you’ve read much around here, then you know that I am a very practical person. You may be wondering why I think dreaming as a couple is beneficial given it doesn’t really accomplish anything. It’s because, believe it or not, I think dreaming does accomplish several things. Dreaming benefits our marriages in a number of ways.

How dreaming together benefits your marriage

• It helps you understand your spouse’s wants and needs. When you share your dreams, you reveal a lot about your wants and needs. This is because, unlike goals, dreams don’t have to be realistic. When you dream, you just think of ideas—sometimes silly, sometimes unrealistic, sometimes outright audacious, etc. Consider how you’d answer this question: “What would you do if someone gave you a billion dollars?” Having a billion dollars is a dream because it’ll never happen. However, what you’d do with the money reveals a lot about your desires, your priorities, your concerns, the causes that matter to you, the people that matter to you, etc. When we learn about our spouses’ wants and needs by dreaming together, we have this knowledge to apply to other areas of our marriages.
• It’s fun. Dreaming together is kind of like writing a short story together. You can be creative. You can be silly. You can embellish the tale and add as many (or as few) twists and turns as you’d like. Doing this can be as enjoyable and entertaining as reading together or watching a show together. We need relaxation and recreation in our marriages. Dreaming can be part of this.
• It provides inspiration for goal setting. As I noted above, dreams and goals are not the same thing, but dreams sometimes provide inspiration for setting goals. You and your spouse may dream about traveling the world. This can inspire you to set financial goals so you have money available to travel. You may dream about opening a restaurant. This can inspire you to set goals related to saving money and learning about business and culinary arts so you can one day open a restaurant. You may dream about someday playing with your grandkids (or great-grandkids). This can inspire you to set health-related goals so you are healthy enough to be romping with them. As you can see, examining our dreams is a great place to start when we sit down to set goals.
• It fosters hope. Hope is when you desire something with the expectation of fulfillment. Every marriage faces challenges: health issues, surviving life with a newborn, job loss, conflicts with extended family, etc. To make it through these times with your marriage intact, it is critical that you feel a sense of hope. Sometimes this is hope that you will make it through today and sometimes it is hope that a situation will improve. Dreaming fosters hope because it gives you a momentary escape and provides insight into how things could someday be. When we face challenges as couples, we can use dreaming to get our eyes off our current circumstances and to remind ourselves that God’s plans for us are good (Jeremiah 29:11).

Do you and your spouse dream together? Why or why not? If you do, in what ways does dreaming benefit your marriage?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home, Over the Moon, and Busy Monday.