Talking About Your Dreams

I’ve long been an advocate for a weekly date night with your wife. For many couples, that’s the only time that they get to spend together, without kids, relatives and friends. Yet, couples need that time together, so that they can communicate and bond.

For some reason, we spend a lot of time bonding together when we’re dating; but then, once we’re married, we don’t seem to have the time to do so. I know that all those guys out there who say they don’t have time to go out with their wives would suddenly have time, if they didn’t have a wife and were instead going out with a girlfriend. So, just treat your wife as if she was your girlfriend.

Speaking of dating, remember how much more fun it was to talk to your wife when you were dating, than it is today? Why is that? Basically, it’s because when you were dating, you were talking about your dreams, and now all you talk about it reality. Even worse, what you usually talk about is some sort of problem or other.

Clearly, talking about dreams is much more interesting and fun than talking about problems. So, where did this change come from and why did we let it happen? Actually, I don’t think we could have stopped it from happening, even if we tried. Life has problems and we have to find ways of working through them.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t still talk about dreams, though. Oh, we might have to make a conscious effort to do so, but that’s not the same as saying that we can’t do it. All we have to do is pick a topic to dream about and start talking.

So, the next time you take your wife out, say tonight for example, be ready. Have a topic already picked out, which will help you talk about dreams. Something like:

• If we had a million dollars, what would we do with it?
• If we knew we had only one month to live, what would we do with that time?
• If we could build a house any way we wanted, no worries about cost. How would we build it? What would we have in it? Where would it be?
• If we could change one bad thing in the world, what would be the most important thing to change?
• If we could go on vacation anywhere, where would we go? What would we do?
• If God allowed us to do any one thing for Him, what would be the most important thing to do?

I hope you get the idea with these examples. You don’t have to use one of them, even though you are welcome to do so. But, there’s no reason why you can’t come up with your own theme for your “dream conversation.” Remember, there’s no good answers or bad answers to this, there’s just answers.

The important thing about this is that when we talk about our dreams, we talk about the inner person; our hopes and desires. That’s the type of talk that women want, not talk about problems paying the bills or problems with the kids. They get plenty of that, but they want talk that will center on the heart.

Now, I know that we, as guys, have trouble talking about what’s in our hearts. This trick should help. But, there’s something that you need to know about you, before you start. That is that most of us hide our true inner self from our wives. Yep, we do that.

You see, as men, part of our nature is to defend our families. God created us with the attributes of violence and aggressiveness for just that reason. Not so that we could beat our wives and kiddies, but so that we could protect us. Well, everyone knows that if you’re fighting someone, the last thing you want to do is let them know your weaknesses.

Here’s what happens, before we get married and during our honeymoon, we lay our hearts wide open to our wives. Everything is peachy and we don’t hide a thing. Then, along comes the day where we have our first fight. Suddenly, we realize that it’s dangerous letting our guard down, because she can use what we’ve said against us. Ouch! From then on, we’re like the proverbial clam.

Well, if you’re going to talk about dreams, you’re going to have to open up and quit being a clam. If you have trouble with that, make sure that you’ve forgiven your wife for any time she’s used something that you said against you. Forgiveness is the best cure for the clam.