How to Get Your Husband on Track to Mutual Dreams
By Dr. Kevin Polk
Copyright 1999. All Right Reserved
http://www.timedoctor.com 

When you and your husband got married you had some mutual dreams. You talked about them some; they meshed, so you got married. Now it is years later and it's been a long time since you discussed your mutual dreams. Part of the reason is probably that you are both so darned busy with your jobs and family. Another is that it is sort of hard to get your husband to talk about such things. Men tend to keep that kind of stuff inside. Come to think of it, we don't talk all that much. That is because talking about anything deeper than sports or computers is scary stuff to a man. Enough has been written about why men think it's scary, so I won't repeat any of it here.  What you need is some talk from your husband about your mutual dreams. What you need is a strategy.

Now if you come at your husband head on with a question like, "Honey, I would like for you and I to sit down and discuss our mutual dreams," you are asking for trouble. You might as well go drop him in the middle of a dark highway in the high beams of a truck coming at him at 70 miles per hour. That is, he is going to look like a deer frozen in your headlights. Verbal parts of his brain are going to immediately shut down. He will suddenly only be able to speak in three-word sentences using one and two syllable words. So you will have to ease into this conversation so the verbal parts of his brain will still be working when you get to the conversation you want to have. Don't worry, it's fairly easy to keep that old brain of his active.

The secret is to do an end run, and the end you want to start on is his end. (Not his rear end, that's another article.) First tell him that some survey you heard about showed that men's primary dream from age 13 to 103 is to have sex. He will know that is true and he may or may not admit to it. Tell him you like that about him. Now you got that verbal area of his brain, among others, going full strength. With that out of the way you next tell him that the survey said after wanting sex, men's dreams were evenly split up between ____________, _____________, and ______________. You fill in the blanks with what you recall your mutual dreams were when you got married. Raising a family, owning a home, travel, advanced degrees, whatever you can recall. Now when you discuss those you will have him comparing himself to other men. He will like that, and he will want to do it better than those other men do.

In doing this exercise you will have gently reminded him about mutual dreams he probably continues to have, but he had forgotten about them. Us men are very task oriented, so the day to day tasks of life occupy our minds. We really don't mind talking about mutual dreams; we just need a little jump-start to the verbal parts of our brains. Once you get the conversation going you can playfully admit that you came up with the "survey" idea from a male writer who recommended it. Remind him that the marriage is a lot more fun and SEXY if you are both working toward some mutual dreams.

Got a problem with procrastination? A relationship problem? Money problem?
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