Dreaming Together: 3 Essential Tips for Having a Happy Future as a Couple

Dreaming together as a couple can be one of the most exciting and uplifting conversations you can have! After all, was not that a big part of what you did when you first started going together?

Dreaming of your future family, future career move, future house, or anything in the future can even help lift some of the present day stresses away.

Dreaming together is one of the ways in which you reaffirm your commitment to each other and to the future. If you can’t dream about the future, you won’t have a future together. Think about that!

Dreaming together requires you to use your imagination, speculate, and consider options for how your shared life will change, develop, and deepen as the years pass.

Why is it important?

It will help you to stay open to your own and your partner’s practical, emotional, and spiritual needs. It will also help you speculate about possibilities. You can experiment together with ideas about activities and commitments that matter to you. At the same time, you will be unifying the vision of your future as a couple.

How can you create dreams together that will bring you closer?

When you dream together, you grow together, not apart, because you are both moving toward the same future. There are 3 simple but essential ways to do this.

1. Have conversations about your dreams

By having a conversation, you can dig deeper into why certain dreams are so important to you. Maybe growing up your family moved a lot, and always rented. For you buying a house and staying in a preferred community is very high on your priorities. But maybe your partner was forever “stuck” in a little town he could not wait to leave, and his dream is to move around without the “encumbrance” of ownership. Can you both agree on that? Or do you need to find a middle ground that accommodates both your needs?

You will review values. You will think about both your career opportunities. You will think about other areas like health, children, spirituality, finances, travel, etc.

2. Make the dreams vivid and realistic

Visuals stick to your brain better than words. Draw, make a collage, make a vivid description of how reaching your dream will look like, find pictures. Whatever it takes to make your dreams as alive as you can.

Do you want to buy a house together? Start browsing the market around you. Think about curb

appeal and how much work you both are willing to do on the yard. Talk about what kind of layouts you might want. Collect pictures of possible places, look for samples of paint colors, have a picture of your dream house somewhere where you can see it every day.

Now, one thing is to want a house, another totally different one is to find common ground and to think about the work involved in keeping a house. You both might like an older house with “character.” That will be the vivid dream. But if none of you is handy at all, you will need to factor in hiring people to help you with the maintenance an older house requires. That would be the being realistic part.

3. Make up a detailed plan, with deadlines, that you can start acting upon

For example, if one of your dreams is to go on a cruise for your next year vacation, not only look at which cruise, itinerary, and cruise line you want, but also, start saving a fixed amount every pay check. You would be surprised how giving up something small can help you save.

A couple I know had always wanted a vacation to Europe, but felt they could never afford it. We were talking about it and, noticing that both smoked, I asked them how much they spent on cigarettes every month. We did the math, and to their surprise, they found out that what they were spending on cigarettes would be more than enough for their dream trip. That gave them the willpower to stop smoking, and instead start saving that money. A year later they sent me a card from Italy, where they were having the time of their lives!

Your dreams need actions in order to to become real. Start dreaming together with your spouse today!

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Dr Ada Gonzalez Marriage & Family Therapist

Ada Gonzalez is an LMFT and Ph.D in Organizational Behaviour from Union Institute & University. With more than 30 years of professional practice, Ada loves to help people solve their relationship issues. She helps people navigate important life transitions and safely conquer new challenges, while... Read more balancing togetherness and individual growth. Read less

(Ada Gonzalez is also listed in Best Marriage Therapists in Millford)