Last year, my husband and I presented a marriage enrichment in which we challenged couples to look at their future dreams for their relationship. The premise was that dreaming about their future would help couples shape the choices they were making to see those dreams fulfilled.
We were inspired by something we read in the marriage preparation book Better Together, produced by the Dynamic Catholic Institute. The authors write, “God invites you to look into the future and see something amazing … When we fail to dream, we waste God’s gift of that ability.” Think about that quote. Gifts are things to treasure, not to squander. Yet do we get to a point in our relationships where we stop using the gift of dreaming to its fullest? Do we become complacent and maintain the status quo, instead of dreaming about bigger and better possibilities that still await us?
Writing that enrichment, my husband and I realized how much closer we had grown as a couple when we worked together toward fulfilling our shared dreams. Whether it was a small dream, like taking dancing lessons together, or a bigger one, like putting our children through college, when we worked as a couple in a shared purpose pursuing those dreams we grew in our appreciation of one another, deepened our intimacy and recognized each other’s strengths, while honoring each other’s weaknesses.
Looking back at our fulfilled dreams challenged us to begin dreaming new ones like visiting as many of the U.S. national parks as we can. This past July, my husband retired, and we put that dream in motion by heading out for a cross-country camping trip that will take us as far west as Montana and as south as Utah. God-willing, by the time you read this column, we should be somewhere in the Badlands of South Dakota, with a cache of new photographs and memories of another dream we made come true.
So, what about your dreams for your future as a couple? Are you sharing those dreams with one another? Are you dreaming together? What concrete plans can you make now so that those dreams don’t just stay dreams but become warm and life-giving memories for you?
We are approaching fall, a time when the natural world begins to shed its greenery and leaves in preparation for a long fallow season of hibernation. Some people dread this transition, because it signals the inevitable change from the warmth and bounty of long summer days to the cold and emptiness of dark winter nights. In between those two seasons, though, comes one of the most beautiful, autumn, abounding with colors and bountiful seasonal flavors. Change is all around — but don’t let it come just to the seasons; let it also be a time for you and your spouse to step out of your routine and dream big dreams for your relationship.
No matter your age or the number of years you have been together, it is never too late to dream. The time for dreaming is now. Share your dreams with one another and then, side by side, trusting God as your navigator, chase those dreams together. And in chasing those dreams, I hope you become a couple who, again, in the words of Dynamic Catholic, “see a future that is bigger and better than the past.”
By Mary-Jo McLaughlin