Pursuing Your Dreams and Growing While Married

It’s so easy to get caught up in fears that if you pursue spiritual growth, start that business you’ve always dreamed of, get that graduate degree in your 50s, or take up an adventurous hobby, it will tank your marriage.
Before we start on this great new adventure, we fear obstruction. Once we find our way around the imaginary or real obstacles, we fear growing apart if our spouse doesn’t drop everything and join us. If we keep going beyond this, we fear we’re growing so much that we’ll lose respect or interest for our partners.
Some of us, the ones with great imaginations, can run through all three of these fears in the first hour after we come up with a dream to pursue.
And if we don’t pursue the dream, the fear can wreck the marriage much more surely than if we do pursue it.
Don’t let it stop you. Pursue your dream. Treat obstruction as caring, and share your joy at going after you dream. Make new friends who share your passion for the real work of your new dream, friends who will drop everything and help, so your marriage won’t suffer. And remember to keep asking with an open heart about everything your spouse is mastering while you’re mastering this. Make a happy, healthy marriage part of your dream and then go after that dream!