Whose Dream Wins?

We talk a lot about building a life together, but what happens when two people  want different things out of life, What happens when your dreams are different?

One dreams of living near the beach. The other dreams of mountains. One wants adventure. The other wants roots. One wants to downsize and one wants to stay.

Whose Dream Wins?

In this episode we take a look at  a question that never seems to get a clear answer:  When two people love each other but their dreams don't match, whose dream wins?

In this episode, we will talk about how our dreams evolve throughout life, why not all dreams carry the same weight, the difference between compromise and sacrifice, and how two autonomous people can built one shared life without one person losing themselves.

The conversation will breakdown dreams into three (3) categories:  Some dreams are  preference dreams, identity and contingent dreams.

The tug of war between staying "I" and becoming "we", and how compromise can actually wreck your dreams that matter most, and what it actually takes to protect both people's dreams over a lifetime together.

If you ever wondered how to dream different things and build a life together, this episode it for you.

Enjoy!

Joanne Demers

The Aging Mask- A Lifestyle Medicine Podcast

(949) 236-1529- Text Me.

Follow along on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theagingmask

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, welcome back to the Aging Mass Podcast, a lifestyle medicine podcast where together we explore lifestyle, wellness, and our everyday choices that shape the way we age. I am Joanne Demurs, your weekly wellness companion. Thank you for being here. Today's episode starts with a question. And I think about this question a lot as I'm getting older, especially now that I'm getting older. And that question is whose dream wins? I am talking life dreams, the dreams that each of us have about how we want to spend the one life that we've been given. Maybe you've always dreamed of living near the ocean or living in a cabin in the woods. Maybe your dream is to move countries and be an expat. Or your dream is to retire and play golf every day and play every golf course in America. Maybe your dream is to open up that business you always wanted. These are all great dreams. Not one of them is wrong. They are just different. They're just different. There's going to be a lot of food for thought today. But before we get started, I just wanted to clarify what today's episode is and isn't about. It's not about money. It's not about who earns more money or who has the final say because they make more money and they pay the bills. I realized that financial realities absolutely matter. And most of the time, money is the driver of the dreams available to us. But this is not about what you can afford today. That conversation, it's not about that. And it's not about right and wrong. The conversation today is simply what happens when two people dream different things. And when their two dreams don't match, whose dream wins? Whose dream wins? I think the first thing that trips people up when we talk about dreams in a relationship is we talk about the dream as if there's only one. Like there's only one dream, as if each person has one perfect vision for their life. And the only question is whether their partner supports it or stands in the way. But I don't think it works that way. I think most of us are carrying multiple dreams at the same time. There's dreams that you had at 22, the one about living abroad, traveling, living the van life, and working just to eat. Then your life changed. And the dream you had at 35 probably looked a little different. Probably was a little less adventurous, more practical, had more stability. Maybe you dreamt of a house, a certain kind of a career. And later a new dream appears. A dream of freedom, of purpose, of reinvention. Our dreams don't stay frozen in time. They grow with us. And dreams don't always carry the same weight. Some are shared dreams, some are deeply personal dreams, some are practical, and some are non-negotiable dreams. And knowing the difference changes everything about how you fight for them. And that's important because when two people build a life together, they're not just bringing one dream into the relationship. They are bringing a dream for every version of themselves that they become along the way. Now, if we treat each dream equally as equally important and as is equally non-negotiable, we will eventually find ourselves stuck arguing over dreams that don't carry the same weight. And the first step is learning to recognize the difference in your dreams. And I put them in three categories. The first one is the preference dreams. These are the I would love to do that dream. These are the dreams that make life fun. You want to live in a certain city, you dream of owning a particular kind of house or traveling to another country. These are great dreams to have because they matter, they are flexible, you can negotiate them, you can postpone them, or you can even let them completely go without feeling like you've lost out. Preference dreams are dreams that you can grieve the loss and move past. Secondly, are identity dreams. And identity dreams sit a little deeper. These are deeper. Identity dreams are the dreams connected to who we are, who we are becoming, and what gives our life meaning. They're not just about what we want to do, they are about the person that we want to be. Identity dreams aren't really about a specific outcome. Identity dreams are more about purpose. Now you block an identity dream, and it doesn't just feel like a disappointment. It feels like giving a piece of meat out of yourself. Feels like just giving up a big piece of yourself. And then we have the contingent dreams. And these are the dreams that rarely happen without a partner's participation. These dreams really depend on mutual agreement. For example, you can't retire to Italy together if your partner doesn't want to leave the state. And you can't sell your house if your partner wants to stay in your house. You can't build a future that requires two people when only one person shares the dream. Those are contingent dreams. Now sorting dreams matters because couples often fight as if every dream is an identity dream, when really half of them are preference dreams. They could bend, and then some are contingent on circumstances that could change. The fights that actually threaten a marriage are the ones where two real identity dreams collide, where compromising doesn't feel like flexibility. It feels like that you don't matter anymore. This brings up another little tension that sits underneath almost every whose dream wins conversation. And it's the pool between autonomy and merger. Now, autonomy is the part of you that needs to remain a distinct person with your own dreams, your own ambitions, your own trajectory, and your own answer to what am I here to do? Now, merger, this is the part of a good partnership that wants to become a we. It's the part of a good relationship that wants to become a we, a merger, shared decisions, shared direction, and shared dreams. It's a life that is genuinely built together rather than two lives running parallel. And again, neither one is right or wrong. Both are healthy, but the problem is they pull in opposite directions. And most couples never clearly decide how much of each they want. They just default into one or the other, and it's usually decided by whoever pushes harder or whoever feels guiltier. The goal isn't merger and it's not complete autonomy. It's in between. A relationship where two individuals remain fully themselves while intentionally building a dream, neither could have created alone. That's a good in-between. Okay. It's a relationship where two individuals remain fully themselves, so they're fully autonomous, while intentionally merging, building a dream neither could have created alone. And I think that we assume that growing old together means molding into the same person with the same wants and the same dreams. That's not the case. Marriage does not erase individuality. Even though we become partners, we remain autonomous. We continue to grow, we discover new passions as we age, we let go of old ones. We change and sometimes we change dramatically. And that's where things get even more complicated because eventually a lot of couples arrive at a crossroads where love isn't the problem. The dreams are. Dreams become a problem because one person gets their dream, the other gives theirs up, one sacrifices, the other moves forward. Think about that. We each get one life, just one. We have to think: should the one person that we love the most be expected to give up their dream that makes them happy, feel alive and healthy and successful? On the other hand, is pursuing your dream worth risking the relationship you've spent decades building? There's no easy answer. There is no easy answer. That's why this conversation matters. And when it comes to this conversation, we hear a lot about the word compromise. We hear the word compromise at nauseam. And I think the word compromise gets really overused. The instinct most couples reach for when their dreams collide is compromise. Obviously, it's compromise. Let's meet in the middle, we'll split the difference. Sometimes that does work. Sometimes it really does work. But remember, a lot of dreams are just preferences, and preferences do compromise well. But there's a trap hiding inside the word compromise. It's called the compromise trap. And this happens especially when it's applied to identity dreams. When it comes to identity dreams, a compromise isn't always a solution. You want to know why? Here's the problem compromise is just a smaller version of two bigger dreams, leaving both people with only half of what they wanted. But you don't actually get half of it. You don't get half a career or half of feeling free. You get a version of the dream so diluted it barely resembles the original dream. And both of you are going to end up resentful because one person feels like they gave up something huge and meaningful for something that mattered less to them in return. And the other feels guilty for having taken anything at all. I've seen this show up as one partner moves for the other's job for now, and that now becomes seven, 10, 15, 20 years. One person agrees to wait on having kids or agrees to wait on starting a business, then waiting becomes permanent. Compromise applied to all the wrong kinds of dreams doesn't split the difference. It slowly starves one person's dream to death while the other person tells themselves that it was fair. It's not fair. Now, the alternative isn't refusing to compromise, it's just getting honest about what category the dream falls into before you start negotiating. And this got me thinking about something. You know how we hear a lot of times that couples separate when they're empty nesters, and an empty nester, just so you know, means the kids have all left home. They all have their big kid jobs. Now it's just you and your spouse or you and your partner. You hear about a lot of divorce that happens then, and most couples say it's because they don't have anything to talk about, they have nothing in common. I was thinking maybe that is true for some, but what if for others it's actually more than that? What if it has to do with the question who's whose dream wins? Now hear me out, okay? Just hear me out. For decades, life required you to be a we in building careers, raising kids, paying bills, running a household, meeting everyone else's needs. Then suddenly all those responsibilities are getting lighter. And once they disappear, your individual dreams that you were putting on hold begin demanding a lot of attention. They are getting louder and louder. And for the first time in a long time, the I starts speaking again. What do I want? How do I want to spend my next chapter? And FYI, these are not selfish questions. The challenge now is that there are two people asking them and the answers aren't always the same. And maybe the goal here isn't compromise. Maybe the goal is making sure neither person's just dreams disappear. Now, a healthy real compromise has a future. It isn't one person's dream disappearing forever. But do you think that that's really the case in empty nester divorce? Because you want to pursue your dream now. And you don't want anyone blocking it. I don't know. That just got me thinking about it. I think that dreams I think I personally do think dreams become a problem in a marriage. I do. I'm just saying. And if you choose to build a life with someone, we need to learn how to protect both people's dreams over the course of a lifetime. And I don't think protecting each other's dreams means making sure every dream comes true. Life doesn't always work that way. I think we should make sure both dreams continue to matter, that no one's dreams become invisible, and that neither person stops talking about what they want because they've already decided that the answer is no. Sometimes it does mean taking turns. And maybe one person's dream does come first and the other comes later. Sometimes there is a creative solution. Maybe two people find a path that honors more of each dream than either expected. And sometimes there isn't a creative solution. Sometimes two dreams genuinely point in different directions. This doesn't mean someone is selfish or unreasonable or a bad partner. It simply means two people are trying to build one shared life while each carrying their own vision of what a meaningful life looks like to them. Maybe protecting each other's dreams isn't about guaranteeing the outcome. It could be just making sure that each person's dream is heard, respected, and considered. Because even when two people choose the same life, they never stop being two people. The dreams that we have carried with us for decades, they finally have the time and the space to come to life, to breathe. The kids are grown, the careers are established, our obligations begin to change, and suddenly the dreams that we have tucked away, we've tucked away for years, begin asking, if not now, when. Nobody wins alone, and nobody should have to lose alone either. The life we have is short and it's supposed to be shared. That's what life's about. It's supposed to be shared, and that doesn't mean it's supposed to be identical for both people in it. That's all I have for today. As always, talk about this one with someone. It's always better out loud than in your head. Thank you again for listening. Until next week, live in gratitude, keep on moving, and go live your best day yet. Enjoy. If you enjoyed this episode and just can't wait to hear and learn more, don't forget to subscribe to the Aging Mask, a lifestyle medicine podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. So please leave a review on the Aging Mask Instagram. Or if you don't have socials or you're taking a break, feel free to text me at the Aging Mask, 949-236-1529. Again, 949-236-1529. We can talk about this episode or any of my prior episodes. Let's have a conversation. I'm here and I'm ready to listen, and I would love to help where we can. Talk to you next week.