Mariage is thought to be this easy arrangement and in reality it is pretty freaking challenging. Yet this challenge isn’t without its rewards. When you and your wife work together towards a goal, it becomes a powerful experience. Yet it can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks when your wife doesn’t see your vision and even actively pushes against it.
This misalignment could be from a whole assortment of reasons and assumptions. These are all thoughts that both of you are facing. You are looking at the same scene from two completely different vantage points. So what do you do? How do you “fix” the problem? How do we convince our wife to trust us?
None of the questions is easy to approach because we are dealing with thoughts from you and your wife. So we have to be mentally ready for your wife to not accept any of our thoughts. It happens, and I will explain how you can press on if you still want to
Everything centers around thoughts.
As mentioned, many of your thoughts create your results. And one of the biggest examples of this is the parable of the violinist and the great maestro. All it takes is one thought to derail your motivation, your drive, and your passion for a project you’re wanting to complete. So if you’re wanting to keep continuing, even when your wife isn’t supporting you, or is not fully bought into your vision, you need that why. So that when you hit those rough times in your life, you can continue on your journey, refining your message and showing your wife exactly Why? What you’re doing is worth the time, money, and effort.
When your spouse believes there is nothing wrong.
This can also affect your relationship. When your wife does not see something wrong, or she doesn’t validate your worries. That your wife needs you to validate what you’re worried about, but we understand that there are times when it’s nice to have some sort of acknowledgment.
It is these particular instances in our relationships that we would like to be understood. However, how do you become better understood?
Seek first to understand before being understood.
This is where you have to understand where your spouse is coming from so that you know how to get there from where you’re at. When we are so busy, just trying to make our point, we miss the opportunities afforded to us that allow us to connect deeper with our wife.
When your wife believes that there’s nothing wrong, I understand that is just a thought. It’s not right. It’s not wrong. It’s just the thought she has about the circumstance. It contains no actual power over you. It honestly has no ability to stop you in your tracks.
The only time that what she says has any power over you is when you agree with what she says. If your wife says that what you’re doing is a scam, and you do not believe her, you will continue to press on with no problem. However, if you do agree with her, then that is going to truly drain the energy out of your motivation.
Understand what beliefs are
As mentioned in the section above, her thoughts are hers. And what she believes doesn’t necessarily hold fast. It’s just what she knows about life from her experience.
What she believes has no bearing on what your beliefs are. Yes, you and your wife may have some of the same beliefs, but a belief is nothing more than a thought that you perceive to be true.
So yes, your wife perceives your business idea as not to work, and she has her evidence to back up her assumption. At the same time, you have the evidence that you’re still going.
Now, there are external circumstances that you may have to contend with. Your wife may be behind you and encouraging you 100%, but as time goes on, her trust is going to wane because you haven’t shown her any fruits of your work. She may have a friend who does not understand the field that you are in and may tell her that what you are doing is wrong or dangerous, or unscrupulous. Is any of this true? That’s for you to decide. Do you want to believe what your wife’s friend or sister believes, or do you want to prove them all wrong? Is it even worth proving their thoughts and beliefs right or wrong? Maybe it’s just that you have to show them the way. That does take work, that takes determination. Do you have that determination?
What are you making their thoughts mean?
Another aspect of when your wife doesn’t see your vision is what do we make her thoughts mean about us? If she thinks what we’re doing is not working or never going to work? What are you personally making that mean about you?
This is the reason most people react the way they do. It is because of what they actually interpret another person’s thoughts and actions to mean about them.
Many people like to throw the phrase don’t judge me around when they receive negative thoughts or negative actions for something they perceive they did. Yet you won’t hear those same people say Don’t judge them if they get a pat on the back and say that they’re a great parent. That great parent is also a judgment against them. It’s just perceived to be a good judgment as opposed to a negative judgment.
So, what do you make your wife’s lack of interest in your project mean? What’s a different thought you could have about that current circumstance? Because you can get further down the road if you change how you perceive their actions to mean to you. All of a sudden, you can approach their frustration with love and compassion because you see they don’t understand what is it that you’re actually doing? You can approach the circumstance with more patience because you see that they don’t fully grasp the vision that you have in front of you.
Keep improving yourself
So what happens if you do start to agree with what your wife is saying? What do you do then? How do you get your mojo back? The truth is, first, you have to come to accept the fact that this is now an actual phase of your life. Do you come back to where you were, or do you move onto a different space?
If your vision is worthy of you continuing to push on, then you will be able to move on after you work on yourself. Come to understand why you were so easily derailed. What are some changes in yourself that you need to make?
Work on the four pillars and improve yourself. Show yourself what you’re capable of doing. When you do that, you’ll show your wife the results she needs to see. Your wife just wants to know you’re making headway and not just spinning your wheels.
Work on your thoughts.
As with everything, continue working on your thoughts. Pay attention to the thoughts and the emotions that you have resulting from those thoughts. Grow the skill of being able to pay attention to what you’re thinking so that you can catch the thoughts that don’t serve you.
Everything in life has to do with improving yourself. Even improving your marriage is nothing more than you improving yourself, getting better at leading your family to the greatness that they are. Showing your family exactly how marvelous they truly are. To be able to do that, you have to first work on yourself.
Is there a middle ground?
So, is there any middle ground? The answer is that it depends on you. It doesn’t depend on your wife doesn’t depend on your wife’s sister friend, or anybody else that’s in your life. It has everything to do with how you perceive, the circumstances, the thoughts that you have around that circumstance, the emotions that you feel about that thought, the actions you take when you feel that thought, and the results that come from those actions. Remember that E + R = O, or events plus response equals your outcome. It’s another way to look at the model. The middle ground is if you make the middle ground, and if you’re happy with that middle ground, and it serves you. If it does serve you, awesome, great, you move on, you accept that it is what it i,s and again you move on, you go to the next step that you have to make. What is that? That’s completely up to you.
