“I can’t wait for you to get this childish hobby out of your system!” Marie shouted as Harry laid on the floor, wrestling with one of his students.
And with that, she stormed out of the gym in a huff.
Harry looked embarrassed…as if his mother just told him he was too old to be still playing with GI Joe’s.
As students, we weren’t used to seeing our action-hero smacked down like this. There was an awkward silence for a few breathless seconds. To break the tension, I tossed our instructor an easy question about one of the grappling techniques he did earlier.
And Harry snapped right back into his true passion: teaching martial arts.
Our Superhero
By day Harry worked as a computer technician, but four nights a week, he was one of the top martial arts gurus in the south.
Harry was part of an elite squad of martial arts experts from the school of Jeet Kun Do (JKD), founded by the legendary Bruce Lee. And he taught the JKD system at night in an upstairs room at the local gym.
Harry had spent his whole life studying martial arts, and he was gifted at it. His octopus mind and limbs just thought in terms of foot placement, pivots, knots, rotation, and flow.
Although he was not a violent person, Harry knew how to fight standing up, on the ground, in tight quarters, with sticks, knives, and even everyday items like a lampshade, newspaper, or t-shirt.
Harry was a badass superhero!…Until his wife showed up.
When Harry Met Marie
Harry was handsome without even trying. However, his last breakup was tough on him, and he wanted to take some time to get to know himself better.
But when Marie walked into the room with her friend to try a free introductory class the gym offered members, Harry took notice.
Although she had little interest in studying martial arts, she was interested in getting to know Harry. He was her type of guy: strong, polite and, protective with that boyish-looking face and piano-key smile.
And Harry liked Marie too.
While she never took another one of Harry’s classes again, Marie was at the gym three days a week and would often drop by Harry’s studio to watch him teach.
And that’s when Harry met Marie.
They began talking every day, which eventually led to a serious dating relationship.
The Transformation
While Marie was all about climbing the corporate ladder, Harry was more of a Zen Buddhist. He was into fitness and health. But he also had a knack for figuring out complex puzzles — whether it was wiring a network server or trying to escape from an ancient Greco-Roman wrestling move.
Harry was content with his life as is. But if Marie had any chance of getting her established parents to approve of Harry, she’d have to clean him up a bit and get him on a better career path.
So she went to work.
Once they got engaged, she insisted Harry go back to school to finish his computer science degree. She then called some friends to help him get a better paying job with a large tech company. And she changed his wardrobe from sporty gym gear to slacks and buttoned-up dress shirts.
Not only did Harry take on a new look, but a new identity as well. However, a core part of him remained rooted in martial arts, and he continued training and teaching it at night.
Because of the gym’s location downtown, his students were mostly high profile lawyers, bankers, and other professionals. Not only did they revere Harry, but they also wanted to be like him. But ironically, Marie wanted Harry to be more like them, The Professionals.
Harry’s dream was to open a dojo school of his own someday. But he’d put all that on the back burner as their marriage plans and the purchase of a new home became a top priority.
However, once things settled down, Marie’s next project was to get him to move past that “silly, Kung Fu hobby,” as she liked to call it. And she wasn’t shy about letting Harry and others know that “it was time for him to grow up.”
Growing Apart
Harry was an easy-going guy. He didn’t need to be on top or in-charge.
However, Marie did.
She called most of the shots in the relationship. And Harry was compliant with her requests, except the continual hinting for him to “graduate from martial arts and become an adult.”
Her light-hearted jokes about Harry’s passion were cute, at first, but got more acidic as the relationship progressed. When she’d make fun of his hero, Bruce Lee, in her racially insensitive “Hi Karate!” caricatured voice imitation, it disturbed him at his core.
But he was no match for her wit or her high school champion debate skills. Instead of protesting, he began to share less of his dreams and passion with her. And he found a more receptive audience in his high profile students. They knew more about what was going in Harry’s life and head than did his wife.
We all want someone who “get’s us.” But when our significant other doesn’t respect our dreams, they can lose vital parts of us, even if we stay in the relationship.
On the day Marie came into the class to dress Harry down for the hundredth time, something changed in Harry. As she blew up, he checked out.
And that’s the moment that Marie lost Harry.
Competing Visions
Over the four years of their marriage, Marie was on an aggressive campaign to transform Harry into something he didn’t want to be. And they fought about these competing visions for Harry’s future a lot.
But none of this mattered anymore because Harry came home that night and asked Marie for a divorce. And as much as she tried, she couldn’t get the old agreeable Harry back in her arms.
He was gone.
When I asked Harry what happened, he said,
And that’s when Harry divorced Marie.
. . .
Our Two Lives
The problems that Marie and Harry faced are common in many relationships. However, it’s often the husband killing the wife’s dreams.
The irony is that couples meet and fall in love with each other as individuals. But often try to change the other into somebody else. Sometimes this transformation is welcomed. And sometimes, it can attack the core being of the other.
As lovers, we have to be highly aware of and sensitive to what we ask of the other to give up.
If you truly love your man or woman, my advice is to make sure you know what your partner’s dreams are. Don’t try to see their dreams from your eyes but theirs. And even if you don’t like that dream, don’t try to take that core part away from them.
Most of us have two lives living in us:
One life is the exterior provision life we walk around with every day as we go about our jobs and present ourselves to the public, family, and friends. This life is often dream-less.
But there’s another hidden life inside us — often buried under an old pile of fears and complexes — that represents our dream life. That life may be just a fantasy, a hobby or a more active passion we work on daily. It might be something we’ve always wanted to be, but were too afraid to pursue because of life’s circumstances.
But one of the most beautiful qualities of love is when our soul mates “see us” and “get us” as we are. However, when our partners dismiss our dreams as childish, it can crush the connective tissue that binds us.
If you love your partner, you’ll need to respect their dreams, even if they’re not your aspirations for them.
. . .
Skin Dreams
My wife loves skincare, hair, and fashion. She can talk about those topics all day. From the first day I met her in airport baggage claim, she has spoken to me about skincare for at least an hour or two a day. She should’ve been a dermatologist, but instead, her parents pressured her to go to law school.
Although I couldn’t see it initially, her dream of skincare goes beyond the epidermis into her core being.
As a child growing up in a small, white Romanian town, she was the only one in the family to come out with a dark complexion. Not only was she much darker than anyone in her family, but the entire village. The local kids and even some of her closest relatives teased her openly about her dark skin, which wounded her more than they could’ve imagined.
My wife is proud and grateful for her skin color today. But as a kid, all she wanted was to fit in, not stand out. And as a child standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she cried and dreamed of having a different skin color.
But fortunately, that wish never arrived, so she buffed and shined up her dark skin as best she could to make it look presentable. And a passion and knowledge for skincare arose from that trauma.
My wife is blessed to have turned her psychological scar into her profession as a skincare expert. But when I first met her, I didn’t know any of these details about her background. Like an idiot, I would make little wisecrack jokes here and there about her skin fixation. And I belittled her passion as a shallow, vanity-driven pursuit.
And without even realizing it, I too became one of her tormentors and yet another thief of her wounded dreams.
Crushing Words
Likewise, my wife has unintentionally dismissed my dreams as well before. Although the public part of me is a professional architect and business owner, she doesn’t always get my passion for martial arts or understand my new interest in writing.
Without meaning to, she has offended me numerous times about both of these passions, which just drove me to share them with others that do “get it.”
She even went as far as to ask me one night, “You’re not serious about this writing thing…are you?” She said this right after I’d achieved the distinction of top writer in a few categories, which I was incredibly proud of at the time. I couldn’t wait to share the big news with her, but then she trampled on my dreams with her comment and so I kept it to myself.
Was I too sensitive about this matter? Definitely!
But this is because she doesn’t know my backstory. As a kid, I wanted to be an English major and perhaps, dare dream, a writer or filmmaker. But my father shot that dream down as a “job for losers with no ambition” never to be brought up again, until this year, when the other love of my life — my wife — shot it down in a similar manner.
Don’t Crush Dreams
Most of us don’t realize it, but we crush our lovers’ dreams all the time.
But after my wife’s fourth stabbing remark, I had to let her know how much her comments injured me. And how much they shut me down from wanting to share that part of myself with her.
When I compared it to her skin fixation, she immediately understood the sensitivity. While she still doesn’t get why a person would work for days on an article to get 35 online views, she is willing to accept it as a dream I need to pursue.
Love Your Lover’s Dreams
The moment you lose your lover is when you can’t see their dreams. And it’s when they stop sharing their life with you.
If you care about your lover, love their dreams too.
Most people want to become better versions of themselves, but not someone else entirely. Your job as a lover is to protect your partner’s right to pursue their dreams, even when you don’t get it. Don’t trash talk or joke about your partner’s dreams. Instead, be grateful that your lover is willing to share their innermost passions with you exclusively.
Better yet, help your partner achieve their dreams. This kind of support is what Harry’s second wife did in helping him open his new downtown dojo. And it’s also what my wife and I do for our dreams daily.
Sweet dreams!
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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