Are you supporting your spouse? Even when you don’t understand their dreams and goals or struggle?
Did you ever have a moment where you didn’t even believe in yourself, but your spouse did?
We have been on both the giving and the receiving end of supporting and believing in each other. And we both love giving and receiving support from each other.
That’s what a healthy marriage is about.
Who doesn’t love receiving encouragement?
From friends, parents, relatives, co-workers, strangers, and even better, their wife or husband?
One way to be an encouragement to your spouse is to be a supportive spouse.
By being a supportive spouse, your actions and attitude will show that you believe in your husband or wife.
Why do we choose to marry someone and commit to spending the rest of our life with them?
Not because it’s easy, that’s for sure.
I would dare to say that it’s because we want a life partner to share our life adventures with.
Someone who will always be there for us, to believe in us, appreciate, and a partner to support us while weathering both the good and bad.
Support does not mean that you put aside all logic and reason.
Marcus’s dream is to become a marriage and business coach, but we are starting by taking baby steps.
Paying as we go, growing together, and only taking what we can handle. This is a choice we made for our family life to remain our top priority.
Ash’s dream is to be a writer of fiction. We started with one story, one book. Marcus supported by doing the research for publishing and plotting. Genre research, promotions, and all the technical parts. We ended up coming together to write under a pen name A. M. Kusi. This helped Ash achieve her dreams and follow her passion, while also including Marcus. Now this is a huge part of our lives.
Can you support your spouse?
If you can not believe in and support your husband or wife, think back to why you married them in the first place.
Having your spouse believe in you, validates your ambitions, and dreams. They will also give you the extra push when you need it. Not that we should depend on that external validation from them, that should come from within. Rather, their support should be the cherry on top, the icing on the cake if you will.
Our first year of marriage was tough because of the marriage adjustments we had to make, with each other, and to married life.
Plus, we had a lot of other tough life challenges happen that were mostly out of our control.
Life presented us with some choices to make, cling together, support each other, learn how to work together, or we could fight and fall apart.
Obviously, we chose to support each other.
It wasn’t easy for us. In fact, it was scary because of the risks of not being successful and the fear of being vulnerable.
We did it together and as a result came out stronger.
Sometimes, wondering about the end results or the unknown is scary. We get it. But courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s being afraid and doing it anyway. Your spouse should be the person that you can be courageous for. Loving someone in a healthy way, takes courage, especially when that isn’t the background you have come from.
Supporting your spouse benefits both parties.
Supporting each other has helped us many times, especially when we failed at something, began to try something new, or embarked on another new journey.
But even better, it helped us to stay connected, and grow together.
I remember when I handed over the first chapter of my rough draft and held my breath waiting to hear his thoughts. He was impressed, and encouraged me to write it out. He took a keen interest in researching the structure of a story and how to combine the right elements. He used his limited time to find resources to help me succeed. He believed in me. And that gave me the courage to share that piece of me with the world. And now, we do it together, writing about relevant social issues and love stories between multiracial couples.
When we had just started our blog, podcast, and original website, he told me how thankful he was for my support in his dreams and ideas.
This made me feel recognized for my efforts, and happy that he felt my support and belief in him. -Ash
How to be a supportive spouse.
Supporting your husband or wife can be done in different ways.
We have used the ones below personally and believe you can also apply them in your marriage to become a supportive spouse.
1) Verbally.
Things like, “I know you can do X because you are really great at things like that.”
You can also have a conversation with your spouse about how you can help them find a starting point to their dream career.
You know your spouse better than anyone, find out what works for them!
2) Edify them in public and private, even when talking to other people especially your parents, relatives, and friends.
I always feel great hearing awesome things (about me) from my in-laws. – Marcus
3) Just tell your spouse outright.
Honey, I believe in you, and will always be here for you!
4) Show them, actions speak louder than words.
Be there when they have a failure or bad day, and help them see it as a learning experience.
Be mindful of how you react.
5) Help them.
We are human and have our weaknesses.
Pick up the slack where your spouse could use the help.
6) Listen to, and respect their opinions.
Your spouse is unique, pay attention and listen attentively while they share their goals and dreams with you, while being honest about the reality.
7) Love them for who they are.
Support your spouse, and let them know you believe in them!
Your turn:
What is one way your spouse shows you support?
What is one way you show your spouse that you support them?
Image courtesy Ambro / Freedigitalphotos.net
