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Dear For Love & Money,
My wife has a habit of making sweeping declarations about how we'll change everything we've been doing and reinvent our lives to be better, healthier, happier people.
Every few months, we start eating clean, buying nothing, waking up early, going on evening walks, or doing a new workout routine. Each time, the phase lasts for a week at the longest, but one or two days is the norm.
As you might've guessed, New Year's is her Super Bowl. This year, once again, we're doing it all differently, especially the spending. She's put together an unrealistic budget and a chore chart and tossed everything in the pantry.
I like our life, though, and playing this game where I participate in her phases is beginning to wear thin. It's not the goals that bother me; I like to save money and could lose a few pounds, but I'm sick of the constant resolutions to "fix "our lives.
Why can't she just be happy? How can I show her I want the same things as her but don't see our lives as broken?
Sincerely,
Contented
Dear Contented,
I love that you chose to sign your letter "Contented" because that word highlights the key difference between you and your wife's worldviews. For people like you, the higher virtue is finding joy and meaning in what you already have. Self-love, gratitude, and recognizing the little miracles in life make the ordinary extraordinary.
For others, like your wife, the higher virtue is relentless idealism: work ethic, striving, and recognizing individual responsibility and agency in a broken world.
We all need a bit of both, and I'm sure the true virtue is found somewhere between the two — a middle ground your marriage of contentment and growth-orientation is perfectly suited to achieve. Finding this balance, however, is the tricky part.
I've often heard people like your wife call themselves "self-development addicts," and it's a fitting name. These self-development addicts tend to be dreamers, and it's the pot of gold they imagine at the end of the rainbow that gets them out of bed every morning. The image of themselves rocking toned abs, headlining a conference about how to get debt-free and build wealth, and finally becoming good enough to feel that emotion that comes naturally to people like you: content.
As you seek a compromise that both of you can live with, remember that this hunger for growth is essential to who your wife is. Like you, I tend to fall on the contented side of the dichotomy. So, I recognize that beyond the hassle these constant phases create, they can also feel like implicit criticism.
I see this pain in your final question: How can I show her our lives aren't broken? If your spouse is looking at your shared life and saying, "We must improve this," it can feel like they are saying, "You're not good enough."
You must unlearn the belief that you're the problem your spouse is trying to solve. Even when you're being swept up in the latest resolution, even when her enthusiasm for change extends to your habits, remember that your wife is simply a dreamer, and it's the hope for the future, not her hatred of the present, that drives her.
Honoring your wife's dreams is an excellent path toward a reasonable compromise. I keep using the word "compromise," which may seem strange because right now, your wife seems to have things all her way. After all, up to this point, you've supported your wife by going along with whatever kick she's on, but you can better support her in a couple of ways.
One, get invested and stay invested. If your wife wants to save money or pay off debt, take the initiative to find a good savings account option and budgeting app. Update your tracking devices, and help her develop a reward system. A lot of your issues with your wife's phases seem to be the whiplash of it — going all-in on day one and pretending nothing happened by day four.
You probably feel a lot of relief when you see your wife's enthusiasm for her New Year's resolution waning. Meanwhile, she is likely feeling like a failure and already plotting the next life upheaval that will fix everything once and for all. And so it goes. Your best bet for stopping the cycle is to help her achieve her goals and keep both of you on track rather than staying quiet and hoping she'll forget.
Second, you can support your wife by being honest about your feelings and outlining what you need her to compromise. A goal you can work toward together might be instituting a daily gratitude practice. List five things you love about your lives to one another every night before bed, or keep a catalog of things you're thankful for on the fridge.
Practicing gratitude together will help you feel appreciated despite your wife's posture toward growth and improvement, and will also remind her that happiness isn't a destination she has to climb the mountains of life to reach. It's something she can carry with her on her journey.
As for your wife's part of the compromise, this depends on your needs. What do you want to stop? What is your threshold for work and revision? If it's the cycle that bothers you, agree to her plans on the condition that this is the last time you rearrange this area of your life. Or, if it's the extremity of the budgets and diets wearing on you, tell your wife you need her to downscale her plans to something that feels more sustainable.
Finally, remember that you may not like or believe in every new scheme your wife devises, and sometimes, you can and should opt out. Sometimes, compromise means one person training for a marathon while the other cheers for them at the finish line.
Rooting for you,
For Love & Money
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