Quit Peeing on My Dreams

Ah, my husband. My husband is hands down the funniest, zaniest person I know. Humor must have been the number one quality I needed in a mate and even though we have been together for seventeen years, he can still make me laugh. I am always impressed with how relaxed he is around anyone and he is always the life of the party. He uses humor to fizzle tense situations – especially with my moody nine year old daughter and our mother / daughter sometimes tenuous relationship. However, with humor comes some very interesting suggestions about how our lives should be.


So, when he proposed that we purchase a monkey for a pet, I should not have been surprised.

Marriage is hard, but we have roughed it out by maintaining our humor and supporting one another. We have always tried to be supportive of one another’s goals in life. Isn’t that what married couple should do? When he told me that he wanted to go back to school, I made sure I spent more time at home. When I wanted to become a life coach, he allowed me to put money away to build my business. However, sometimes there are goals in life that are so hard to support even when they come from the love of your life.

Here is the problem – I don’t want a monkey living in my house. Yes, you read that correctly. No monkey – not in my house. I am supportive of school, work, and life goals - but not huge mammals that require diapers and throw poo. (Frankly, I was done with this once my daughter reached age 2 and I was quite pleased with that).

So, when I tried to discuss the feasibility of an additional animal in our house (how will the three cats get along with a monkey), and tried to be the voice of reason, my husband affectionately tells me to “quit peeing on his dreams”. How it could be anyone’s dream to have a monkey hanging from your chandelier, screaming at you throughout the day is simply beyond my comprehension however, it is not my intent to proverbially pee on the man’s dreams.

One more time – no monkey, not in my house. But what if that meant no husband?

Asking questions to determine what exactly the priority was for him helped me to realize that while owning a monkey would be a “hey, a monkey would be cool” kind of thing it was not a “if I don’t get a monkey for the house I will simply never be happy and it is a deal breaker” kind of thing. My private happy dance commenced.

Is there a goal in your mate’s life that you haven’t been able or willing to support? Did you squash the idea by peeing on their dreams or did you “man up” and have that hard conversation to determine if it was something they really needed – even if it wasn’t the answer that you wanted? Were you able to then get behind that dream in order to improve your mate’s happiness?



While my happiness doesn’t depend on his happiness, it sure does make that road a little easier to travel. What happens next time when he wants a llama and he MUST have one? What happens then? I suppose I will go to the closest llama farm and pick out the friendliest one on the lot – because a llama is a small price to pay for my husband’s happiness, and a chandelier swinging, poo throwing monkey would have been too.