This blog is for you if you’ve ever wanted to get your husband on board with anything and if you think you might want to get your husband on board with something in the future. Maybe, right now, you want to get your husband on board with something like budgeting or housework or parenting or eating healthy or improving your sex life.
For those of you who know me, my name is Jenna Denton-Howes. I actually do help women improve their sex lives and sometimes their husbands aren’t on board or they’re worried their husbands won’t be on board with whatever changes they are going to be making. But this doesn’t only relate to that area of your marriage, it could relate to any of those other things that I just mentioned here.
You were a cave woman
What you need to understand is that, as women, we really desire to have our spouse be on a team with us. If you’ve ever wondered, “How do I get him on the same page?” Or, “Is he going to follow through with the commitments that he said?” If there is any angst or anxiety around that or you interpret it as something really negative, it’s because you used to be a cavewoman.
You were in the cave and your husband would go away and, hopefully, get some meat to bring back to your little cave and if he didn’t, if you were not a team, if you did not support one another, you would literally die. Because your roles were important. You had to keep the house, the fire burning, and the berries collected and he had his important role.
What you’re Really Afraid of
That’s why the most essential thing for women is to feel like they’re on a team with their husband. And that is why getting your husband on board seems so critical and important. The thing to know is that the fear that you’re trying to get away from is abandonment. You might say, “Yeah, yeah, Janna, whatever, I know he’s not going to abandon me.” No, no, no. Really, if you really break it down, it’s fear of abandonment. It’s helpful to be aware of this as you move forward with this video.
There are also some other concerns. If I’m the one to step up and make a request or make a change or bring something new to the relationship, what if he thinks I’m stupid? What if he doesn’t agree with me and it causes more problems than what was happening before?
Or, what if I get my hopes up and he doesn’t follow through and then I feel like I can’t trust him as much as I did before? What if he withdraws from me? We crave connection and what if, now, he is less of a team with me since I brought this new thing to our relationship? And what if I put myself on the line and I fall short? It’s so vulnerable and scary to put yourself out there and to make a request and then maybe you don’t even follow through. Maybe you don’t do well at the thing that you want to improve on.
I think it’s important at this time to also reflect on what the purpose of marriage is.
Because the purpose of marriage is not about competition or proving yourself right or there being a winner and a loser.
Someone’s going to win and somebody loses in this situation. If we focus on our budget, then the saver is winning and the spender is losing. If we focus on healthy eating, then the person who wants to lose weight or who just has more motivation to prevent heart disease, for example, is winning and the person who can eat whatever they want or really enjoys a lot of sugar or doesn’t want to give up fried foods, is losing.
What Marriage Is Actually About
That’s not what marriage is about you guys. Marriage, ultimately what we’re trying to progress towards, is a place of safety. And safety means that you can make mistakes, you can learn, you can grow, you can try new things. Everybody can win in this wonderful, protective cocoon from the world. I know that a lot of us are not living in this ideal situation, but it’s good to know that it is actually the goal that we’re working towards. And so if you’re never bringing anything, there’s no opportunity for that to happen.
Let me flip it on its head a little bit here because I can make myself look really good in this video, but I have my fair share of not getting on board with things my husband has brought to our relationship. About four years ago, my husband was really unhappy in his work situation. He’s a civil engineer and he was looking for other work. We live on the west coast of Canada. We lived in the Vancouver area, and for those of you who know, there is an island off the coast of Vancouver, which is called Vancouver Island.
It is a sought-after destination. It is an internationally acclaimed place to live. I mean it couldn’t be more beautiful. But I was very resistant to the idea of him applying for jobs on Vancouver Island. Even though all of his family lives there. My parents were willing to move with us and help me with the children while I grew my business.
I was afraid
But the thing that was limiting me from getting on board with a really good thing for our family was fear. I’m really resistant to change. We just got a new oven in our kitchen and I was thrown off for a couple of days. That’s how much change is hard for me. I’m working on it. But I just want to give you a taste that if your husband is struggling to get on board with anything that you bring to the table, he might just be dealing with his own stuff and it might have nothing to do with you.
I have created a lot of changes for our family and our marriage.
Hey, I told you I was going to make myself look really good in this video. I have helped our family with budgeting and with our household and keeping it nice and decluttered and relatively clean. It’s not super clean, but relatively beautiful and decorated. I have helped our family with healthy eating and meal planning. And I’ve helped my family with spiritual growth.
This is all to say that I am usually the engine of growth and progress in many areas of our life. That doesn’t mean that I’m better. And if you are like this, it doesn’t mean that you’re better. It doesn’t mean that you’re superior. It doesn’t mean that you hold the weight of the world on your shoulders.
I’d like to take you through three things that have been critical for me to actually help be that spark of growth, the spark of change in my relationship. And how I’ve handled when my husband hasn’t been super on board with everything. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Value Yourself
Number one. The first thing that you have to do is you have to value yourself as an engine of growth. This is huge. Let’s take budgeting for example. For so many years I just complained. I complained that my husband loved to spend money, which didn’t make me feel safe. I complained that we were in debt, and about interest rates and student loans.
The last thing I did was actually value the fact that I could do something about it. That’s the first thing you need to do. If you find yourself looking for areas of improvement, researching late at night, or bringing things out, you have to see that that’s actually wonderful and it’s valuable to the team.
You Won’t Have the Same Roles
Number two. I was always waiting for my husband to be equally excited about the change as I was. I wanted him to be like, “Yeah, we’re going to go on a budget. We’re going to crunch those numbers, save, get frugal, and buy a house. We’re going to do this, that.” Like, “Yeah, let’s get out the spreadsheets and get the online banking, and saving things figured out. Let’s hire a coach and do this. Great…”
No, he wasn’t.
He just wasn’t, because that’s not what he brings to the team. He brings other great things, however, like enthusiasm when he sees results. In fact, He’s usually the one to be telling his friends a year later when we’ve done the change, telling his friends, “Hey, you should do this with your money or you should do this with your eating or you should… ” He’s the one who takes it on and he becomes a champion. But his role is not the spark in our relationship.
Waiting around for my husband to be equally as enthusiastic about the change as I was, was really hampering any growth that we were able to make and it was making me very, very resentful. Also made me feel really abandoned because I wanted him to be on my team, which does not mean that you have the same roles. When you’re on a team, you have complementary roles. That’s the beauty of a relationship.
Don’t expect your husband to have equal enthusiasm for the things that you want him to get on board with. If he goes, “Sure. Sounds okay.” Take it. If he goes, “All right, well I guess we could try.” That’s awesome. That’s a green light. If he even expresses a little bit of skepticism or a little bit of worry or tension or a little bit like what I did with my husband, like, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not great with change.” Don’t worry. Don’t worry about that. Own your value as the engine of growth.
Take Action
Number three. You have to take action. There’s no way that you can move forward in your relationship if you’re not taking action on the things that are going to bring you happiness and the things that you need. If it’s not harming other people in any way, if it’s not bringing pain or suffering, go for it. Take action.
When I finally owned the value as the engine of growth in my relationship, as I finally stopped trying to have my husband be equally enthusiastic, then I took action by hiring a coach. I hired a money coach. We worked with her for just under a year and we went from renting and having no savings to buying this home. I just bought a new car. I took responsibility. My husband benefits from it. It makes him happy, but he wasn’t suffering as much as I was with our financial situation.
Don’t Wait for Permission
Take action. And that, again, can go back to feeling scary and vulnerable, but it’s worth it. In the end, you are stepping up into the position that you’re meant to fulfill in your relationship, which is different than your husband. You don’t have to wait for permission to fulfill that role and to feel good about your contribution to your relationship.
All right, so next steps. If you are wanting to make some changes in your sex life. If you’re a married woman and you want to want sex with your husband, you want to look forward to it, you want it to feel more connecting and in alignment, and you want to feel comfortable and at ease and relaxed. If you want to get rid of shame and old messages from your culture, then I have a class for you.
It’s called The Real Reason for a Lack of Desire & the 6-Steps to Reconnecting Again.
It’s totally free and so much fun. I deliver it live, and so I would love for you to come and join us. It’s next week and I’m running them on January 14th, the 15th, and the 16th. You get to choose a time.
Click here to join. I really encourage you to. This is the first step that you can take toward creating change in your relationship. You can be the spark of change and that is a really important place to be in your relationship. Your husband is fine to go, “Okay, well, let’s see what happens.” All right guys, I hope to see you there and I’ll talk to you soon.
Janna
