So you want stability, but your partner’s not worried. What can you do about that?
Stability looks different for different people. For instance, some are concerned with being financially stable. Others want a sense of permanence in the place where they live and raise a family. And others connect the idea of stability with a longstanding job or career path.
In some marriages, one partner puts more emphasis on stability than the other. When this happens, it can cause marital stress. Each spouse may have different expectations when it comes to stability, so it’s important to develop empathy for each other’s perspective.
Does this sound familiar? If so, read on.
What Does Stability Look Like for You?
Stability gives us a sense of security. For people who value stability in different areas, not having it creates anxiety and distress. Ultimately, it can cause conflict in your relationship.
Here are a few common scenarios that create anxiety for people who crave stability:
- You’re concerned with building financial stability for the future, but your spouse is more casual when it comes to income, saving, and investing. They don’t seem to understand why it’s so important to you, and you find yourself worrying about money often.
- Being rooted into a home and community matters to you, but your spouse enjoys living in different places and having new experiences. You’ve moved multiple times; or, if you haven’t, you sense a move is coming soon. Your spouse is constantly talking about the next house, the next town, or the next state, and all you want to do is settle down.
- Having the same job or career path over a long period of time is important to you, but your spouse can’t seem to settle into a long-term career. It makes you nervous to see them changing jobs every few years or talking about starting a business–not to mention forging a completely new path when they’ve already established work that keeps your family comfortable. Why can’t they just learn to be content?
Time to Reframe
Everyone reacts differently to change. Some of us invite it, while others resist it almost reflexively. Maybe you and your spouse naturally land in different places on that continuum. If that’s the case, it may be time to reframe what stability means for you.
Let’s say you want to settle down to raise your family. You want a sense of rootedness in a community where you can feel secure long-term. But your spouse is restless and resists the idea of committing to any one place for long. You want to sink your family’s roots down deep, not be uprooted to move on to someplace new.
To you, stability may be closely tied to where you live, making it difficult to accept that your spouse doesn’t want to be tied down to a location indefinitely. If that’s the case, would it be possible to focus instead on the things in your marriage that do have a sense of permanence? For instance, you could draw your sense of rootedness and security from your spouse’s commitment to you.
Explore Your Levels of Resistance
Now, it’s time for both of you to explore your levels of resistance to the topic in question. Ask yourself why you resist moving; likewise, your spouse should explore why they resist the idea of settling in one place. In this case, you resist change, while your spouse resists permanence.
Discuss your degrees of resistance. These conversations will help you understand one another better. Mutual empathy could make future decisions much easier on you both.
To deepen your understanding of each other, take the Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (SYMBIS) Assessment. The assessment reveals deep insights into your personalities, helping you navigate conflict more effectively. Take the assessment and order the companion book here.
Is your spouse more resistant to stability, or to change? What about you? Leave us a comment and let’s talk about it.
