7 Science Backed Ways to Support Your Spouse’s Dreams and Goals to Build a better marriage 

You want to support your spouse in pursuing their dreams and goals, whether it is a career change, a personal project, a hobby, or a fitness challenge.

But how can you be a supportive partner without being controlling, overbearing, or neglectful and how can you balance your own needs and aspirations with those of your spouse?

There’s no magic secrets to a happy marriage but in this article, I will share some tips on how to support your spouse’s dreams and goals, based on scientific research and expert advice that will help bring you closer to your goals as a couple, and closer in your hearts.

I’ll also provide some examples of supportive behaviors and actions that you can apply in your relationship to help strengthen your bond with your spouse, enhance your communication, and foster a positive and supportive environment for both of you. 

These will hopefully be a little deeper than what you generally see and will help you really grow and evolve with your spouse.

1. Encourage your spouse 

One of the most basic and effective ways to support your spouse’s dreams and goals is to encourage them. Encouraging our spouse does more than just push them closer to their goals, it builds up the intimacy between you as well, and that is a real motivator.

Encouragement means expressing your confidence in your spouse’s abilities, praising their efforts and achievements, and motivating them to keep going.  In fact, long standing research has shown that support from our partner in the pursuit of our goals makes us more likely to achieve them and hit major milestones.

And you can use this to your full advantage by making sure your partner feels like you support their goals and their efforts to achieve them.

Some examples of encouraging behaviors are: 

• Saying things like “I believe in you”, “You can do it”, “You are doing great”, etc. 
• Celebrating their milestones and accomplishments with them 
• Sending them supportive messages or notes throughout the day 
• Giving them constructive feedback and suggestions when they ask for it 
• Reminding them of their strengths and talents 
• Sharing inspirational stories or quotes with them 

2. Help your spouse plan and strategize 

Another way to support your spouse’s dreams and goals is to help them plan and strategize.

This means helping your spouse set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely (SMART) goals. And you can help your spouse identify potential obstacles and solutions and monitor their progress towards each of their goals. 

That same study about supporting our partner’s goals, also showed that planning and coming up with a strategy to achieve a goal increases the odds that we will actually succeed at it.

Some simple things you can do to make your partner feel supported are:

• Asking them questions like “What do you want to achieve?”, “How will you achieve it?”, “What are the steps involved?”, “What are the possible challenges?”, “How will you overcome them?”, etc. 
• Helping them break down their big goals into smaller and manageable sub-goals 
• Helping them create a schedule or timeline for their actions 
• Helping them track their performance and outcomes 
• Helping them review their results and adjust their plan if needed 
• Helping them find relevant resources or information that can help them 

3. Support your spouse emotionally 

Your spouse needs their goals and dreams supported in more than just physical ways. Emotional support is the kind that truly lifts them up mentally and gives them the mental energy to keep pushing ahead.

And emotional support is based mainly on how effectively we communicate in our marriage.

It means being there for your spouse when they face difficulties or setbacks, listening to their feelings and concerns, empathizing with their struggles, and validating their emotions. 

A 2014 study found that the emotional support we get from our significant other reduces our stress levels and enhances our well-being and motivation. We have the power to truly uplift our spouse and by giving them our emotional support we lift them from their heart.

Some examples of emotional support behaviors are: 

• Being attentive and responsive to your spouse’s emotional cues 
• Giving them a hug, a kiss, or a smile when they need it 
• Listening to them vent or share their feelings without judging or interrupting 
• Expressing your understanding and compassion for their situation 
• Saying things like “I’m here for you”, “I’m proud of you”, “It’s okay to feel this way”, etc. 
• Helping them cope with negative emotions or thoughts by offering comfort, distraction, humor, or advice 

4. Support your spouse practically 

But what about supporting our spouse’s goals in real, everyday ways? For that you need to show your spouse that their dreams and goals are supported practically.

Practical support is helping your spouse with concrete tasks or activities that can facilitate their goal pursuit. These can range in a whole variety of things such as providing financial assistance, time management, to even helping with the kids or household chores. 

In the 2014 book Rethinking positive thinking: Inside the new science of motivation, N.Y.U. professor Gabriele Oettingen discusses how giving our partner practical support improves their overall quality of life throughout the relationship.

Some examples of practical support behaviors are: 

• Offering to pay for or contribute to the expenses related to their goal pursuit 
• Buying or lending them the equipment or tools that they need 
• Helping them organize their workspace or environment 
• Taking care of some of their responsibilities or duties that may interfere with their goal pursuit 
• Doing some extra chores or errands for them 
• Giving them space or time to work on their goals 

5. Respect your spouse’s autonomy 

One way to support our partner that may go against our initial instincts is to know when to back away and support their autonomy.

Autonomy means allowing your spouse to make their own choices and decisions regarding their goal pursuit, without imposing your own opinions, preferences, or expectations on them.

Research shows that respecting your spouse’s autonomy enhances their intrinsic motivation, self-confidence, and satisfaction. They looked at health-based goals and found that autonomy can enhance our intentionality which affects our personal pursuit of our goals.

Some examples of respecting behaviors are: 

• Asking for your spouse’s consent or permission before giving them any support 
• Acknowledging and accepting your spouse’s opinions and preferences, even if they differ from yours 
• Encouraging your spouse to explore their own interests and passions 
• Supporting your spouse’s goals even if they change or evolve over time 
• Trusting your spouse’s judgment and abilities 
• Avoiding criticizing, nagging, or pressuring your spouse to do things your way 

6. Balance your own needs and goals 

A sixth and final way to support your spouse’s dreams and goals is to balance your own needs and goals. Think about it for a moment, if you are getting stressed and fatigued what kind of support and help are you going to be able to give your spouse?

Balancing means taking care of yourself and pursuing your own dreams and goals, while also supporting your spouse’s.

Balancing your own needs and goals with those of your spouse enhances the quality of your relationship, as well as your personal well-being. There are many ways to find balance in your marriage and doing so can relieve your partner of the stress that comes with seeing you struggle.

Some examples of balancing behaviors are: 

• Communicating your own needs and goals to your spouse clearly and respectfully 
• Asking for your spouse’s support when you need it 
• Negotiating and compromising with your spouse when there are conflicts or trade-offs between your goals 
• Setting boundaries and limits on how much support you can give or receive 
• Making time for yourself and engaging in self-care activities 
• Making time for your relationship and engaging in shared activities 

7. Celebrate achievements towards your spouse’s goals

Celebrating your spouse’s successes, regardless of how small, is a huge step in pushing them towards their goals.

It’s essentially showing them your appreciation for their determination and ambition in regards to the goal and that can really boost your relationship. You can think of it as having a general positive growth mindset, which has been found to make our attaining goals much more likely.

A set of studies aimed at pursuing goals in close relationships found that the pursuit of a goal and making advances towards it can uplift our general well-being in our relationships.

A few easy ways to celebrate your spouse’s achievements are:

• Tell them you appreciate their hard work.
• Get a small gift to commemorate a milestone.
• Make a display to show how far they’ve come from where they started.
• Document their journey and let them know how you’ve seen their change.

7 steps to supporting your spouse’s goals

Supporting your spouse’s dreams and goals is one of the best ways to show your love and commitment to them.

By following these 7 science backed strategies, you can be a supportive partner who encourages, helps, supports, respects, and balances with your spouse.

You can help your spouse achieve their dreams and strengthen your bond, enhance your communication, and foster a positive and supportive environment for both of you. 

David N. Brace

David N. Brace is a relationship expert that lives what he preaches having built a 20-year happy marriage. Relationships take work and effort but if we are willing to do so and to keep growing as individuals, we can build something amazing that lasts a lifetime.

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