Thank you and you're welcome!
I've been thinking this over for a while, between the news stories and @mericanhomestead 's Jamie writing about how she's been 100% on board with making off-grid homesteading work in their family (https://steemit.com/homesteading/@mericanhomestead/experience-from-an-off-grid-woman-an-american-homestead). She mentioned how she's had people tell her they wished their wives were willing to do what she was doing and she's puzzled by that and I was thinking the thing that makes her (and other wives like her) special is that they are actually side-by-side with their husbands, sharing their convictions and making their ventures work together. From what you've written, you and your husband seem like similar people, where life is a "together" effort, not separate lives overlapping now and then.
Yes, that is very true for our lives. I will have to check out the post you mentioned! At one point (I just posted about it today), I was VERY against moving to Panama. Furious that he even wanted to. But through various circumstances, Bible studies I was in, etc., God began to work on my heart and I began to see that we would be in this together, our whole family. I wouldn't be alone out there and continuing to stand and say that I wouldn't move was making our marriage miserable. Now, we are usually pretty happy together. And we do a lot of stuff together - even not fun stuff like moving boxes and lugging five kids through an airport at 2am. ;)
Lol...no, the lugging kids at 2am isn't fun...but if you're together, so much can be overcome. I'm glad you were able to come into togetherness - that you and your husband didn't split apart but were able to work through and share conviction.
If Ben were to announce he wanted to move to Panama, I would be extremely disconcerted and I don't know where the emotional swing would go from there. I think I'd be scared and I wouldn't want to leave my family and it would really test the commitment of leaving all others to follow him. Especially if I hadn't been along the road of the thought process getting him to that decision. Who knows if a challenge is coming like this in my future - I hope not, but I have no idea what the future brings. I hope whatever it brings, Ben will bring me along in his thought process and not just spring the idea on me fully formed! Ouch!
I have had a struggle with being ready to go some places Ben has wanted to lead but he hasn't yet tested me this strongly. May you and your husband be blessed in the road you're walking together.
Lol - thanks for the reply. Yes, we've heard stories of people moving who were not really together in the decision and how it basically destroyed their marriage. I have a friend here now actually who is separated and she can't return home because her husband won't leave and won't let her leave with the kids. It's really sad. Yeah, my husband (also named Ben) had brought up moving in the past, but I blocked him out, so he just started doing his own research. At the point he told me about it, it was to open up the conversation, but I was still being stubborn about talking about it for months! When the time was right, it actually felt good - I just had to give myself permission to be okay with moving. It was easier to say that there was no way I was going to move, do that to my kids/family, etc. than to actually consider how life would really be that different if we moved. It all seems so weird now to think that I KNEW it was not going to go well, but it has been really good so far. It's so good that you guys are strong and on the same page. It's a blessing to live life together! I can't imagine the alternative...