Living with a pessimist when you're an optimist

For the last 19 years I have been married to a man I love with all my heart. We have four kids, have moved several times and have shared many interesting experiences in our journey.  It took me a long time to figure him out, actually, I'm still working on that. But my biggest issue with him is his pessimism.  It wasn't until I learned the meaning of pessimist and optimist that I could really begin to "get him" and his attitude towards just about anything in life.

When we were having our first baby, I remember him saying "watch, he'll probably come in the middle of the night," or "he'll probably cry all night."  I used to back it up with "it is entirely possible that he comes during the day and doesn't cry much at all, have you ever thought of that?"  I remember so many moments when he would take the negative approach to the situation as opposed to just seeing the positive side of thing and that just made me angry and we would end up in a big fight over what? Nothing that really mattered.  I just didn't know how to handle his attitude or his outlook on life.

Today he remains the same, although, he does try a little harder to not ruin a nice moment by throwing in his two cents of negativity.  Recently I heard him say "just plan to go broke when we don't sell the house for the asking price."  I, on the other hand, expect we will sell the house and everything will be fine.  No need to needlessly worry myself or the kids at this point.

He says that he would rather think something wont work then if he does he's pleasantly surprised, rather than think positively and be disappointed if things don't work out.  To me that's just backwards.  I mean, I think one can be a realist at the very least.  I don't see any benefit in thinking negatively all the time.

Negative thoughts stress me out, make me feel defeated before I even start, take away all my energy and everyone pays.  I don't like me with that attitude.  Living a positive life fills me with energy, I become more aware of the beauty that surrounds me and while the possibility of disappointment may be there, I can look back at the experiences in my journey and still be happy, even when things don't go my way.

We've grown together and matured, somewhat, still maintaining who we really are but learning to accept each others quirks.  I seek out quotes, poems, books, and stories that are inspirational and feed the mind in positive ways.  He reads them and never comments on them probably because he will most likely find something negative to say.  He does make me laugh sometimes, which is probably my way of putting up with his negative ways.  I often wonder how he comes up with those comebacks...amazing.

The moral to my story is that we all have quirks and not everyone likes everything about us. We need to always work hard to learn all that we can about the people we love so that we can better understand their behavior and hopefully they will reciprocate.  One thing is for sure, our kids are and will be well rounded.  They are mostly very positive--thanks to me-- but depending on the situation, they are able to be realist and see the potential negative in a situation without letting themselves drown in it--thanks to dad.

I'm sure we wont be living in a cardboard box after all is said and done. It's all good!