My husband, Alan, had absolutely no interest in anything homestead related when we first met. He had no interest in raising animals, no interest in gardening, no interest in having a food forest, or any of that. But now that we’ve been together for several years and have 35 chickens (including some that we raise for meat), grow our own garden, have a food forest, and are constantly working together to learn new skills, he agrees that homesteading has become the way of life. So if you’re in the same position that I was, here’s how to convince your spouse to homestead, just like I did!
How To Convince Your Spouse To Homestead:
- Share why you want to homestead with them
- Start slow
- Put your spouse’s homesteading interests first
- Don’t push anything on your spouse
- Talk about homesteading a lot
- Get the kids involved
- Make a list of homesteading activities you like
- Be patient
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How to Convince Your Spouse to Homestead
My husband loves having fresh eggs in the morning, having the girls come out and play with the chickens, collecting eggs, planting the fruit trees, and watching the fruits grow, and swears he wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you want to know how to convince your spouse to homestead, share why you want to homestead with him, start slow, and put his homesteading interests first.
Of course, don’t push anything on your spouse, but it doesn’t hurt to talk about homesteading a lot! But overall, patience is key!
1. Share Why You Want To Homestead With them
My husband was not into gardening and raising animals when we met. In fact, at first I thought there was no way I was going to convince him to homestead!
But I can tell you one of the things that helped him be convinced was that I shared exactly why I wanted to homestead with him.
Like, the real reason.
This is a huge one and if you don’t know exactly why you want to homestead with your spouse, I would encourage you to think about it before you go ahead with your homesteading plans.
For me, homesteading had a lot to do with health.
I’ve watched family members go through major health problems, and he had seen the same thing on his side of the family too.
Just by talking about this, I was sharing how living this type of lifestyle was able to combat some of those things, and guess what— he started listening!
That may not be your reason why.
But whatever your case is, whether it’s getting back to nature or being financially stable, find your reason why you want a homestead and share that with your spouse.
My advice is to have an honest conversation as to how growing your own food, raising animals, and all that homesteading goodness can help you get there.
That was a huge step in my husband actually being convinced to start homesteading!
2. Start Slow
My next best advice is to start slow. Like, very slow.
You might be ready to buy 10 pigs and a llama, but they might not be in that space, yet!
And if you start throwing all of that at them at once, they’re probably going to just put the brakes on as fast as possible because they are not there yet, and you might lose big!
You’re going to want to take it very slow if this is the first time that you’re introducing them to something like this.
Start with something small, baby steps-like. Then progress in small little increments and just get them on board with one thing at a time.
Don’t try to rush them with getting chicks and then starting seeds and building stuff and all the other things all at once.
They’ll be overwhelmed and you’ll be frustrated. Not fun for either of you!
Start slow to get them on board with one project at a time and then move on to the next. Don’t rush goodness.
3. Put Your Spouse’s Homesteading Interests First
I know Alan’s always been interested in building things. Every time I started a new project he would be right next to me trying to help.
So, when I said I really wanted to build a potting bench for my garden, I asked him to take lead and he was all over it!
If there is something that your spouse has shown interest in, whether it’s getting some animals, growing food, or even building stuff, just go that route first.
My hubby was not into the chickens or the garden, and couldn’t care less about planting fruit trees, but he definitely wanted to help with my potting bench.
From there, we went with more raised beds and more trellises and things like that.
That slowly started getting him more into a “we’re building things for this lifestyle” type of mindset which then got him way more comfortable with the rest of it.
Letting your spouse take lead in the projects they’re interested in is one of the best ways to convince your spouse to homestead!
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4. Don’t Push Anything On Your Spouse
It’s super important that you don’t push anything on your spouse that they don’t want to be a part of.
I’m still the main person who focuses on the garden. I do all of the planting, the seed starting, the harvesting, and pretty much everything else for the garden.
Every once in a while, he’ll come out and walk the garden with me, and once in a while I’ll send him outside to gather herbs while I’m cooking.
The same thing applies to gathering eggs and harvesting veggies. While I’m the person responsible for those things, every now and then I ask him to help me pick some ripe tomatoes – or send him outside to get eggs for a meal.
But other than that, I pretty much responsible for the garden, and that’s perfectly fine! There are always lots of things to do and having more of a “divide and conquer” attitude works especially well.
Don’t push your spouse to be on board with things that they really don’t want to be doing.
For us, that means that I take care of the animals and the gardening, and he works on building things, fixing things (which there’s always plenty of in homesteading), balancing budgets, mowing the lawn, and other “heavy duty” type things that I need help with.
Oh, and he really likes doing burn pits – which terrifies me if I’m being honest so it’s a perfect fit!
Plus, the term “homesteading” is so broad that there’s definitely going to be some way for your spouse to contribute.
Just make sure that they feel included and that you’re not pushing it on them.
5. Talk About Homesteading – A Lot
Now, I know that I just finished saying not to push anything on your spouse, but hear me out!
In the early stages of trying to convince Alan to get on board with this lifestyle, I would work it into our everyday conversations.
But I don’t mean bombarding your spouse with being annoying and trying to convince them 100% of the time. You need to take a breath from that.
I would say things like, “okay we’re gonna go to the gardening center to buy whatever, oh come take a look at the plants with me, or hey I need this project. “Oh how great would it be to have some fresh parsley in these eggs” or “Look how cute these baby ducks are.”
And I would just include it in our everyday life.
I did the same thing when we were watching tv. I really like watching documentaries on homesteading and the food industry.
At first he was really against it. But after one or two, he became fascinated with how food in the grocery stores is produced and really wanted to have a healthier diet.
And so little by little when he would agree to watch certain things with me, he would start realizing like— wait a minute— this is actually really important!
He was hearing it from another person or watching it somewhere else, besides just me preaching about it non stop. And eventually he became convinced that this is actually a pretty fantastic lifestyle to have!
So, between including it into your everyday conversations and incorporating information from outside sources, it became normal in our house and eventually he became more excited that I was about certain aspects of homesteading!
6. Get The Kids Involved
Another thing that really helped was getting the kids involved.
My step daughters happen to love animals – especially fluffy baby chicks.
And they were fascinated by eating things straight from the garden.
Even to the point where he would let them go play outside and they would run straight to where the tomatoes were growing.
And once he saw how much they loved it, he wanted to get involved too – he wanted to be included in that family time.
Not only that, but he saw how happy they were chasing the chickens around and getting their hands dirty. He saw the difference between them being inside in front of the television and them spending an hour or two out in the yard.
That alone was reason enough for him to want to go outside!
7. Make A List Of Homesteading Activities You Like
When I first got into homesteading, I wanted to learn everything there was! And it got overwhelming fast!
…and if you need a good list to start with, check out mine right here 😉
I wanted to raise animals – not just chickens, but ALL the animals. Chickens, quail, ducks, bees, sheep, goats, etc.
And some things I already knew how to do, like cooking from scratch, making bread, sewing, and some basic fixes around the house.
But I still made a list of everything I wanted to learn and I shared them with him.
He was surprised to learn that things like fixing power tools and putting up fence posts were also on that list. And he became pretty interested once he knew that I was open to more than just gardening and cute baby cows.
Once we both had some things that we were interested in, I let nature take it’s course.
He kept wanting to learn more – and now whenever I have a new project – like building the perfect chicken coop – he always offers to help!
8. Be Patient
And lastly on this list is to be patient.
I know it can seem frustrating when your spouse is not coming around as fast as you’d like. But good things take time.
It was very frustrating for me at the beginning when I said I wanted to start with quail, and he said he really hated that idea.
And then eventually he agreed to starting off with just a few quail.
Now we have 35 chickens, and until recently, we had tons of quail, and we have more plants and animals than I know what to do with!
But start somewhere and be patient. Allow them to progress in their own time the same way you did.
You did not make your decision to homestead overnight, and they probably will not make theirs overnight either!
With these super essential tips on how to convince your spouse to homestead, how can they say no?
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