My husband and I finally found the time for a finances date yesterday afternoon (having a baby puts that kind of thing on hold for a while). Among our goals and timelines I started introducing the concept of the "bigger picture" and putting things like saving for a house in context of figuring out what our overall life goals are. My husband started talking about how he could see himself working until 60; "that is 27 years away, I can do that". My response was that was ludicrous and that we could retire easily at 45 without changing anything about our current lifestyle and could probably retire earlier than that if we worked at it a bit.
He seemed a bit taken aback at first and asked to see my numbers. I pulled out my spreadsheets and started telling him about 3% and 4% withdrawal rates, how much we have saved so far, overall saving rate and so forth. He seemed to really get it and had a very positive response. It feels amazing to have him on board with the idea (so far), and have him understand why cash flow and when we can pay off our future mortgage is so important to me. Sweet!