Happiness in Relationship: Are we responsible for our partner’s Happiness?
Lately I have been speaking with a number of people who have broken up or going through tough periods with their partners and one reason that often comes up is ‘not being happy.’
Being the reflective person I am, it really got me thinking about happiness in relationships and how it works. Should each person in the relationship be responsible for their own happiness or should we be responsible for our partner’s happiness?
Personally, I feel that we should each be responsible for our own happiness. Relationship can be a bubble so moods become easily infectious so I am accountable for my happiness and my wife does the same, chances are we’ll have a happy relationship. At the end of the day, it is difficult to be happy with someone else, if you are yet to find happiness as a person, which of course should start from when you are single. I have spoken with a number of people who go into relationships looking to find happiness or with expectation that the person they are with should be kind of responsible for their happiness. I have been that person and apart from it being unfair to the other person, relationships like that tends to end up with someone getting frustrated either because of the pressure or their expectations not being met.
Then you have people who were happy as singles but get into a guy/girl and get so lost in the chemistry of their relationship that they lose themselves. Rather than maintaining their own happiness, they invest 100% into their partners. They are willing to do anything to make their partner happy even when it makes them unhappy. They’ll say it’s what relationship should be about and put up a ‘relationship goal’ front but they are unfulfilled and drained. This rarely has happy endings
It took a long time but my wife and I have learnt and still learning that our commitment to one another is to facilitate each other’s happiness as oppose to making each other happy. Something that works for us is giving each other time and space to do our own thing. I like to call it ‘Me time’. We use this time to reflect on our respective journeys in life and pursue things we enjoy doing that brings us fulfilment. I also use it as the chance to improve myself and learn new skills that can make me a better person. The thing to not forget is that we are all on different, individual journeys and advantage of being in a relationship is having someone to share it with.
It is also necessary to create a relationship it is easy to share and express thoughts and feelings. So if something is not going well at work or in other areas of life, you can share feelings with one another. The issue is when one person is expecting the other person to work some magic that will bring them happiness. I remember when I used to expect my wife to say certain things to make me happy, which always leads to arguments because my expectations weren’t met and then she gets frustrated because she feels I’m asking for too much.
When all is said and done, I feel people who experience happy relationships are those that understand how to be happy as individuals and can present and combine that energy with each other in the relationship.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please share and comment below
Thanks for reading.
This is so apt. ?
This is so apt. ?