Don’t let your happiness depend on your spouse.

Being part of a meaningful and nurturing steady relationship is probably one of the most satisfying experiences anyone can strive towards as a human being. If you succeed in being part of such a relationship, everything else in your life will fall into place most easily. However, you should remember that every coin has two sides: and if on one side the positive aspects of a relationship can be extremely uplifting, on the other side the negative aspects about it can be terribly nerve-wrecking and soul-shattering.

By no means do I intend to propose that you should avoid getting into a relationship out of fear that something might go wrong and you’ll be left in the dumps. However, you should keep in mind that such thing MIGHT indeed happen – and there are subtle, but crucial shifts in perspective that you can adopt right now, that will not only safeguard your emotional integrity if something goes wrong, but they’ll simultaneously contribute to keeping your relationship from going sour and stale.

The degree to which your happiness depends on your spouse is equivalent to the degree to which you’ll feel miserable if something goes wrong.

If your happiness depends completely on your spouse you will feel absolutely miserable, should anything go wrong with your relationship! To every coin there is a flip-side, and I see too many people suffering unnecessarily because they fail to recognize this principle. Additionally, the more you depend on your loved one to be happy, the most likely you’ll suffocate your relationship quicker than you can utter “Woe, not wow. where have I failed, my precious? Please, PLEASE come back, or I promise I will slit my wrists because I can no longer live without you“.

You really think you’re in love, don’t you? If you do, you should know this: Love should be all about giving, and none about taking. Love is nothing to do with neediness. In a healthy relationship, you’ll feel compelled to support your partner, rather than depend on her/himĀ  to keep you happy. In a healthy relationship, you’ll feel compelled to look after yourself so that your other half doesn’t have to worry about that. In such a relationship, you should feel happy and complete all on your own:

In a healthy relationship you’re not seeing someone out of a need for a affection, but simply because that person naturally makes your love blossom.

If you’re happy on your own and you CHOOSE being with someone else because you’re in love with that person, there’s a much better chance the relationship will thrive. By choosing this route, you’ll be unlikely to fall prey to unabashed jealousy, insecurities, emotional clinging, and a host of negative behaviors which tend to undermine a relationship.

Furthermore, you’ll be able effectively support your spouse and be there for her/him, without having a clouded judgment by your own wants and needs. If you don’t let your happiness depend on your spouse, you’ll have lots of happiness to spare! There’s an old adage that goes in the lines of:

Why do you go from door to door begging for a little joy, when you have a treasure of happiness in your own home?

In terms of a relationship, this gem of wisdom could be articulated as follows: why do you depend on your spouse to make you happy, when you could just get in tune with your inner joy and be able to pour endless happiness upon your relationship? Why do you choose to suffocate your relationship with your measly wants and needs, when you could just as easily nourish it, and be most happy on the long run?

I want you to think about this, and maybe you’ll realize that oftentimes our lack of perspective makes us behave in ways that drastically sabotage our chances of really being happy.

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