Jose-Andres Alegria I don’t know when it happened, but there seems to be a majority of us who think that our significant others need to be our source of happiness. And while your partner should make you happy. They shouldn’t be your only source of happiness. Your partner is not responsible for your happiness. Nor should you want to be the singular source of someone’s happiness. What happens when things outside of your relationship go south? When your partner has made it their goal to make and keep you happy, then regardless of the bad things that were out of their control, you might start to look at them differently.
When the person who’s said their goal in life is to make you happy seems to fail at that promise, even if the circumstances were out of their control, you might blame them regardless. What was once a cute promise in the early stages of a relationship turns into a burden with impossible standards.
Happiness in a relationship
A relationship is two individuals coming together to live life. And while those two individuals can make each other happy, your happiness should come from more than just what is in your relationship. So no, a relationship won’t fix the sadness you might be feeling. It’s sort of like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound.
Have you ever noticed that truly happy and healthy relationships always have two individuals who go about their things and make time for each other and not two codependent people making time for the outside world? Of course, there is a balance, but getting lost in the identity of your relationship can be just as harmful as neglecting your partner. Your partner’s job is to love you, care for you, and support you in any and every way they can.
Self-Reflection & Confidence
We should not hold our partners accountable for our happiness. It’s easy to pawn off the responsibility to someone else, but it isn’t real happiness. Or better yet said, it isn’t happiness in its best and truest form. Instead, we should want to take charge and be in control of our lives.
Self-reflection is the first step in taking responsibility for your happiness and self-confidence. Journaling and meditation are great ways to help jumpstart your self-reflection journey. They can help you track, in a tangible way, the progress you are making. But the best possible self-reflection tool is therapy. Therapy is for more than just overcoming and learning to live with trauma. And I get that therapy is not something everyone can afford, but if you are interested in it. Give Rise Above the Disorder a look. They’re a nonprofit that helps cover the cost of mental health care for everyone.
Self-Love
Through self-love and confidence, you can start to build the foundation for a healthy and happy relationship. Two individuals coming together, remember? Just as your partner needs to make time for you, listen to you, and care for you. The same needs to be done to yourself by yourself. Do you take the time to take care of yourself? How can you expect someone to love you if you can’t love yourself? To love yourself is to show by example how you expect others to love you. Sounds easy enough, but like most things, it can get complicated and hard when things are going so well. It takes discipline and intention to do. It’s sort of like a New Year’s resolution. The first month is always the easiest. Our motivation is usually at its highest, but it’s easy to slip back into our old selves with time and habits, both good and bad. Practicing self-love can sort of be the same in that way.
Happiness Takes work
Happiness isn’t usually something that happens. It takes work to get. Your happiness is not the responsibility of your partner. And suppose you have fallen into the trap of making your partner shoulder the responsibility of your happiness. In that case, you can fix and transform your relationship into something healthy if you both put in the work. Start journaling and meditating as a form of self-reflection. Figure yourself out. Build self-esteem and trust in yourself. Remind yourself of the individual in your relationship—practice self-love as self-care. Learn to love yourself so that you teach others how to love you. And then never let go of the happiness you carved into your life.
[…] Confidence is key. But it can be hard to feel confident when you’re busy talking crap about yourself in your head all day. We don’t realize how much harm self-deprecation does until someone points it out to us. But to put things into perspective. Imagine how you would feel if someone said what you say about yourself in your head. You’d probably think they are an a-hole. And when you start to treat yourself better, you might find yourself a little happier. […]
[…] in the relationship, which can start to affect your confidence. It can also be easy to expect your significant other to be responsible for your happiness which can be detrimental to your mental […]
[…] relationship won’t fix the sadness you might be feeling,” says relationship writer Jose-Andres Alegria. “[That’s] like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound,” he […]