Many of us live with a preconceived notion that we need another person in life for it to be complete, for happiness to come knocking at the door. We believe wholeheartedly that when we meet our significant other the most important piece of the puzzle will be put into place, that only then we will feel whole. And there is nothing wrong about thinking that way, in fact I am frequently wary of the individuals declaring that they are self-sufficient and perfectly fine on their own. It’s almost against nature.
The biggest mistake we are prone to make is to place too much weight in the way of our expectations and demands on the chosen one. We wait for someone to come and fix us! We are too lazy to do the work that concerns us. I often hear wives complaining, “he doesn’t do this and that… he doesn’t love me like he used to… he doesn’t treat me right…” They seem to be producing a long list of unmet demands that’s only getting longer with each year of shared living. Their dissatisfaction takes up all the space, it seems to be the only thing they are capable of talking or thinking about. Wait a minute, if your husband is to disappear tomorrow, taking with him all of your unaddressed concerns, what will you have left of your life? Would you look around like you just woke up asking yourself , “uh… where was I?”
We all want happiness so badly yet we refuse to even try to be happy unless our spouse would spread happiness in abundance on every single day of our life. Otherwise we stay miserable. And give him the attitude he deserves for failing to be the light that never burns out.
At some point I thought: no matter how hard I tried it’s not easy to be happy with him. Too much work with dubious results at the end. That’s when I decided to be happy on my own, first in spite, then for the sake… My happiness was the best neutralizer of his moodiness, aggressiveness or indifference. I started looking for things that make me happy even when he is not around, soon I was too busy to notice his lack of attention and ignore his nagging. I was no fun to have a fight with, he was looking at me with different eyes, I sensed the renewal of his interest. I was so enthusiastic about all the things I was taking on, my enthusiasm got contagious. I lightened up the atmosphere in our house, I lifted up the burden I placed on his shoulders at the beginning of our marriage: to keep me happy all the time – something that would wear down any man sooner or later. A happy wife is easy to love. A loved wife is happy. Stop thinking that only once he treats you write you will finally be happy (because he will only treat you worse if you keep going that route). Be happy now, be that light, you have that in you!
Can You Break the Cycle?
Is Your Husband Happy?
Reading a blog about loneliness, I stumbled upon a comment from one frustrated husband. These are the words that somehow struck me the most and emerged me into a lengthy bout of pondering: “My wife does her best to null any joy or excitement”. Women are known to complain more about issues they have in their relationships: expressing feelings, untangling a twisted knot of emotional problems, self-digging to a point of losing touch with reality and then dumping the findings on whoever would listen – all of these are more typical of a feminine nature. I’m not trying to present men as some shallow species incapable of deep feelings, it’s just that those feelings are mostly hidden so well it’s easy to fall into fallacy of thinking that men can take up any emotional burden and still be okay. Is it really so?
I often get annoyed when Jonathan gets into this peculiar dreaming mood. He starts talking about all the things he would never do as if he is all ready to start execution of his grand plans tomorrow. It goes like “first we’ll travel to Europe, stop by in Italy, visit Scandinavian countries…” I can’t help it but put some cold water on his overheated dream button: I dismiss his dreams by strong reasoning and logic. In eight years we’ve been together we went traveling once and it took a lot of efforts on my side. As I follow my urge to bring him back to the real world, the light of joy fades away from his face: he is defeated, quiet and unhappy. He retreats into his inner world from which I am now banned. Once I heard him murmur: “ Let me dream, won’t you…”
That’s just one of the examples but I can think of many more when I was the one to “null his joy and excitement”. Yet he never complains and I proudly carry my rightness, convinced I did him lots of good. It daunted on me lately that I don’t want to be right any more, I want him to be happy. And even if I am not the source of his happiness all the time, at least I can try and give some space so that the springs of joys would emerge from underground. We may very conveniently think that they owe us happiness but we owe them nothing in return: we can do all the nagging and criticizing in the world and still be loved unconditionally. It doesn’t take much to be judgmental, it takes a lot of will to support something you don’t necessarily agree with. Unless you want to be that sort of wife, the one who is always right, the joy-killer.
