There’s a meme going around with a snippet of a video and interview that Will Smith did where he discussed happiness within relationships.
In the meme, it says: “Will Smith said, her happiness is not my responsibility. She should be happy and I should be happy individually. Then, we come together and share our happiness. Giving someone a responsibility to make you happy when you can’t do it for yourself is selfish.”
Per the course, on social media, some are taking it out of context and using it as proof that they are not responsible for the relationship satisfaction of their partner. Some are using it against women as if they are solely responsible for their feelings within a relationship, but that’s not what Will Smith said and not what he meant when he said it’s selfish.
No, you are not ultimately responsible for any other person’s happiness.
However, if you are in a relationship, you are responsible to care that they are unhappy or unable to obtain their own happiness. You are responsible to look at your own behavior to make sure it’s not impeding your person from pursuing their happiness. You are responsible to look at the expectations of the relationship to see if they need to be renegotiated and adjusted.
You can’t be happy with yourself individually while being in a relationship with someone who is miserable. If they can’t find happiness or satisfaction, there are some questions that need to be examined and considered. Even if it results in them needing individual therapy, you have to be supportive and willing to change the dynamic of your relationship as they gain new tools.
A relationship is a social agreement where two people are choosing to continue their individual life path in congruence with someone else with (hopefully) similar morals, values and romantic outlook.
When one partner goes astray from their path, the other partner is their closest observer because they often have been given the most intimate access. Being privileged with that knowledge, they are the most able to influence their partner. They may serve as an advisor or motivator to their partner by encouraging them to incorporate the things in their life that raises their satisfaction.
The relationship is a container, but it doesn’t prevent either partner from continuing to act in the outside world. Satisfaction doesn’t just come from relationship success. It’s often a combination along with security in multiple areas such as financial, career and philanthropy.
When people say, “we grew apart”, that often means that one partner was changing and the other partner wasn’t. Eventually, they found more happiness outside and independent of the relationship than they found within it.
Making yourself responsible for the happiness of your partner or vice versa is a recipe for codependency. It’s much healthier for couples to have inter-dependence. Inter-dependence is where each partner maintains their own life path and joins with the other person where they can support one another financially, emotionally and physically. It requires communication, negotiation and an awareness that you may have to watch your partner struggle in their evolution.
Since the article with Will Smith, it has been revealed that he and Jada Pinkett-Smith have gone from monogamy to an open relationship. He has expressed that Jada Pinkett-Smith didn’t want a traditional marriage, but he insisted on being married. She has admitted on her show that she sacrificed her career to raise their children. Both have expressed doing lengthy introspection within their relationship in trying to maintain their union. From the outside looking in, it appears they had to go through codependency within their relationship to possibly arriving at interdependency in their later years.
When he says he’s not responsible for her happiness, what he was essentially saying was they needed to find interdependence instead of depending on the other to change to keep them happy.
Maybe, you are responsible for freeing someone to be themselves in the relationship and that helps foster happiness.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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