Are you questioning your marriage right now? Asking yourself questions like: Do I feel close and connected to my spouse? Are we more like roommates than lovers? Would I be better off on my own? If your answers leave you less than thrilled, you are not alone. Feeling disconnected or distant from your partner is, unfortunately, a common complaint for many married couples. Contemplating leaving the marriage is often seen as the only solution.
While it is physiologically impossible to stay in the hormone-driven, all-encompassing throes of the passion the two of you had when you fell in love, it is equally unnecessary to accept a purely platonic relationship. The adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt”, should never apply to your marriage. Unfortunately, at this time of year, the barely restrained contempt is palpable in many homes.
What really gets to me though is the idea that the only options to an uncomfortable situation are either to sacrifice yourself to it or flee it. The option of making it better doesn’t seem to break through to the surface. Not acknowledging this third possibility plays into the fears many young people have about the whole idea about marriage as an option for them.
The main problem, as I see it, is the belief that personal happiness is incompatible with marriage. If you ask people on their wedding days if they feel personal happiness, they will assure you they do. Most of us don’t marry someone who doesn’t add to our happiness.
So how do you get so unhappy that the only course you see open to you is to leave that same marriage? And why, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, do you believe that happiness lies “somewhere over the rainbow”? This continuous focus on “it’s all about me” that drives so many of us results in short-term thinking that is often unnecessarily destructive. It also frequently works against what people say they want.
This idea of the perfect life or perfect relationship being just around the corner is a fallacy. Disregarding people who disappoint you, misunderstand you, or fail to worship you 24/7 regardless of how you behave is just part of this childish fantasy world. This is because, no matter how hard you believe the next person won’t fail you in the same way, they do.
The quest for the Perfect Union is bound to fail unless you challenge the underlying principle of the search. Happiness and success in a relationship can never be based on the desires and expectations of only one of the partners. A relationship, by definition, involves two people and the only one you have any control over is yourself.
This truth is both good and bad news. It’s good in that anyone at any time can create their own happiness. Finding happiness in your current relationship, with a few exceptions, is up to you. The Holy Grail of a really good, not perfect, marriage is attainable if you want to create it. The bad news is making the necessary changes to be happy is solely on you; because no matter where you go, you take yourself with you.
Leaving a truly bad relationship is a wise decision. Throwing one away that has become challenging over time may not be. It is possible to breathe life back into it if you’re willing to try. It might not work but starting over offers no guarantee of success either. Besides, as Dorothy learned, if you can’t find happiness in your own backyard, it may not be anywhere.
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This post was previously published on The Hero Husband Project and is republished here with permission from the author.
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