This guest article from YourTango was written by Kim Olver.
People date, putting their best foot forward, to acquire the relationship they want. If you are married, you succeeded at the Compatibility Stage of Relationships, deciding you and your spouse had enough in common to make a lifetime commitment to each other. Congratulations!
How many of you thought that was the hard part — that it would be relatively smooth sailing from there? How many were surprised by how much their partner changed, seemingly overnight? I know that happened in my marriage. I tell people it was as if my husband had an overnight visit from the Body Snatchers because he was so different from the moment we returned from our honeymoon. My head was spinning and perhaps his was too.
This happens in many marriages and there are two main reasons for it. First, once people have acquired something they want, they often begin to put their focus on something new, neglecting the maintenance behavior necessary to hold onto their original acquisition.
The second reason is the differing beliefs, values, and expectations we have around marriage. Let’s look at each separately.
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Hi,
Here the details/ answer is in the question. We don’t have a definition of “happy” that is realistic anymore. it isn’t that the way men and women interact has changed, it is what our expectations of the result of that interaction 9how it will make us feel) has changed. Also the consequences for not maintaining that relationship have been greatly reduced in the past half of a decade.
For other then obvious reason the “you” in which this post addresses is not Amish. These people have relatively no divorces in their community. So they have the “ever after” part down. So the question is, are they happy? Well they manage to make it through life without ever getting divorced, they have an nominal rate of suicide, they have no need for antidepressants. This same truth can be applied to cultures where arranged marriages exist. So what do they have that the standard fare western marriage doesn’t? Since I don’t believe in deities magically granting emotional strength, it must be something else.
It seems that there truly is no such thing as “free will” and that humans will always choose that which they perceive is more pleasurable. In a borderline society where we got no connection to the past as we blame only ourselves for our problems cause our parents “did the best they could” and “we made our own mistakes in spite of what they said” at best. We got no connection to the future, we have kids and we basically think our job ended there. We send them off to day care and the “Lord of the Flies” environment of a public school system does the rest of the child rearing for us. We live only for ourselves and today, with no perspective from other people’s view or the consequences to our actions. So starting with bad irrational partner choice to begin with, it is followed by selfish unrealistic world views afterwards. So we don’t even know what it means to be “happy” in terms of a relationship.
Hi LOL,
I agree there is no universal definition of happiness but I do believe a person knows whether or not he or she feels happy and/or satisfied. Our emotions are the barometer that tells us what feels good and right to us and what feels bad and wrong. (I do know there are things that feel good and wrong, but I’m talking here about the congruence with good and right.)
I also agree that whether or not we feel happy has a lot to do with our beliefs, values and expectations. One of the things I do when working with couples, is to ask them to challenge their beliefs, values and expectations–to put them under a microscope to see if they are really true and whether or not they serve the person.
Whenever someone is unhappy with their present circumstances, he or she can change his behavior, his perception or what he wants. The other option is to stay miserable and I really work hard to have my clients leave misery in the past and work toward a better future in their current relationship or a new one. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate your opinion.
My Husband and I have been married for 11 years. Last year he told me he had resented me for the last 10 years because he felt like I forced him to marry me. This completely broke my heart and I am having an incredibly hard time forgiving him and trying to understand how he could say he loves me if he resented me for that long. He says now that he shouldn’t have said that, but you can’t say something like that without meaning it right? I have asked him to find a way to show me that he truly loves me because I don’t feel that he does. Am I asking too much? If we didn’t have three children I would probably have left by now… so heartbroken and don’t know what to say anymore to fix our relationship!
Wow…I know how you feel…sometimes when my husband and I get into fights he says what did I get nyself into or he’ll mention divorce to some type of degree. So I know what you mean cuz it is hard to forgive. I feel like I live with a stranger and I have no I dea who this man is that lives with me. He’s not even the same father he use to be. I hope things work out for you. I wish I knew what the future looked like so. Can know if its worth hanging in for a while longer