If You Still Totally Depend On Your Partner for Your Happiness You Need to Read This!

Most times when I talk to people who feel they are not getting enough attention and happiness from their relationship, I seem to reckon with them because if we all are not very observant or let me say careful, the attention we once received from our partner can be thrown out of the window even without us knowing it. This may automatically leave us feeling very unhappy with ourselves and everyone around us.

I recently spoke with a new friend about her relationship with her hubby. She was of the opinion that he was no longer treating her with respect like he used to. Yes, it does happen especially when we have spent a lot of time together and our privacy had been compromised but like I wrote in one of my books; “Stranded” with a Status, our happiness comes from within. We can only make ourselves happy. If you are not happy, the people around you will run from you. Everybody wants to associate with a happy person that can on the other hand make them happy too. It is just as easy as that! Wouldn’t you rather spend your day with someone that would make you laugh out loud, forget about your worries and see the better side of life than spend your time with a person that would remind you of how hard it is to survive in this country? Lol.

I must admit there are a lot of things that can make us unhappy in life. It may be your finances, marriage, children, career etc. All these things may weigh us down and render us helpless. However, a lot of disadvantages are associated with this feeling of unhappiness. Let’s take a look at some…….

The Disadvantages of Being Unhappy

1.      Unhappiness ages you: When you are unhappy most of the time, it means you rarely smile. Frowning directly makes you age before your time. It’ll make wrinkles appear on your face from nowhere. Also in some cases, being unhappy makes grey hair to appear on your head. Unhappiness brings about worry, and worry on the other hand can never help us positively, it only depreciates us.

2.      Unhappiness makes people avoid you: As a result of being unhappy with yourself, you may realize that people who are close to you are stylishly avoiding spending quality time with you. They would rather be alone than sit with you and hear you complain about how your partner had been unfair to you, how he/she does not care enough for you bla bla bla…. (Except people like me of course that are out to make sure you have a smooth relationship :). The truth is, when you are unhappy, you need someone around you that you can share your feelings with. Unfortunately, this person may not be your partner. Learn to do this with care as most people have their issues too but what they do is try all their possible best to be happy no matter what!

3.      If you are not happy with yourself, you cannot make any other person happy:  It is just a simple fact about life. Like I wrote in one of my books as earlier mentioned, ‘Nemo dat quad non habet’ i.e., No man can give what he does not have.  If you are the type that depends on external things to make you happy, I’m sorry to say this but you may end up being unhappy for the rest of your life. This is because just like you want that partner to make you happy, he/she may also be waiting on you for his/her happiness. If you don’t learn first to make yourself happy, it becomes impossible for you to make your partner happy too.

4.      Unhappiness wears you out: Being unhappy wears you out because it drains you of all your positive energy. All the strength you are supposed to pour into doing something meaningful with your time is spent on whining about how unfair your partner is treating you or about how much of a mistake you think your relationship or marriage is. The funny thing is that your partner may be out there achieving the best in life without giving you the minutest thought.

5.      Unhappiness makes you see the negative side of everything: When you are unhappy with yourself or where you presently are, you end up seeing the negative side of everything. Even when there’s someone willing to help you enjoy your relationship more, you end up taking the person as an enemy because you think the care they are showing is just to spite you.

6.      Unhappiness impacts negatively on your children: If you are one of the fortunate ones that have been blessed with child(ren), being unhappy with yourself reflects in the way you deal with them. You are bound to transfer aggression to your children even without knowing it. They may end up being abused emotionally, verbally or physically. This may end up affecting them psychologically as a child, worse still as an adult in the future.

7.      Unhappiness ruins your relationship: Yes, you may think your partner is the reason why you are unhappy but I beg to disagree to that. We are the only ones with the right to decide whether we should be happy or not. If you decide to be happy today, no one else can stop you. I have discovered this over the years and it is working for me…. It can work for you too. It is at the detriment of your relationship to be unhappy with yourself or anyone around you. It can negatively affect your relationship to the point of separation or divorce.

8.      Unhappiness breeds jealousy: When you are unhappy with yourself, you may end up being very jealous of your partner because they are doing well with their life. This jealousy may lead you into doing some very bad things that you won’t be proud of.

The list of disadvantages associated with being unhappy is endless and can take forever to write all of them. However, as individuals, there are ways that we can ensure we are personally happy in our relationships no matter what.

The most important is to think of those things that made us happy before marriage. If you can truthfully think of legal and morally decent things that made you happy back then that you have probably stopped doing, I think this is the time you need to pick up those activities again.

I for example love writing, learning, dancing, going out, making money (wink) etc. When I realized at a point in marriage that I wasn’t as happy as I thought I would be, I decided to revisit these personal loves of mine and now I’m better.

To be personally happy with yourself and the way the events of your life unfolds make up your mind that nobody and nothing will make you unhappy. Unhappiness is very bad for your health. In case you didn’t know, unhappiness is the same as sadness, sorrow, grief, misery, discontent, gloom etc. In other words, an unhappy person is sorrowful, sad, grief-stricken, gloomy and so on and so forth. I am very sure you don’t want to be all that.

Whether your partner supports it or not, you deserve all the happiness you can get and you must have it.

So get out, have some fun, learn that new skill, develop that career, go back to school, get that new car, take that vacation, lose that weight, take up that job, cut that hair, make some new friends or do whatever (moral or legal) it is that ‘ll make you happy.

Wish you all the happiness you need…….

 

Cheers,

Bukola Oyetunji