What does it take: To Be Happy with Your Spouse?
Happiness is an elusive goal and being happy in a marriage is moreso because it is trying to win over another person every day. So what does it take?
It takes… liking yourself.
OK – here comes the anger and disgust because Dr. Lane is being deceptive and wily in his writing.
You want the big clue, the giant answer of answers that will solve this conundrum.
Face it – I just gave it to you. Now the explanation:
You cannot love and respect another person until you come to grips with liking yourself. Yes, you! You, that imperfect, stupid, unappealing, ambitious, egotistical, error-ridden, too (what? tall, short, fat, whatever your gripe about yourself fill it in here). Yes, you!
Whatever your anger with yourself, how can you expect to find love in a flawed person until you find love in your own flawed self.
Start by finding something about yourself that you like, even if something else is imperfect or flawed. Maybe you are a good mother, daughter, son, friend; or doctor, employee, or jewelry-maker. Maybe you are a good listener, or you can calm fussy babies, or dogs trust you. Find something that you truly believe is good about you.
Why do this? How can you find something to love in another person if you can’t find something to love in yourself. To find someone else wonderful you must offer something back to them that is wonderful about you. Your flawed lovable self finds love in another flawed wonderful self.
Once you find something about yourself to love you can move on to the next steps, in this order:
1) you must have same-gender friendships. Working from a heterosexual model (only because those are the ones I am familiar with), you must have a relationship where sex is not the reason for being there. A buddy, a friend, a fellow person going through life’s turmoils from the same vantage point as you with the same challenges.
2) you have opposite-gender friendships. You must learn to like men or women as people or reject them for the right reasons without sex being the reason for being there.
3) you have romantic relationships. You can’t love someone if you don’t actually like them. Without the earlier stages how can you be expected to separate lust from like? These may not be forever but the can be for “right now” [you know the joke: not “Mr. Right” but “Mr. Right Now”]
4) you have love. Love should organically arise from liking someone who is also someone you find appealing. Whatever that is. Personally, my wife is six feet tall. I like her and I like tall women – it works for me!
5) you have marriage or something long-term. With so much that goes into a marriage, you better like your spouse because some days you can’t stand them. Trust me, this is true.
By the way, these relationships must be earned by what you offer so family relationships don’t count. You parents and siblings don’t enter into these stages for obvious reasons: they are as stuck with you as you are with them.
If you miss a stage, your romantic / marriage relationships can’t work and can’t last.
And it starts with… liking yourself. Get this one part right and the basis of marriage will be in your grasp.
The advantage of marriage is a longer and happier life. A bad marriage will make you wish for a short life; a happy marriage will make you want to live forever.
via Blogger http://chiropractic-lane.blogspot.com/2013/07/health-what-does-it-take-to-be-happy.html
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