The Key to Relationship Happiness

Last night, he wondered aloud if it is possible to ever be truly happy, through-and-through. After all, there will always be something just beyond reach. You can never really have everything you want.

But, I say, I don’t think the key to happiness is about getting what you want. It’s about attitude. If you make your happiness contingent on having everything you want, of course you will never achieve it because you will always want more. Therefore, the key to happiness lies not in getting what you want, but in learning to want less. A simple and ancient wisdom recognized by entire populations of spiritual leaders and philosophers before me.

Then it hits me: the source of all my relationship self-sabotaging. I always want my partner to be more, to do this and to get that, and when they fail to, I find myself unhappy with them. Am I not then making the same mistake I have worked so long and so hard to avoid in all other areas of my life? I am not only failing to accept, but to want them as they are. And when I let go of all these wishful qualities and look at him again, he is so very close to perfect. Is this not the key to happiness?

A simple and ancient wisdom: if you want less, you will be happier with what you have. A simple and ancient piece of relationship advice: if you stop wanting your partner to be everything they aren’t, you will be happier with what they are.