Repeat After Me: No One Else Can Make Me Happy.... 

     And, frankly, it's not someone else's job to make sure you (or I) are happy.  I hate seeing in a blog, "He just doesn't make me happy anymore."  Or, "She says she's not happy with me..."  WHOA!  When did it become someone else's responsibility for your happiness?  When did YOU get assigned to make sure he's thrilled beyond belief all the time?  I don't recall that being in the vows I took.  Yeah, there were other things that didn't happen, either (like that whole 'til death do us part' bit- although, it might have been had I kept going on the way I was with the depression and weight loss...).  But, seriously.  I've been to lots of weddings.  And, unless the couple wrote their own vows, I don't once recall hearing "in sickness and in health, but, only until I'm not longer happy with you..."  Yeah, sounds silly, doesn't it?  But, that's what happens sometimes.  

      And, then there's the after divorce side of it all.  "I'm never going to be happy again..."  "He made me so happy...how will I ever feel that again?"  Well, how about doing things you enjoy?  What about thinking back to what did it for you way back before you met the person you are "now engaged in a great civil war" with (to quote Lincoln).  What made your heart go pitter patter?  

     You will never truly be content- which is honestly what you are aiming for- until you find it within yourself.  Happiness is the here and now.  It comes and goes.  It has it's moments and then flies away.  It's why I'm beginning to understand my high school sociology teacher who told us- "The first time I married for love.  This time I married for money.  Life is so much better."  Did that mean that she married to become rich?  No, she taught high school sociology fer crying out loud.  And, I can't remember what her husband did.  I know they didn't live in the fanciest neighborhood.  Her oldest son and my (only) boyfriend in high school graduated together.  What she meant was, when she took the emotion out of marriage- and made it about a commitment based on similar principles, it made a better marriage.  

     Does this mean you have to be miserable with the next person?  of course not.  It means to quit assigning them jobs they were never meant to have.  And, stop taking the blame for your STBX being an ass.  No one can MAKE you happy.  You will also learn that in any relationship in your future, things of course will have ups and downs.  Emotions will come and go.  What should not is being yourself.  It lightens the load when you see that you don't even have to carry that part.