Don't Rely on Your Partner for Happiness

I’m not one of those people who believes that you have to love yourself before you love someone else. If that were the case people who suffer from anxiety and depression would never find love. It’s a lifelong task to become content with ourselves, let alone try to love who we are. I’ve loved others while hating who I was, I do believe though that you need to be able to find something to make you happy besides your partner. When I relied on my boyfriend for happiness I always wanted to be with him (in a super weird clingy way), exhibited extremely jealous behavior and anxious when I was alone. I was constantly petrified some beautiful girl was going to swoop in and steal the best thing to ever happen to me. Not only was this unhealthy for myself, but also my boyfriend. I always felt anxious because I was afraid I was suffocating him.

When you suffer from a mental illness you tend to look for a reason to continue living. If you’re like me, you usually make that reason a person (in most cases your partner). This a very unhealthy and unstable way to try and feel happy, relying on another person for your happiness can end very badly. You can’t predict the future, if things go south you’ll lose your only source of happiness. Not only is this dangerous for your own wellbeing, it’s also unfair to your partner because they shouldn’t feel trapped in a relationship. This will put an unnecessary amount of strain and pressure on both parties in the relationship. There will be this unwavering cloud hanging over both of your heads reminding you if this doesn’t work out then you’d probably lose it. When you’re with your partner they should increase your happiness, not only be the only reason you’re happy. After I discovered how to be happy on my own being I noticed that when I was with my partner things felt more carefree and easy, like a weight was lifted off of both of our shoulders.

It’s easy writing about why you shouldn’t rely on someone else to make you happy, but it’s a lot harder to explain how to get to that point. I relied on other people for my happiness for the majority of my life, and breaking that habit was a pain. There’s no master list of things out on the internet naming things that can make us happy, because everyone is so different that it’d be nearly impossible to cover all the types of people out there. For example, listening to music might make me happy but for someone who hates music it’d just annoy them. To find something that makes you happy aside from your partner is going to require a lot of experimenting, time and reflection. Don’t get frustrated if months from now you still haven’t found it, it took me almost a year to find out for myself. You just have to stay dedicated and remember that this is not only for your benefit, but your partners as well. A tool that helped me was making a list of things that didn’t work, things that were ok, and things that I liked to keep track of my progress. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you can drink some lemon water and your whole point of view on happiness will be adjusted, because it’s going to take a lot more than that. I will say no one knows who you are better than yourself, so no one else is going to be able to give you the answer.

Something that drastically increased my happiness was taking some time away from my boyfriend and spending it with my family and dogs. Granted I was sick with strep throat so I didn’t really have a choice, I still credit that time being surrounded by them for almost two weeks to how I found what makes me happy. Nothing forces you to figure out ways to be happy like a 104 degree fever and boredom. It’s vital to remember it’ll be significantly harder to figure out what makes you happy when you’re with your partner, you have to take some time to be alone every now and then to experiment with different hobbies. I mean even Netflix can be considered a hobby if it makes you happy enough.