The Secret of Happiness

If my marriage doesn’t bring me happiness, then how do I get happy? Don’t make happiness your good life goal. You need growth, because one of the byproducts of growth is happiness.

The spiritual and emotional growth process, designed by God, is about discovering what we lack inside, where we are empty, and where we are broken. We find out how unfinished we are and how much we need God in our lives, along with people. There’s also a step where you will experience the many ways you can be filled, matured, and healed.

You need to get the pressure off the marriage. Don’t ask from your marriage what only personal growth can provide. You need to put the pressure on growing out of whatever is keeping you from being the fulfilled and complete person you need to be. The ending result will be that your marriage, will be freed from a burden it cannot bear. It can become a wonderful haven of love, connection, intimacy, and passion.

Growing people create growing marriages. People who aren’t growing tend to look toward their spouse and want more of what they aren’t getting enough of. So, ask yourself what you are demanding from your marriage, to gain that which you should be achieving in the growth process.

Is it that you have a tendency to feel empty and unloved? Your marriage can provide love, but marriage alone doesn’t fill that hole in your heart that yearns for more love than you feel you are getting. That hole can be filled through a growing process, with God as the key factor, and by His grace.

Might it be that you are depending on your spouse to give you a sense of purpose and strength? Often, someone who lacks structure and confidence marries a person who has a lot of both, hoping to receive these qualities through some kind of transfer. Instead the weaker one becomes dependent on the stronger, and stronger one becomes resentful and oftentimes controlling of the weaker.

Purpose and strength come when we learn what we want, work through why we have been afraid to go after what we want, and then take the necessary risks to achieve it.

You will not move from an unloved to a loved state, or from a weak to a strong state, simply from having the “right” spouse. Even if your mate has the necessary qualities to facilitate the move, it would unbalance the entire relationship. Marriage is about two adults loving, growing together, sometimes failing, and forgiving together. In many marriages that means there will always be lots to do in working towards the happiness you long for. It’s attainable by taking the first step in turning whatever frustrates you, over to God, the miracle worker (My thoughts with Rescue Your Love Life, p.p. 39-41).

Sherry