Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by meric 4465 days ago
"I do everything I can to make sure she's happy."

That's the wrong way around. Do everything to make sure you are happy, with or without her. It's up to her if she wants to be happy with you.

2 comments

What you want is an equilibrium situation where both are happy.
Wow, maybe if you're in it for the short term, but if you want a long term relationship or marriage, that "make, sure I'm happy" mantra sure ain't going to work.

Imagine if we had that attitude with our children? Or mother?

If you're not happy, whatever you do, your unhappiness will be contagious, and people close to you will catch it too. Have you ever talked to someone unhappy pretending everything is fine, and how comfortable were you in talking about happy topics about you to said person, and were you tempted to ask the other person what's bothering them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion

Therefore, for others to be happy, you must be happy first. You cannot rely on other's happiness to lift you up and IMHO you should not let your own unhappiness fester and drag everyone around you down.

Imagine a child, whose parents come home in a bad mood everyday, though they do everything to make the child happy except changing their own mood, will the child grow up as a well-rounded individual?

Eh, your above comment was still pretty misguided:

> That's the wrong way around. Do everything to make sure you are happy, with or without her. It's up to her if she wants to be happy with you.

...though you're pulling in the right direction here.

It's not either/or; you & your partner have to take care of yourselves, in the context of taking care of your entire family unit. I've been married for 14 years and have 2 kids. If I ignore the balance and either forget to suss out (and attend to) the needs of my partner & kids, or if I try to "do what they want" with no attention to my own needs, it goes poorly for us all. My wife has to do the same thing.

There's work and short-term sacrifice involved; sometimes I do things I wouldn't do, on my own, because I have longer-term goals in mind that rely on my relationships w/ wife & daughters.

But the same applies to us all, and this is something we discuss with our kids all the time -- e.g., "sure, I could clean up all this stuff myself, but I'm probably going to be cranky about it, and we'll have less time to read together this afternoon...".