Reposted with permission from fetlife guest blogger: _Time_After_Time See original post here!
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That’s absurd! Crazy talk! Outlandish! Who wouldn’t want to be told by their spouse that they want to make you happy?
This girl right here!
The day I told my spouse to STOP trying to make me happy, I was set free. I was free to fully embrace myself. The good, bad, ugly and the ugliest. His efforts to try and constantly make me happy felt like a noose around my neck. I hated when he sent me flowers. I hated when he picked my favorite restaurant. I hated when he always want to do what I wanted.
I. HATED. IT. Like so much. I love flowers. I love food. I love exploring new places. I felt like such a bitch when I would ask him why…. Why did you send me flowers? Why can’t we go where you like to eat? Why can’t you pick something to do?
The answer was always the same….
I want to make you happy. ~Ugh.
Towards the unraveling of the relationship, every time he would say it to me, I could feel my insides screaming with a desperate frustration.
Why? Why didn’t I want my loving, doting partner trying to make me happy all the time?
Because it wasn’t his job to make me happy.
That’s on me. In fact, I will go as far to say that “happy” should never be the objective. Happy is based on circumstances, situations, things, experiences. When those change, so do the feelings. I don’t want happy. I don’t want to ride a continual roller-coaster of emotions. Happy I got flowers, not happy because I didn’t. Happy up, not happy down…. UP. down. UP. down.
I longed for joy.
I wanted a steady flow of joy regardless of whatever storm swirls around me. And I knew he couldn’t provide that for me, only I could. That work was mine and ONLY mine. I wanted a deep abiding joy that could stand in the face of the storms beating at my door or found floating in the gentle whisper of the breeze.
I knew that true joy didn’t mean a 24/7 shits & grins life. It is an acceptance of who I am, why I am, where I am, how I am. This cannot be maintained externally. It does not exist from the outside in, but from the inside out.
Here’s what my spouse couldn’t ever admit……
The flowers weren’t really for me. If we look happy, then we must be happy. If we feel happy, then we must be happy. No, no, no.
Send me flowers because the joy that you feel is overflowing; not because you want to make me happy.