Some of you out there see your relationships as a guide to happiness. You may feel that by having a good relationship you are choosing happiness. But what is happiness, really, and how do we get there if we are in a less than happy relationship?

I’ve known quite a few men and women who think that having a good partner is the one thing that will bring complete and utter happiness. They see things in their partner that they themselves would like be. It may be that they want to make a lot of money or are good looking or both and because they perceive their partner to be this way, they believe these things will come to them and this will bring happiness. For whatever reason they’re convinced that their partner can somehow make them happy as a result of all of these external things. Aside from the ego issues, the problem with thinking that your partner can “make” you be happy is: “What does that make you? Unhappy?”

If you are not happy on the inside then how can any external condition. partner or otherwise “make” you be happy. This is false reasoning. Happiness is not external no matter how hard (and we certainly try hard) we try to make it so.

©Christina Florence – October 2010