Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from people who feel like something is missing in their lives. And many of them feel like this “missing feeling” stems directly from their spouse or from their marriage. Still though, many of these folks are very insistent that they still love their spouse very much. Despite this though, they just can’t deny that they are obviously unhappy.

It might be explained this way: “I want to be clear that I still love my husband. That is not in question at all. He is a good man. He is funny and attractive. He is a very good spouse and is patient, kind, and understanding. I can’t really find any fault with him, nor would I ever try. He is also a very good father. I would never want to deprive my son of having my husband in his life. However, I can not deny that I am just not happy. When I met my husband, I was a very creative person. I spent a lot of time by myself and I used to go to open mike night and read my poetry. I spent a lot of time reading and studying other writers. My husband is just the opposite. The only thing that he reads is the newspaper. He doesn’t discourage my creativity. Not at all. But I feel like I lose a little bit of myself just being married to him. And I am not sure where this leaves me. I feel like I deserve happiness in my life. I feel like I owe it to myself to ensure that I am as happy as I can possibly be during the little bit of time that I have on this earth. But at the same time, I do love this man.”

I hear some variation on this on a very regular basis. And I am not unsympathetic. I agree that everyone deserves to pursue their own happiness. And I agree that while my husband and I were separated, I began to question if being married to him was the best way for me to claim my own happiness.

Eye-Opening Data: But when researching this topic in my own case, I learned something very important and frankly, life-changing. It is extremely common for people to get a divorce and be every bit as unhappy as they were with their spouse. And the reason for this is that often, your unhappiness isn’t directly caused by your spouse, even when you were sure that it was. So, you remove your spouse (and your marriage) from the equation thinking that very quickly, you will feel relief and you will be free to pursue your own happiness.

But many people don’t find this to be a reality because they haven’t fully addressed the many and multiple things that cause us unhappiness.  They didn’t address what was missing inside of themselves, so removing their spouse leaves them with their same level of unhappiness minus one important (and now missing) person.

Giving Yourself Permission To Pursue Your Own Happiness: Here is something else that I learned. You absolutely have to make yourself responsible for your own happiness for many reasons. First of all, no one else can read your mind or experience your feelings. No one else knows what lights you up and what shuts you down.

And no one else can walk the path of happiness but you. Of course, this is different if you have a spouse who does things to hurt you. That would cause unhappiness. But it’s not often the case and it wasn’t the case here. This wife herself admitted that her husband was a decent spouse. I had a wonderful spouse, also. And when I took him out of the equation of my unhappiness and took responsibility for myself, my entire outlook changed. And the pressure significantly decreased in my marriage. And my husband felt tremendous relief.

So, what does this pursuit of individual happiness look like? Well, for this wife, it would likely look like returning to open mike night and writing poetry. Many writers are able to remain happily married while keeping their identity as a creative person. Sometimes, in our own minds, we believe that our spouse is holding us back when in fact, it is us not taking the initiative. We feel bad about this, so we go to the most likely target. Our spouse. And we project the blame onto them even when it is not fair for us to do so.

Training Yourself To Identify Sabatageurs That Have Nothing To Do With Your Spouse: I have trained myself to take a very regular inventory of my own happiness. I also notice my own reactions to habits and events that I partake in every day. If I find myself tense up during an activity, I do less of that activity without apology. If I find myself engaged and relaxed while doing something, then I absolutely make time for that thing in my life. This simple thing has transformed my happiness level.

And I would be willing to bet that this wife felt that same engagement when being creative. That meant she needed to make time for it. This is not selfish.  Since even she admitted she had a wonderful and supportive husband, I’d be willing to bet that he would help her to make this creativity happen. One thing that many of us forget is that a loving spouse wants us to be happy. And when we speak up and tell our spouse that we’re going to be making some life changes to increase our happiness level, they will often do whatever they need to do to help us. Why? Because they love us. And because happier spouses make for better marriages, which makes everyone happier.

Honestly, it was never my husband that was impeding my own happiness.  It was myself.  And this lead to depression which was one of the reasons that we separated.  Once we reconciled, I learned to take personal responsibility to create the life that I want.   You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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