“Happiness in a Relationship” The Delusion

I grew up believing that my mission in life was to get married and have children in order to feel fulfilled and happy. The search began when I was a teenager. I fell in love with a boy. I felt like I was wanted, like I was special, like I was beautiful. I was fulfilled and happy, at least for a few years. We became disappointed in each other as we grew comfortable and our “flaws” emerged, yet we still hung on to our 'love' and our dream and became engaged. As time went on and we bored of each other I realized he wasn't as perfect as I had dreamed him to be. In fact, he became quite an angry and mean person. I also discovered he had cheated on me. I was very upset, for my life plan for happiness and fulfillment had crashed.

From then on I stayed on the search for the perfect man, going from one boyfriend to the next. A few of them really did seam like “the one”, yet they never asked me to marry them and we would end up in a nasty breakup.

Even though I would have a blast with my friends while single, I usually felt the need to find a mate. I felt like I wouldn't truly be happy unless I found the man I was supposed to live the rest of my life with.

I eventually did get married and I was elated for the first two or three years, but we also found many things to be disappointed and angry about with each other and almost divorced a few times.

As of today, 10 years after our wedding, with the help of Desteni, we both now realize that happiness is not to be dependent on each other, or on anything outside of self for that matter. I believe this realization may be what is keeping us from leaving one another. We are much more relaxed, not elated, yet not pissed off. Expectations are thrown out and along with them so are the disappointments. We have brought back the power of self joy within our selves.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that happiness exists.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that happiness only exists because sadness exists.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within being in a relationship with a boyfriend.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within being married to the one and only perfect man for me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within spending time with my husband/children/family/friends, instead of realizing joy within self, as is, with no dependency on relationships to make me happy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness outside and separate from me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be happy, for when I have a desire for happiness, I am only stating my unhappiness and a need for something outside of me to make me happy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to 'find' happiness somewhere 'out there' separate from me, instead of investigating why I am not happy with who I am in every moment and to change whatever it is that I am not happy with.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only care about my personal happiness.

When and as I begin to expect to find happiness in a relationship, or to depend on a relationship for happiness, I stop, I breath, and realize that when I am searching for happiness outside of myself I am ignoring what it is that I am not accepting within myself because happiness derived from outside of me is not real, but only a temporary diversion. I commit myself to take back my attention and reliance of happiness from outside stimulation or diversion, such as relationships, to myself and focus on being self honest, paying attention to what it is within myself that I am not happy with, and make necessary changes to live my word, where within myself I can find the expression of joy of life as equal to all life.