Unhappy Relationship
When It Comes To An Unhappy Relationship
In an episode of Seinfeld, George Castanza attempts to break off an unhappy relationship (for him) by telling the girl, "it's not about you, it's me". While he was no doubt trying, in a rather clumsy way, to let the girl down easily, he unwittingly perhaps, hit the nail on the head.
There are some instances of course when an unhappy relationship is there for all to witness, even when the parties involved choose, for whatever reason, to stick it out, the one party no doubt believing the other party will eventually change. Seldom happens. Many times though an unhappy relationship is felt mutually by both parties, though each has his or her own thoughts on the situation. Dale Carnegie, also well known for hitting the nail on the head, summed it up this way: “It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
How many times have you felt yourself to be in an unhappy relationship one day, and the next day everything is fine? This happens all the time, to the extent we really can't say If a relationship is happy, or unhappy, or somewhere in the middle. The relationship exists in our mind, and is what we choose to make it.
That's not to say that in a marriage, out partner can do whatever he or she feels like, fool around, spend money recklessly, or refuse to take out the garbage. Even though our partner may need to make some changes to get the ship righted again, the relationship still is defined by what goes on in our mind. Our partner may feel the relationship is wonderful, even though we're viewed as being a bit too permissive. Same relationship, but viewed differently.
Dale Carnegie had another one (of many): “Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.” I must confess to having seen horses that appear to be unhappy. Horses do have feelings. What Carnegie was getting at though is a horse is happiest when it can be itself, a horse. Anyone training horses will tell you that. You get a horse to do something by getting it to think what you want it to do is what it wants to do. If we could apply the same principle to marriage, maybe there would be a few less unhappy relationships along the way. Taking out the garbage becomes fun.
When an unhappy relationship exists in our mind, the solution is to simply let it go. That's not necessarily going to solve all underlying problems, but at least gives the relationship a better chance of getting back to being a happy one.
Roads Well Traveled - Sometimes we get into an unhappy relationship in marriage because we believed that a marriage would not only be perfect, and two could live on love alone, but getting married would resolve some irritating issues, like a pregnant girl friend for instance. Once married, reality sets in, and once reality sets in we start thinking about how things should be, rather than how they actually are, and the happy union slowly becomes an unhappy relationship. You can see an unhappy relationship coming when people get married because a) they have to, b) all their friends are, and they're beginning to feel like losers, c) to escape something, or d) because playing house sounded like fun and maybe they'd get used to the idea. You can point the finger of blame at one partner or the other, or both, but if an unhappy relationship develops, it probably going to exist mostly in the mind of one or both.
If all of this sounds a bit confusing or theoretical, it should. The unhappy relationship is a complicated subject, that many try to make sound simple. Carnegie, or George Castanza, may have come closest.