Do You Just Want To Be Happy?
At the beginning of 2009, I wrote this post – What’s Your Big Idea? In it, I discussed my reaction to Steve and Erin Pavlina’s decision to explore the realm of a polyamorous marriage. For those not familiar with this term, polyamory is the practice or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of all involved.
If you’re relatively new to Simple Marriage, I’d suggest you follow this link and read the post before proceeding. See you again in a few minutes.
Okay, now that you’re back, allow me to give you an update.
Last week, Steve and Erin announced that they have separated and are getting divorced. They both wrote at length about this and admit that their decision to become polyamorous played a role in the separation.
While it is likely that deciding to be polyamorous would harm most any marriage, what troubles me is what’s underneath all this.
First, a brief disclaimer: I do not view things fundamentally the same as Steve and Erin (at least from what I have read on their blogs). And when there is a fundamental difference in beliefs, it’s easy to come across as judging or harsh – which in no way I am wanting to do.
Divorce is a major thing in our society and there’s no such thing as a divorce without fallout – or pain and suffering. A family is a system – what affects one – impacts all.
Here’s a few quotes taken directly from their writing about this:
Human relationships have a lot of fluidity to them, and marriage is only one of many forms they can take. In this case the most conscious decision we can make to improve our relationship is to end our marriage.
Our desires in life are no longer as compatible as they were in our early years. We both want to live in ways that the other is not interested in, so we were constantly compromising what we wanted to make the other person happy, which left neither of us truly happy.
It appears as though their belief is that marriage is supposed to make them happy and if its not – that means something’s not working.
I simply do not agree.
Marriage is not designed to make us happy.
What makes you happy is way too vague and elusive. What makes you happy changes with the seasons and the stages in life. And often, once you obtain whatever it is that would make you happy, it’s short lived and fleeting. If I define my life and live my life only by what makes me happy – I’m going to harm a lot of people along the way.
Marriage is designed for one thing: growth.
Marriage creates a natural container to facilitate our growth and development as people. As Hayden stated this before:
Marriage is personal development boot camp. You will demand much from your partner, as they will from you. You will be challenged to open your being in love, even as you are angry. You will be challenged to fully forgive transgressions both major and minor. Your marriage, in short, is the daily practical exercise of the opportunity to be your best self. And what you master at home, you take into the world.
We live in relationship to others all our lives. Some relationships carry more importance than others. Obviously my relationship with my wife is going to create more possibilities for growth than is my relationship with the drive-thru attendant, but the same principles apply.
One more quote from Steve:
The desire to relate to other people as consciously as possible eventually made it impossible to continue giving my power away to an external structure like a marriage. That was a problem for both of us. For years we fell into the trap of treating the marriage as something more powerful than ourselves, something we must preserve at all costs even when it didn’t make us happy to do so. I’m glad we finally saw the folly in that mindset.
Most every person I’ve worked with has come in to their sessions with the belief that they want to work on their marriage – as if their marriage was an outside entity that could be “fixed.”
They’ve got it backwards.
The marriage is doing what it’s designed to do – work on the people involved.
Rather than working on improving the marriage, the marriage works on improving the people. While the work required is difficult at times, so is our own growth. But what you discover when you put in the work is that you value the relationship more, you value yourself more, and you’re both better off than you were before.
In fact, research has even discovered that the tough times in marriage (as well as the times when you laugh together) increases the levels of Oxytocin in your brain. Oxytocin is the chemical that creates a deeper bond with others. So the higher the levels of Oxytocin, the deeper the connection and bond.
The only way to truly connect with another person is to put in the work to be more present and “grown up” with them.
Happiness ebbs and flows. So do all our emotions.
Growth lasts.
When you find yourself in the midst of unhappiness, perhaps it’s a great time to work on your own growth.
And if you do that – you’ll likely end up more fulfilled.
And you know what?
So will your spouse.
Photo courtesy Joe Shlabotnik
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.15 Responses to “Do You Just Want To Be Happy?”
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[...] I want to begin by saying what is NOT the point of marriage. I actually only met with this idea quite recently myself, and I think it is one of the most important ideas I have ever come across in regards to marriage. And it comes from a doctorate-holding family therapist, so it has more weight behind it than the mere musings of some married girl from Canada. So here goes: according to Dr. Corey Allan of Simple Marriage, [...]
What a great post!
I completely agree that one of the keys to a successful marriage is independent growth. Part of what makes my marriage happy is that we push each other to be better people, we learn from each other, support each other and motivate each other to just simply grow as individuals.
I write a lighthearted humor blog about men/women & relationships and one of my posts is about Two Becoming Too. There are too many people who believe that a good marriage is when Two Becomes One…. and I couldn’t disagree more! My post is written in the midst of comedy but the underlying message is to learn to work TOGETHER to improve yourself & your relationship.
http://thehubbydiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/when-two-becomes-too/
Another post about “growing” together (written again, with comedy targeted at my hubby.. but the message is that through marriage you can improve yourself!)
http://thehubbydiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/bursting-the-bubble/
I’m really glad you wrote about this as it has been something I’ve been thinking about since they announced it.
There a fitness guy that I absolutely love who says “You lose weight to get healthy, you get healthy to lose weight.” Basically, that the way we approach fitness in this country is backward from underlying causality.
And that’s kind of how I feel about marriage.
Thanks for writing this, Corey.
*edit “You DON’T lose weight to get healthy…”
“When you find yourself in the midst of unhappiness, perhaps it’s a great time to work on your own growth.”
This is a key sentence for me, and something I came to terms with a few months ago. I was looking for happiness from without (the outside world) and finally, finally realized that I need to create my own happiness from within. See the books “Happy for No Reason” and “Happier” for more about this!
Good stuff, thanks Corey!
Loved this post. One of your bests’
Very insightful! Thanks Corey!
Again you’ve inspired me to think and grow. Thank you.
This was an amazing post! You captured so much of what I feel but couldn’t find the words for. Thank you! I am so glad I found your blog.
I am so saddened by this. I have never been a big Pavlina fan (except for a couple helpful posts), but this is a repudiation of his whole message, IMHO. He has done “personal development”, selfishly. Sorry, you just lost all credibility to me; if he was really interested in personal development, he would let those closest to him speak to what in his person needs developing. Living in marriage and working it out is the most important personal development exercise you can possibly do.
Great post, Corey.
Thanks for the great post! I’d been following Steve for years, he’s the genius that first opened my eyes to the type of personal productivity that I was searching for.
However, when I first read his thoughts, ideas, twitters etc on he and Erin’s time with being poly, I told my husband, “I give them a year and they are divorced”. Why? Because I have a history of being in the poly crowd and have seen this time and time again. Apparently happy, productive, intimate couples often use it as a means of escape, but are blind to this until much, sometimes MUCH later. The key to recognizing it is by how loud they are about it. The louder, the more likely they are setting up a strong cognitive dissonance to reality.
Steve has some great ideas, and he’s helped me in a lot of ways, but this move was lost on me. He’s turned progressively more self righteous (RAW FOOD OR DIE! POLYAMORY VS MONOGAMY!) over the last year and I’ve largely lost interest. I get yelled at through media all day about what I “should” be doing. I’d rather do my OWN Will thank you. I haven’t totally lost faith in him though, he’s smart and motivated in the right direction, I think he’ll come out stronger for it.
As for me, by becoming monogamous (9 years ago now) and having clear boundaries regarding sexual behavior and intimacy, our marriage has grown to incredible heights. Your blog has been a part of that growth, thank you for your time, effort and thoughtfulness on the topic!
I don’t really follow Pavlina enough to have an opinion about his marriage (or failure of it) but I have serious doubts if marriage and polyamory can ever sit well together. They seem to be driven by two very different sets of needs – with marriage the need for growth, stability, consistency and trust (and others) and with polyamory the needs for freedom, stimulation and variety. I do believe it’s possible to meet the latter set within the frame of marriage but doubt it’s possible to satisfactorily meet the first set through polyamory.
I love what you say about marriage not being about making us happy. We can be happy whether we’re married or not … marriage has nothing to do with it. For me, marriage is an internally created agreement and nothing to with receiving something from the outside. It is what I make of it .. and for me the growth partly comes from being in a marriage with another human being who also wants to make something out of it. It’s a creative, co-operative work in progress.
Thanks for a wonderful and inspiring post, Corey! I really needed to read this today.
I can’t relate to this at all! SARCASM ALERT!
You and I both know it was only when I start to work on me, that things started to improve in my life and then in my marriage. What it took to grow to this point in my life was really difficult and scary. It took a great guide to help me (thank you Corey for that). Now, oh gosh, life is just so much better. I love it and my guy and the present and the future. The journey isn’t so frightening but more of an adventure. It’s incredible and I am at a loss to express the way I feel.
You are so right Corey, it is about growth. Who wants to stay a bud when a rose is so beautiful and smells so sweet!