#askADELE | Listening, sharing feelings are key to happiness
Emotions fill the gap between the expectations that one has from one’s partner and the benchmark set by how we want the relationship to be.
This week’s question comes from Anonymous in Joburg: “I feel alone. I have noticed that you have written about this before and I want to know how I can move my relationship into being a happy one? I am afraid I can’t offer any details.”
Dear Anonymous, without more information to help shift your feelings in your relationship, I am going to break down the process a little.
Feelings are intangibles based on the difference between what we believe and what we experience. Being alone or happy are both emotions on two sides of the same spectrum and you can move between them by having your needs met.
Relationships work like transactions, where you negotiate your feelings. The agreement of exchange becomes the bond you create.
You might have chosen that person because you fell in love, but you stay with that person because you have a good fit of giving the other one what he or she needs according to your ability to do so. Emotions come into play when your needs are not met or the person you transact with is no longer willing to give what they promised. Now you’re in a bind from which you can’t easily escape.
What remains is how you feel about it.
In another instance, your partner does meet your needs but you do not stay happy with the arrangement. This happens because needs are not static. Today we want this, but as soon as we get it consistently, gratitude becomes an expectation.
New needs will surface and we need to make new arrangements where old and new needs must to be met. When the goalposts keep shifting, it tends to dishearten the other partner and they start to think that nothing that they do is good enough to make the other person happy. That is partly because we do not understand what happiness is.
Remember, happiness is a feeling. It is a moment in time when we feel warm, fulfilled, content or even blissfully satisfied. In those moments we don’t need anything. But it does not last.
It seems as if happiness is linked to unexpected needs being met, so how can you attain a state of happiness? The key lies in letting go of the expectations that you have of your partner to meet your needs. I am not saying this is realistic, just highlighting that your behaviour in your relationship creates a game which locks you into eventually feeling alone.
Each time when you act to force your partner into the deal you made by holding him/her accountable, you are only securing a moment of feeling happy when you get it.
But, if you can find ways to meet your own evolving needs, you will release your partner from being responsible for your happiness.
And then you start a journey towards an attitude of happiness.
If you feel alone inside your relationship, it’s because you are not sharing your innermost feelings with your partner. You know that when you share your true feelings, you will lose your grip on getting your needs met.
The cost of this is that it gives the power of controlling your happiness to your partner.
The only way to take your power back is to be honest about how you feel. And to do that it will cost you the game which you set up yourselves to play in getting your needs met.
If you have to choose between feeling alone or changing in order to be happy more of the time, what will it be?
Set a new bar for what will move you on the road to a happy relationship.
Here are my suggestions:
* Share your feelings if you do not want to feel alone, instead of manipulating your partner into action.
* Tackle your circumstances together as a team effort in order to find solutions. Even with all your own needs being met, your environment can be stressful and you need ways to reduce the stress of coming up with solutions.
* Don’t be dependent on your partner for your basic needs, because it will not make you happy when you blame him/her for unmet needs. Instead, take your power back by coming up with alternative ways to get your needs met.
* Getting out of being a victim, means that you need to take responsibility for your own happiness. In a relationship it means that one supports a partner’s process to get there by themselves by listening to them, instead of trying to solve their problems and later having them expect you to make them happy.
* Green is a transformation specialist coach and author of Can You See Me Naked? Grow in a Conscious Relationship. She provides answers here when posted on www.adele-green.com/askadele/ or contact her for coaching.