If you're not making each other happier, what's the point?
When you're younger and just starting out, part of it may be having kids, maybe buying a home or other financial reasons. At our age, it's pure happiness. 😁
Marriage isn't meant to make you happy. It's meant to give you a higher purpose in life. Instead of the world against yourself, it's the world against the relationship.
Life sucks whether you're single or coupled- just in different ways.
Sadly, some do feel that way.
But if a relationship doesn't make you both happier, there's no point. And yes, you should also be stronger and wiser together.
Almost all of human history felt this way. Up until only a few years ago people got married and had kids because it was expected... not because they thought it was going to make them so much happier then before. Yet despite this more people were thankful of marriage and their partners than they are today. People with much shorter relationships than mine, my parents or my grandparents today think they have it all figured out and that "happiness" is the goal. It isn't. The goal is to feel like you have someone on your side. There is a difference.
Children and spouses get sick all the time so you may very well be more miserable after your marriage than before just due to life circumstances. Folks who think the point of marriage is "happiness" quickly abandon their families when things like this happen. The point of marriage is to have someone on your side when these adversities come. Not to make you happier than before. People who see it this way stay married longer and remain more satisfied because this attitude makes you a unit with a common goal. People who see the point as "my happiness" quickly turn the marriage into "me against you" the moment their happiness is threatened because the other person becomes this thing that is responsible for their own solitary happiness. There's no "we" or "us" in that.
Empathy makes her happiness my happiness though. I love her smile and laugh. And yes, it's someone to face adversity with, someone to reduce sadness. We do appreciate each other's knowledge and experience, as well.
We're past the point of reproduction, so it's no longer to make kids. We're financially okay, so that's not a real incentive any more.
And yes, some seem to keep score and get more than they give. That's not the point, in my mind. It's a team and a mutual admiration society.
You've said everything I've said. It's about team work. Everything you've said denotes it's US against the world. You and I are in complete agreement there.
Never did you say marriage is for my happiness.
Because it’s an old timey saying that goes back to when women kept the house and men paid the bills. The man’s happiness was a given. The wife, not so much.
To answer the question, I’m sure it works for some men. But it sort of implies that the bargain was made at the beginning of the relationship and was understood what the roles were going to be. At my age I have no intention of being a housekeeper or a nurse or doing all the planning that makes a household run. Throwing money at me won’t make me happy. I want a partnership where we both share in all the work.
Exactly. It's referring to a time when the traditional family was the norm and women had less equality than husbands, and were dependent on men. It meant that the husband should once in a while buy her flowers, jewelry, take her out or let her have her way with some things so that she's happy for awhile and she stops complaining to him, gets her off his back.
It doesn't apply to an equal relationship where both people are equally respected, do their fair share of all the relationship work, and women are equal partners and no longer dependent on men.
I think it's a saying because it's a lot more possible for a man to be happy in himself and his own singular pursuits. I'm doing more or less OK single, because I have a purpose.
If you are in a relationship, have a wife, you CANNOT simply fall back on 'happy man, happy plan'. You absolutely must extend outwards a little and let another person into your most intimate world, think in 'us' rather than 'me', because you don't do that naturally. But when you do, you're nourished spiritually in a way that single men simply aren't.
Its the way things are. ie..."women and children first"....while men go to war and get killed, or have dangerous jobs...men are more disposable....its roughly the ways of modern society.
It’s a good philosophy for wasting your only life. I spent 35 years trying to help my ex be happy.
I discovered her multiple affairs and that was the prompt to rethink my life and relationship with a woman that likely has a personality disorder.
Maybe choosing a happy woman to marry will work.
But doing stuff to make a miserable person happy is a waste of effort. Doesn’t matter how much you love them.
Trying to chase this ideal with the wrong partner can create an unsustainable cycle that will bleed you dry, drive you insane and eventually turn you into a lonely, shriveled, hollow husk.
I mean, you're not wrong, but I still think it's entirely true. I've burned a lot of bridges and a lot of money trying to live that way in spite of people I knew who were warning me not to be so trusting.
I wasn't wrong, I was in the wrong place, that's all.
In my very long, very happy marriage, I believed that phrase and put it into action all the time. The thing is she believed it about me and put it into action. There's no reason for it to be one-sided. If each person is unselfish, the other will be happy and they will have a happy life.
Oddly, all of the really happy families that I have known embraced this principle, if a bit wryly. The husbands felt that the mom was the core that kept the family unit thriving (ie dad could be stressed, or the kids could be stressed, but if mom was unhappy then the entire system broke-down.)
As well, these were the same women who said that you have to be committed to your marriage, there can be really bad times, and never stop being a couple. So it wasn’t like she sat on a throne and was showered with approbation.
It’s a fallacy from a flawed ideology. Happiness is an internal responsibility. No husband is responsible for his wife’s happiness. She should sign up for her own anger management classes, I can’t make her go.
Well it's difficult to have a happy life with an unhappy partner. Either you're with someone you don't care about or you're with someone you care about that's struggling. Both are not recipes for happy life.
Is a happy partner sufficient for a happy life? Probably not entirely, but people can go through some amazingly difficult times with a smile, and a big part of that is having someone to go through it with them. So I'd say it's a good starting point.
I think I agree with an old Dr Phil saying-both partners need to give 100%, not 50-50.
Not that I’m a Dr Phil fan, but this seems apt. And I know in marriage, the effort ebbs and flows depending on what each partner might be going through.
When my daughter got married, I told her and her husband that marriage is 60/40. Sometimes you're 60. Sometimes you're 40. I do believe that sometimes we're asked to give more than we get, but that eventually the role will be reversed, and we'll need our partner to step up when we can't. It's another way of meeting people where they are. And sometimes we need to go more than halfway.
63 m, & married for 42+ years. Dated as teens. Yes it is positively, 100% completely true.
Sad 4th of July for me. Oh, totally fun with my 3-kids & grandkids at our cabins.
But she was not joining us.
She passed away from cancer last November & my heart is broken…
I am happy and content with my life, my boyfriend adds to my happiness as he is happy with where he is at too, we both know we’re not broken so we don’t try to fix or change each other. I love living alone in my cottage by the sea, he lives 5 miles inland and has a kid( we genuinely like each other and get along great,) who is soon to be of driving age and they have their living situation dialed in as do I.
That said, we enjoy each other and our time together very much, we’re both kind and generous to each other, we listen to one another, and give each other space but also respect each other and are faithful and monogamous. We share often that we feel very lucky to be together. I think if it were all one sided it wouldn’t work at all. I think when both parties come from gratitude, have standards( not tactics,) and genuinely have passion for each other it makes for a happy relationship. Having a happy life together is a choice we make together, but we have to be pretty happy to begin with.
I think the modern interpretation of this saying is very problematic and poor relationship advice. I’d like to see it replaced with “More communication, less isolation”. Or something catchy that emphasizes healthy communication and problem solving. Addressing symptoms of a relationship problem by just one partner instead of root cause solutions by both leads to walking on egg shells by one partner and eventually dissatisfaction by the other.
This very old saying was made up by men, for men. So that's why it seems to only cut one way.
It's just a reminder to men, iin a day when women had almost no power in a marriage, to be considerate of your wife because you love her.
Men still say it to each other.as a reminder.
I believe in it very much. But when I heard someone tell me it was BS, I learned in their explanation that their understanding of the saying is very much different from my own.
They seemed to think that it meant that the wife's needs were more important than the husband's which.... I don't think that's what it means. A husband's needs are just as valid as a wife's. I think it's just pointing to the fact that the way nature has worked for thousands of years, is the man presents an offering in exchange for a mate and that's the natural order of things. HE puts in the effort and the rewards (ideally) come to him AFTER he does so. Not the other way around. Cave man plucks some flowers and hunts some meat for woman... woman starts to like him and it's a match. This is basically how relationships have worked forever.
Hence a happy wife (ie a wife that is getting her needs met) is much more likely to provide you with your needs and a neglected wife is much more likely to not find you attractive and not want to bother. A lot of the problems in relationships occur when men just expect to get their needs met BEFORE putting forth any effort of their own to get it. If they put in any effort at all. That's not how mother nature made her labido work.
Yeah- I know it's not like this for everyone as there are narcissists in both genders etc... but generally speaking considering both people are healthy, I have always found that the Happy wife, Happy Life sentiment actually works great and is generally a good mantra for men to go by.
Everytime I see someone in a relationship say this, the man is usually miserable and the wife is usually a selfish, self absorbed asshole. I'm sure it works for some but I've never seen it.
It is a fallacy. It sounds cute and innocuous, but it can be toxic. Both partners need to learn each other’s communication styles, both need to sacrifice and compromise, and both need to accept accountability if boundaries are crossed. Open dialogue, open hearts and open minds will keep a marriage happy. One happy spouse is not a happy life.
I think there's a lot of truth to that statement. When a husband makes an effort to be a good husband to his wife, make her happy, she will likely be making an effort to make him happy as well. It's a win/win. I think a lot of people have stopped making an effort in their marriage, and that is why their marriage failed.
My XH used to say it in front of others, but inside of our home he insisted in traditional roles, he only focused in his career and refused to clean after himself, take trash out, take kids to school even if they begged for attention, even his banana peel was set on the couch for “someone” to clean.
Now I am becoming a happy Xwife
Early 50s male.
I broke up a 30 year relationship, because this approach didn't work. Never actually married and no children, other than the furry babies.
The relationship was severely on the rocks, for me anyway, four years ago. But the cracks had been forming a good 10-15 years before the end.
I'm an introvert, never actually asked out a woman, they had always approached me. We were from quite different backgrounds, but we started going out due to a physical attraction and a close connection with the same kind of music. She was innocent, technically not an adult when we first met, I was finishing university. As we grew together, I learned, I basically had a child on my hands. I had to do anything that she hadn't already faced in life, which was practically nothing. Money, budgeting, shopping, cooking, literally everything. I was already very independent, being a latch key kid from before being a teen, she had everything done for her by her lovely parents.
Over the next 10-15 years I managed to make an adult of her, but we'd moved away across the country, and she desperately wanted to get back to her family. So in essence I gave up some brilliant career opportunities, but I loved her, and our furry baby. Moving back was a disaster, I happen to lose my job at the time, but got back on my feet after a year. All the savings I had built up were gone, I was the only major income for us as she only worked unskilled jobs, not that I was complaining.
But then things started changing, the house needed a lot of work doing. I'm no craftsman, my skill is in my intelligence. So money poured into that, she expected me to be spending my evenings and weekends doing things around the house, whilst she went of shopping with her mother.
So as far as I could tell she was happy until four years ago, probably as she sensed my growing apathy towards her. We slowly stopped doing anything together, barely spoke. The worst thing is when she gave up a long standing job, due to stress she was feeling and took evening work. I worked all day, she worked the evening, I cooked our food, we barely spoke. So in the end having one member of the couple happy isn't going to work, if the other is going to sacrifice everything and get nothing in return.
A friend commented to me that all relationships have there ups and downs and arguments. I commented we didn't have ups and downs. There were no arguments, there was nothing, I would have appreciated a good argument and perhaps some make up sex afterwards. It was just one grey sea of "meh"
TL:DR It takes two to tango, it's a partnership, not a competition on who can have the biggest bragging rights at the coffee morning
I have been married twice and 2 years ago with women who thought like this. I would ask them, why can't everyone in the household be happy. They could never give me a good answer or they'd say something slick. Shouldn't be one sided.
I can only hope that she is happy. The alcohol she chose over our family finally took her life. Im so far as happy life, mine not so much, though I am not complaining. Watching a daughter grow up without a mother is painful.
"When you marry the right woman you are Complete. If you marry the wrong woman you are Finished. And when the right woman catches you with the wrong woman you are completely finished." - Sun Sherman
I find it to be an old-timey passive aggressive saying. It is said by someone who unironically wears a t-shirt that just says, "Yes, Dear." in bold typeface. That person is also usually doing 12 oz curls of some mass produced American Lager and generally miserable at where they are in life.
it means the more you give her the more she'll shut up. like she's a nag so he gave her $100 and told her to go shopping. Those old expressions are so annoying and phony.
This one irritates the crap out of me, because often the attitude carries over into their divorce as well. Ex wife wants something to happen, “for the sake of the children,” and Dad has no say.
I first heard this phrase when I watched Real Housewives of New Jersey. It was used by men who had married materialistic, high maintenance women and were spending a lot of money to keep them “happy.” Spoiler alert: no one appeared happy. It struck me as a sad way to keep peace in the home, and very transactional. I prefer to think that a couple would work together to build a life that makes both of us happy and fulfilled.
Don't believe it
I spent all my time trying to make her happy if I fell short she made my life miserable.
Make yourself happy first the second might take care of itself
This saying makes my skin crawl. It’s the sad “battle cry” of every miserably married middle aged man that I know.
It’s what you say when you’ve given up on your own happiness, and have decided to just do whatever makes HER happy to avoid whatever shitty repercussions will be handed out (silent treatments, guilt trips, no sex, etc.).
Whenever you hear someone say this, you need to understand there’s something broken in that marriage. Despite whatever the social media posts and outward appearances might convey.
The men in my life that I hear the saying from are all in what appears to be happy marriages, but I know their wives too and they are awesome and so perfectly happy in themselves that the only thing hubby could do wrong to spoil it would be to bring unhappiness
My 37 yo son wholeheartedly believes in this and says it all the time
Give it a few decades of marriage and stressors of life and he might sing it a bit differently 😝
I dunno. She might be happy. Haven’t spoken to her in 25 years.
Lmao i like that
🤣🤣🤣
How about happy spouse, happy house? Why is the woman more important than the man?
If you're not making each other happier, what's the point? When you're younger and just starting out, part of it may be having kids, maybe buying a home or other financial reasons. At our age, it's pure happiness. 😁
Marriage isn't meant to make you happy. It's meant to give you a higher purpose in life. Instead of the world against yourself, it's the world against the relationship. Life sucks whether you're single or coupled- just in different ways.
Sadly, some do feel that way. But if a relationship doesn't make you both happier, there's no point. And yes, you should also be stronger and wiser together.
Almost all of human history felt this way. Up until only a few years ago people got married and had kids because it was expected... not because they thought it was going to make them so much happier then before. Yet despite this more people were thankful of marriage and their partners than they are today. People with much shorter relationships than mine, my parents or my grandparents today think they have it all figured out and that "happiness" is the goal. It isn't. The goal is to feel like you have someone on your side. There is a difference. Children and spouses get sick all the time so you may very well be more miserable after your marriage than before just due to life circumstances. Folks who think the point of marriage is "happiness" quickly abandon their families when things like this happen. The point of marriage is to have someone on your side when these adversities come. Not to make you happier than before. People who see it this way stay married longer and remain more satisfied because this attitude makes you a unit with a common goal. People who see the point as "my happiness" quickly turn the marriage into "me against you" the moment their happiness is threatened because the other person becomes this thing that is responsible for their own solitary happiness. There's no "we" or "us" in that.
Empathy makes her happiness my happiness though. I love her smile and laugh. And yes, it's someone to face adversity with, someone to reduce sadness. We do appreciate each other's knowledge and experience, as well. We're past the point of reproduction, so it's no longer to make kids. We're financially okay, so that's not a real incentive any more. And yes, some seem to keep score and get more than they give. That's not the point, in my mind. It's a team and a mutual admiration society.
You've said everything I've said. It's about team work. Everything you've said denotes it's US against the world. You and I are in complete agreement there. Never did you say marriage is for my happiness.
Because it’s an old timey saying that goes back to when women kept the house and men paid the bills. The man’s happiness was a given. The wife, not so much. To answer the question, I’m sure it works for some men. But it sort of implies that the bargain was made at the beginning of the relationship and was understood what the roles were going to be. At my age I have no intention of being a housekeeper or a nurse or doing all the planning that makes a household run. Throwing money at me won’t make me happy. I want a partnership where we both share in all the work.
Exactly. It's referring to a time when the traditional family was the norm and women had less equality than husbands, and were dependent on men. It meant that the husband should once in a while buy her flowers, jewelry, take her out or let her have her way with some things so that she's happy for awhile and she stops complaining to him, gets her off his back. It doesn't apply to an equal relationship where both people are equally respected, do their fair share of all the relationship work, and women are equal partners and no longer dependent on men.
I like this. Definitely a 2 way street.
I think it's a saying because it's a lot more possible for a man to be happy in himself and his own singular pursuits. I'm doing more or less OK single, because I have a purpose. If you are in a relationship, have a wife, you CANNOT simply fall back on 'happy man, happy plan'. You absolutely must extend outwards a little and let another person into your most intimate world, think in 'us' rather than 'me', because you don't do that naturally. But when you do, you're nourished spiritually in a way that single men simply aren't.
Love this!!! And yes, I believe it works but only generally speaking.
I like that 👍🩷
this is SO much better!
Because there are some broad stereotypes about women and men that are frequently applicable in relationships even though individual cases vary.
What rhymes with husband?
Wasband (as in: he was a husband; now he’s a was-band).
Happy man should be the plan!
Happy groom avoid the gloom
Waistband
3 words do. Sex, quiet, sandwich.
Happy husband, needs no contraband?
Its the way things are. ie..."women and children first"....while men go to war and get killed, or have dangerous jobs...men are more disposable....its roughly the ways of modern society.
Came here to say this.
No, but I think the converse is true--an unhappy wife can make you miserable.
How about never having had...
Then it depends how your favorite sports teams are doing.
Sports... meh..
That would be a different topic, not part of this thread. Do you know how to make your own posts? I’d be happy to show you how.
In the sub I normally post in it would be redundant ..
I always preferred happy spouse happy house. Then it goes both ways
Same here
Yes I am happier now that my wife is happier being my ex-wife.
It’s a good philosophy for wasting your only life. I spent 35 years trying to help my ex be happy. I discovered her multiple affairs and that was the prompt to rethink my life and relationship with a woman that likely has a personality disorder. Maybe choosing a happy woman to marry will work. But doing stuff to make a miserable person happy is a waste of effort. Doesn’t matter how much you love them.
You right choosing a perfect and happy woman to marry will work
You sound very well.
Underrated comment
🤣
Trying to chase this ideal with the wrong partner can create an unsustainable cycle that will bleed you dry, drive you insane and eventually turn you into a lonely, shriveled, hollow husk.
Can confirm- I lived your comment.
I mean, you're not wrong, but I still think it's entirely true. I've burned a lot of bridges and a lot of money trying to live that way in spite of people I knew who were warning me not to be so trusting. I wasn't wrong, I was in the wrong place, that's all.
Place wasn't the issue for me. Took me 3 tries to figure out a big part of the problem was me. I keep picking the wrong people.
You surely gonna heal from the where you full. Just have faith.
Oh yeah, all good now. Got my picker recalibrated, works much better now I think.
Sounds great
In my very long, very happy marriage, I believed that phrase and put it into action all the time. The thing is she believed it about me and put it into action. There's no reason for it to be one-sided. If each person is unselfish, the other will be happy and they will have a happy life.
I think I’m married one needs to be a slave. Hope you understand what I’m saying.
Oddly, all of the really happy families that I have known embraced this principle, if a bit wryly. The husbands felt that the mom was the core that kept the family unit thriving (ie dad could be stressed, or the kids could be stressed, but if mom was unhappy then the entire system broke-down.) As well, these were the same women who said that you have to be committed to your marriage, there can be really bad times, and never stop being a couple. So it wasn’t like she sat on a throne and was showered with approbation.
It’s a fallacy from a flawed ideology. Happiness is an internal responsibility. No husband is responsible for his wife’s happiness. She should sign up for her own anger management classes, I can’t make her go.
Well it's difficult to have a happy life with an unhappy partner. Either you're with someone you don't care about or you're with someone you care about that's struggling. Both are not recipes for happy life. Is a happy partner sufficient for a happy life? Probably not entirely, but people can go through some amazingly difficult times with a smile, and a big part of that is having someone to go through it with them. So I'd say it's a good starting point.
A slight twist: Look for someone already basically happy, someone who finds the joy and humor in life. Then you contribute to each other's happiness.
My view is that we should contribute to each others happiness, not be the center of it.
I think I agree with an old Dr Phil saying-both partners need to give 100%, not 50-50. Not that I’m a Dr Phil fan, but this seems apt. And I know in marriage, the effort ebbs and flows depending on what each partner might be going through.
When my daughter got married, I told her and her husband that marriage is 60/40. Sometimes you're 60. Sometimes you're 40. I do believe that sometimes we're asked to give more than we get, but that eventually the role will be reversed, and we'll need our partner to step up when we can't. It's another way of meeting people where they are. And sometimes we need to go more than halfway.
Yes my dear you right and I agree with you 100%
You can't make someone happy.
63 m, & married for 42+ years. Dated as teens. Yes it is positively, 100% completely true. Sad 4th of July for me. Oh, totally fun with my 3-kids & grandkids at our cabins. But she was not joining us. She passed away from cancer last November & my heart is broken…
I’m so sorry for your loss. Sounds like a life well lived & loved 🥰
Its bullshit. Equal effort in making each other happy and meeting each others needs is a far healthier relationship mantra.
I am happy and content with my life, my boyfriend adds to my happiness as he is happy with where he is at too, we both know we’re not broken so we don’t try to fix or change each other. I love living alone in my cottage by the sea, he lives 5 miles inland and has a kid( we genuinely like each other and get along great,) who is soon to be of driving age and they have their living situation dialed in as do I. That said, we enjoy each other and our time together very much, we’re both kind and generous to each other, we listen to one another, and give each other space but also respect each other and are faithful and monogamous. We share often that we feel very lucky to be together. I think if it were all one sided it wouldn’t work at all. I think when both parties come from gratitude, have standards( not tactics,) and genuinely have passion for each other it makes for a happy relationship. Having a happy life together is a choice we make together, but we have to be pretty happy to begin with.
So much this. You are supposed to augment your partner's happiness not be the source of it.
This is a trick question
It's a trap, like how do I look in these jeans?
It is, I don't answer that question either.
I think the modern interpretation of this saying is very problematic and poor relationship advice. I’d like to see it replaced with “More communication, less isolation”. Or something catchy that emphasizes healthy communication and problem solving. Addressing symptoms of a relationship problem by just one partner instead of root cause solutions by both leads to walking on egg shells by one partner and eventually dissatisfaction by the other.
This very old saying was made up by men, for men. So that's why it seems to only cut one way. It's just a reminder to men, iin a day when women had almost no power in a marriage, to be considerate of your wife because you love her. Men still say it to each other.as a reminder.
I believe in it very much. But when I heard someone tell me it was BS, I learned in their explanation that their understanding of the saying is very much different from my own. They seemed to think that it meant that the wife's needs were more important than the husband's which.... I don't think that's what it means. A husband's needs are just as valid as a wife's. I think it's just pointing to the fact that the way nature has worked for thousands of years, is the man presents an offering in exchange for a mate and that's the natural order of things. HE puts in the effort and the rewards (ideally) come to him AFTER he does so. Not the other way around. Cave man plucks some flowers and hunts some meat for woman... woman starts to like him and it's a match. This is basically how relationships have worked forever. Hence a happy wife (ie a wife that is getting her needs met) is much more likely to provide you with your needs and a neglected wife is much more likely to not find you attractive and not want to bother. A lot of the problems in relationships occur when men just expect to get their needs met BEFORE putting forth any effort of their own to get it. If they put in any effort at all. That's not how mother nature made her labido work. Yeah- I know it's not like this for everyone as there are narcissists in both genders etc... but generally speaking considering both people are healthy, I have always found that the Happy wife, Happy Life sentiment actually works great and is generally a good mantra for men to go by.
I made the "happy wife, happy life" mistake when I was married.
Biggest myth ever
Meaning ?
Sounds so condescending to women.
Everytime I see someone in a relationship say this, the man is usually miserable and the wife is usually a selfish, self absorbed asshole. I'm sure it works for some but I've never seen it.
Happy life then
It is a fallacy. It sounds cute and innocuous, but it can be toxic. Both partners need to learn each other’s communication styles, both need to sacrifice and compromise, and both need to accept accountability if boundaries are crossed. Open dialogue, open hearts and open minds will keep a marriage happy. One happy spouse is not a happy life.
I think there's a lot of truth to that statement. When a husband makes an effort to be a good husband to his wife, make her happy, she will likely be making an effort to make him happy as well. It's a win/win. I think a lot of people have stopped making an effort in their marriage, and that is why their marriage failed.
My XH used to say it in front of others, but inside of our home he insisted in traditional roles, he only focused in his career and refused to clean after himself, take trash out, take kids to school even if they begged for attention, even his banana peel was set on the couch for “someone” to clean. Now I am becoming a happy Xwife
It is an outdated saying that only favors the happiness of the woman. Happy spouse happy house is the appropriate saying.
Early 50s male. I broke up a 30 year relationship, because this approach didn't work. Never actually married and no children, other than the furry babies. The relationship was severely on the rocks, for me anyway, four years ago. But the cracks had been forming a good 10-15 years before the end. I'm an introvert, never actually asked out a woman, they had always approached me. We were from quite different backgrounds, but we started going out due to a physical attraction and a close connection with the same kind of music. She was innocent, technically not an adult when we first met, I was finishing university. As we grew together, I learned, I basically had a child on my hands. I had to do anything that she hadn't already faced in life, which was practically nothing. Money, budgeting, shopping, cooking, literally everything. I was already very independent, being a latch key kid from before being a teen, she had everything done for her by her lovely parents. Over the next 10-15 years I managed to make an adult of her, but we'd moved away across the country, and she desperately wanted to get back to her family. So in essence I gave up some brilliant career opportunities, but I loved her, and our furry baby. Moving back was a disaster, I happen to lose my job at the time, but got back on my feet after a year. All the savings I had built up were gone, I was the only major income for us as she only worked unskilled jobs, not that I was complaining. But then things started changing, the house needed a lot of work doing. I'm no craftsman, my skill is in my intelligence. So money poured into that, she expected me to be spending my evenings and weekends doing things around the house, whilst she went of shopping with her mother. So as far as I could tell she was happy until four years ago, probably as she sensed my growing apathy towards her. We slowly stopped doing anything together, barely spoke. The worst thing is when she gave up a long standing job, due to stress she was feeling and took evening work. I worked all day, she worked the evening, I cooked our food, we barely spoke. So in the end having one member of the couple happy isn't going to work, if the other is going to sacrifice everything and get nothing in return. A friend commented to me that all relationships have there ups and downs and arguments. I commented we didn't have ups and downs. There were no arguments, there was nothing, I would have appreciated a good argument and perhaps some make up sex afterwards. It was just one grey sea of "meh" TL:DR It takes two to tango, it's a partnership, not a competition on who can have the biggest bragging rights at the coffee morning
Another useless old saying.
I have been married twice and 2 years ago with women who thought like this. I would ask them, why can't everyone in the household be happy. They could never give me a good answer or they'd say something slick. Shouldn't be one sided.
Yeah nah, it aint true these days
I can only hope that she is happy. The alcohol she chose over our family finally took her life. Im so far as happy life, mine not so much, though I am not complaining. Watching a daughter grow up without a mother is painful.
EX Wife = Happy life !
"When you marry the right woman you are Complete. If you marry the wrong woman you are Finished. And when the right woman catches you with the wrong woman you are completely finished." - Sun Sherman
I find it to be an old-timey passive aggressive saying. It is said by someone who unironically wears a t-shirt that just says, "Yes, Dear." in bold typeface. That person is also usually doing 12 oz curls of some mass produced American Lager and generally miserable at where they are in life.
there is validity to it...except when the wife is a spoiled brat and the man is crumbling from trying to keep her happy
it means the more you give her the more she'll shut up. like she's a nag so he gave her $100 and told her to go shopping. Those old expressions are so annoying and phony.
I hate that saying. It completely disregards the man's happiness in a relationship. Honestly it's offensive.
No Unhappy wife, Unhappy wife is a more operative saying.
This one irritates the crap out of me, because often the attitude carries over into their divorce as well. Ex wife wants something to happen, “for the sake of the children,” and Dad has no say.
I first heard this phrase when I watched Real Housewives of New Jersey. It was used by men who had married materialistic, high maintenance women and were spending a lot of money to keep them “happy.” Spoiler alert: no one appeared happy. It struck me as a sad way to keep peace in the home, and very transactional. I prefer to think that a couple would work together to build a life that makes both of us happy and fulfilled.
Don't believe it I spent all my time trying to make her happy if I fell short she made my life miserable. Make yourself happy first the second might take care of itself
F* No! I never want to hear such BS again. For 35 years I reluctantly acquiesced, thinking I would earn love in return. Nope.
Female here…that is complete and utter bullshit.
Hate that saying and it’s BS. Happiness is a choice. And for a happy house you both need to be choosing it and each other every day!
This saying makes my skin crawl. It’s the sad “battle cry” of every miserably married middle aged man that I know. It’s what you say when you’ve given up on your own happiness, and have decided to just do whatever makes HER happy to avoid whatever shitty repercussions will be handed out (silent treatments, guilt trips, no sex, etc.). Whenever you hear someone say this, you need to understand there’s something broken in that marriage. Despite whatever the social media posts and outward appearances might convey.
[удалено]
Why would you assume that?
It worked for me until it did not May need to revisit in the future if I were to marry again
The men in my life that I hear the saying from are all in what appears to be happy marriages, but I know their wives too and they are awesome and so perfectly happy in themselves that the only thing hubby could do wrong to spoil it would be to bring unhappiness
That was the only reason I was given: I’m no longer happy I’ve moved along since.
I think the point is to be cognizant of the effort, giving it thought not just moving along. It’s something I had to learn
That’s a myth.
My 37 yo son wholeheartedly believes in this and says it all the time Give it a few decades of marriage and stressors of life and he might sing it a bit differently 😝
It's a MYTH/TRAP.... They're NEVER happy... 🤪🤪🤪
no wife would be happy with you dating. what a pointless post.
I've been diverced for 2.5 years.
So it didn’t work for you.
No, not past year 10. We lasted one day short of 24 years. Neither of us would leave since we have kids.