If you really want to be happy…
by Mira and Charles on March 30th, 2010Why happiness = being happily married
This is all about priorities, and how having the right priorities pays off big time. The New York Times, in the person of the wonderful David Brooks, has finally acknowledged what many of us have known for quite a while now. The research is in and it is clear. If you want to be happy, you need to be happily married.
And not just that. Being happily married is far, far more important to your happiness than money, success, being thin, your team winning the big game, or any imaginable possession. When it comes to being happy, being happily married is it.
So what does this mean for you? It means a whole bunch of things. Let’s run through them.
– Don’t wait too long before getting married. Yes, it’s stupid to get married too young, but these days too many people let their 20s and 30s slip through their fingers before getting married. They’re just too busy running around, working hard, and being ridiculously selective. Then when they finally awaken from their slumber, they find their options are fewer and the pressure to have kids greater. So…don’t wait so long.
– Don’t marry the wrong person. You see, here’s the deal. If you start looking to get married early on, then you won’t waste time with go-nowhere relationship, and you will be on the job when the right person comes along. I can’t tell you how many people have told us they let someone terrific slip through their fingers just because they weren’t “ready” to get married. Now if you’re in a new relationship and don’t know whether to go forward with it or not, the absolute best book on the subject is Is He Mr. Right? Please check it out.
– If you’re already married, don’t screw it up. And again, that means most of all that you should make your marriage a priority. Success won’t make you happy. More money won’t make you happy. They just won’t. The research is as clear on this point as on anything else we know, such as the connection between smoking and lowered life expectancy. But a happy marriage will. So be nice to each other. Do the things that made you fall in love with each other. And spend quality time together. Hard to do with your busy lifestyle? I know, I know. But it’s still way do-able. And we show you exactly how in The Weekend Marriage.
– If problems have developed in your marriage, fix them. Now. One of the most terrible things we see is how people let their problems go from bad to worse. People think they can fix their own marriage problems. Or that those problems will somehow just go away. But none of these things are true. If you have a problem, you need help. Period. And the good news is that this help can make a big difference. You could go for one-on-one help, like what we offer here at The Chestnut Hill Institute. Or you could turn to a book like Our Love Is Too Good to Feel So Bad, which is just about the best. But wherever you turn for help, please do it sooner rather than later.
– And finally if things have reached the point where you just don’t know if you should stay or leave, please don’t stay stuck in ambivalence. Ambivalence is not a marriage. It’s just a painful limbo. The only way out of this is our book Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. You can be happy staying if this marriage is in fact right for you, and the book will tell you if this is the case. And you can be happy if you get out of a marriage that will never be right for you and you move on to find happiness with someone who is right for you, and the book will tell you if that is the case.
So you see… There are so many ways to get it right. So many ways to fix things. You just have to make having a happy marriage a priority. It won’t happen overnight. But it will happen. And you deserve it.
