You Actually Don't "Deserve to be Happy"
I’ll be honest, this is an intimidating blog to write. Not because I’m at a loss for words… I know exactly what I want to say here. It’s intimidating because it seems to be a very unpopular opinion right now. But I’m going to say it anyways:
We need to stop making individual happiness the most coveted trait in our society.
Are you cringing yet? Is this girl really telling people to stop prioritizing happiness? Yes, kind of.
Listen y’all, I’m an enneagram 7, and for those of you who don’t know what that means, it means that I live my life constantly running from having to feel any emotional pain, and I usually do that by filling my life with as many “fun” things as possible. So if there is anyone who believes in the importance of happiness, it’s me. But happiness isn’t my only prioritized value. In fact, it’s not even my highest prioritized value (shocking, right?).
What’s something I prioritize higher than my own current state of happiness? For one, the longevity of my marriage and the strength of our family unit. And while I know a lot of people would agree that this is an important value, I think it’s pretty apparent that our culture has done a terrible job of preparing people for marriage today. We scroll through Instagram and see countless vacation selfies followed by sappy posts of being made for one another. It looks like a dream. And while marriage has always been a dream of mine, marriage is not a dream.
So often I see people make the choice of divorce today, and it’s followed by a well-intentioned, “Good for you. You deserve to be happy.” And I get it, it’s a tough situation and we’re trying to be supportive. But what message are we conveying here?
Happiness is not a right, and it’s also not a constant state of being. If we’re making decisions based on our current level of happiness, then we are certainly not persevering through marriage or any other challenging thing in life.
Here’s where I’m probably going to rub some people the wrong way, so let me start by saying if your views are different, I disagree with you but I still love you. There are circumstances when divorce is the right decision, but “we’ve just grown apart,” “we’ve fallen out of love,” or “I’m just not happy,” are not them.
There have been years of our marriage where both my husband and I were not happy. Years y’all. That’s a long time when you’re trudging through the trenches. Quite frankly, it would have been easier for either one of us to have said “You’re not making me happy,” and called it quits. But what an incredible injustice that would have been.
I know we’ve heard it plenty of times: marriage is hard. And it is, but what does hard look like? More importantly, what does hard feel like? In my experience, if feels heart-wrenching. It feels lonely. And at times, it can even feel hopeless. The person who you’re supposed to be closest to, you’re most vulnerable relationship, feels so distant. It’s challenging to navigate and all the while your happiness begins to be jeapordized and slowly stripped away.
I can see where things go awry. If our society tells us that happiness should be our top goal, when our marriage is challenging our happiness, eliminating it from the equation can seem like the rational choice. It’s no surprise that, according to the national CDC report in 2017*, over one-third of marriages end in divorce.
But what if we stop putting happiness on a pedestal? What if we ackowledge that the most rewarding things in life also take the most old-fashion, no shortcuts hard work? What if we recognize that the most beautiful things can also be the most painful. Take it from someone who has put in some serious work to figure out that pain doesn’t always need to be avoided.
When I talk to couples, like my parents, who have successfully navigated a marriage for 40+ years, the secret to their success is not that they didn’t encounter the challenges that many divorced couples have faced. It’s simply that when they encountered them, they didn’t choose divorce. Instead, they worked tirelessly to find happiness again.
Isn’t that the truth though? We don’t deserve happiness, we earn it.
*comparing the official 2017 CDC numbers of marriage to that of divorce