Welcome to AwakenYou where we are doing the work of changing how we feel about our marriage, speaking of which, I want to remind all of you of my free Abundant Love mini-course. This course is the beginning of learning how to change how you feel about your marriage by re-training your mind to search for proof of what you want in your marriage when it insists on searching for proof that things are all wrong and unfixable. Right now many of you are at the point where it’s hard for you to see anything good in your marriage, so much so that you’re wondering if you’d be happier with someone else and that’s what we are going to look at today.
Before we dig in let’s think about this for a moment. Think about times that you’re stressed out, maybe about your marriage, and you turn to something to a “vice” that makes you feel temporarily better, maybe for you, it’s ice cream or chips, maybe it’s social media or shopping. These types of distractions are temporary “fixes” that usually make us feel worse in the long run. Now, let’s take a look at this question that poses the possibility that someone else might make us feel happier. I want you to pause for a moment to contemplate how this is no different from other buffering vices, other things we turn to in an effort to put pleasurable padding between ourselves and that which feels a bit awful. I’m not seeing it as any different, we are seeking the thrill of a different relationship that is full of excitement while never getting to the root of why we felt awful in our last relationship. It actually takes a tremendous amount of time away from the work we could be doing to get down and dirty with the task of creating what we want with the one we’re with.
I teach a whole different type of “vice” when we are stressed out and are looking for a way to feel better, it’s called journaling, thought downloading, digging deep, looking inside, sitting down with ourselves, and discovering something about why we are feeling the way we are feeling. This type of vice that I teach is sort of the reverse of those destructive vices we typically turn to because the typical ones provide us with a burst of pleasure right off the bat, that’s why they are so easy to repeat, we forget the fallout that comes after. My suggested vice feels a bit like a drag at first because it takes a bit of work and the “happy hit” takes a while to happen, but the more we practice commitment to the practice, the better each hit feels and that glowy goodness sticks with us a bit longer. That glowy goodness makes us want to go back to the practice and discover more about ourselves, even to the degree where we start to notice our other destructive devices slowly disintegrating because our new happy hit is so much better.
Now that you’re set up let’s dig into why we turn to ask ourselves this question, which I just went into because my brain went there first, then I want to paint a picture of what that might actually look like for you (leaving your current partner and finding something new), then I want to look at how this choice might be better/easier or worse/harder, what will be the same and finally, we’ll look at how this question leads us to nowhere while then looking at some better questions we can ask ourselves. Questions that will take us to actually produce that happiness we are craving.
Would I be happier with someone else?
Let’s start with answering that question, write the question down and answer it, don’t just think about it. Writing keeps our brain on one track and following through to the end. That is a journal prompt I want all of you to do, even if it isn’t a question that comes up for you. The question itself just keeps you from doing the real work of digging into discovering how to feel good in the relationship you are in. It keeps you looking for all of the reasons you aren’t happy right now, which of course is the work that my Abundant Love mini-course helps you steer away from doing. But let’s go there.
Under what conditions would you be happier? What are all of the things that you would want that would make you happier? How might your current partner have filled those needs when you were madly in love with them? How have things changed? How will things change in this new relationship? How will things be the same?
Paint yourself a picture of what this other relationship would look like.
Go there 100% and get real instead of painting a fantasy life. Relational conflict will come up, how will you handle it? What will you do when their relational struggles butt up against your relational struggles? You are still you, every person has a past that they bring into their present, including you.
How will this be better? Easier? How will it be worse? Harder? What will be the same?
What would I need to do to find out? Write out all of the steps you would need to take to answer this question.
This question, like I said earlier, is getting you nowhere unless you work through these questions and then either decide to find another or stay with the one you’re with and work on creating the relationship you want. This question of whether someone else would make you happy only has you escaping into a fantasy that you could easily transfer to your own relationship, the only reason you can’t imagine this fantasy with your current partner is because of the lens through which you’re looking at them.
Now, it’s ok if you want to change your circumstance and find someone different but I think it’s important to seriously think this option all of the way through so that you can really decide what it is you choose. Too many of you decide to stay for the reasons you choose but then still choose to be unhappy, which is fine, but recognize your choice. Yes, you are choosing what side of the fence you want to camp out on and I will tell you that if you are choosing to stay there is no better work than the work of figuring out how to be happy.
Your decision to stay, or go, is never permanent (well, the go could be if your partner doesn’t want you back). If you choose to stay and do the work of healing the relational struggles/habits/go-to reactions you have and through doing this work discover that you want someone else, then you have made that choice with good intention. You have made that choice knowing that you have done all that you can to create something that feels better for you by working on your own insecurities and old coping mechanisms. This decision would be made from a more healthy place than where you are right now.
Better questions to ask yourself
The reason I asked you to answer all of the questions, and I sure hope that you do that work if you have been asking yourself if you’d be happier with someone else, is because when you ask that question all your brain is going to do is look for reasons why you would be happier! It isn’t looking for reasons why you are actually quite happy right now. So start with that question, again go grab Abundant Love mini-course and begin the work that will have you answering this question over and over, sending your brain on the hunt for all the ways that what you have now is amazing.
How have I created exactly what I want in my marriage
What are all of the ways I want to change? Why?
How can I get better at asking for what I want?
Why am I so unhappy?
What is working in your marriage right now? What might your spouse say isn’t working?
This is just a start to get you warmed up and thinking about how this question only keeps you spinning without actually digging in and doing the work of changing the relationship you committed to. Dig into the questions I shared today and I’d love to hear what you come up with!
I am a marriage coach who helps women and couples go from feeling powerless to change how they feel about their marriage to feeling powerful and taking ownership of how they feel. My process isn’t about changing your partner; it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage, and through this process, you will begin to find that your partner will change as well! Schedule your free mini-coaching session today to discover how coaching can help you take your next steps forward toward what you want in your marriage.
