My Happily Ever After

We all want to be happy.

It's crazy to wake up one day and realize that the thing you have spent decades looking forward to is your new reality.

My husband Kevin just retired from the Vermont Army National Guard.

We hiked Haystack Mountain to celebrate Kevin's first day of retirement.

I really enjoy having Kevin home every day. Not only does he help with chores, but it's just nice to have my best friend around.

What makes it even better is that we are both relatively young and healthy. We still have a lot of life ahead of us.

Is it finally time for my Happily Ever After?

What Happy is.

Early in our marriage, I tried to be happy--and have a happy marriage--by contributing a full 50% to the marriage. I expected Kevin to contribute his 50% too, so it would be fair and even.

I expected things to be the way I thought they should be.

When he didn't do things the way I thought he should, it bothered me.

I was careful to not do more for him than he did for me.

In other words, I was selfish, and I wasn't very happy.

Kevin's parents had been really great examples of how to have a good marriage, and he brought that perspective into ours. Kevin was so patient with me.

The key to being happy in a marriage, it turns out, is to not seek your own happiness. It is to seek the happiness of your spouse.

(Obviously, it takes both people to make this work. If one partner is a relational black hole, the relationship will be lopsided and it won't work.)

In my case, I started out as a black hole--but not intentionally. I didn't realize I was selfish. I just didn't know better.

Kevin was just good to me, independent of how I treated him.

I gave 50%, but he gave 100%. He didn't hold back out of fear that I wouldn't do something for him that he wanted me to. He was just the best husband he could be.

He didn't always do things exactly the way I thought he should, but everything he did was motivated by unconditional love and genuine concern for my happiness.

After a while, I felt so much love and gratitude for him that I began to want to be good to him also. I look for ways to be nice to him. Not because I want to get something out of him. Just because I love him and I want what is best for him.

I used to think that I needed to fight for my happiness. Now I realize that making Kevin happy makes me happy.

If there is something that he wants and it is in conflict with what I want, my impulse now is to choose what makes him happy, even at my expense. When two people do that for each other, it turns into a beautiful dance where both are being lifted up by the other, again and again and again. Love and happiness flow, without compulsory means, because the conditions of happiness are the framework of the relationship.

Kevin's retirement is not the start of my Happily Ever After, it's just an increase of it. I became happy the moment I started caring more about him than about myself.

A Happy Community.

I think the same principle applies to life beyond marriage, too.

Have you noticed that people who seek the welfare of others have beautiful souls?

It's like, when we focus on ourselves, we become cold and empty, always seeking and never finding. When we seek the happiness of others, life becomes full and gratifying.

The difference is that when a husband and wife get into the rhythm of the dance of seeking each other's happiness, it becomes easy because you know that the other will reciprocate.

Outside of marriage, people may not reciprocate. You have to do what is good for someone else purely for the reward of knowing you did your best to help them, without a guarantee that they will ever repay your kindness.

You may even do things for people and they will never know it was you who did it.

Isn't that the highest good? Doing acts of kindness anonymously?

You have to balance helping others with the needs of taking care of yourself and your family, but I think there is value in helping others when you have to sacrifice your own interests to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect at this. I have plenty of selfish impulses, and I don't always choose the selfless choice. I don't think I will ever be quite as good of a wife as Kevin is a husband.

My happily ever after is a work in progress, but I know now that it's not about making Me happy.

What makes you happy?