I understand it's normal to want to be in a relationship, but how do you feel happy when you aren't?
I understand it's normal to want to be in a relationship, but how do you feel happy when you aren't?
I'm 36, and while my love life has been varied and interesting, over the last few years I've started to want to settle down. I know it doesn't happen overnight. But recently it's been weighing on me more and more. I reminisce about past relationships. I feel hopeless about meeting someone in the future who shares my values.
On the one hand you hear things like "happiness comes from within", but on the other we are social animals and 99% of us want to feel loved and to love.
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It happened to me a few months after finally blocking a guy who led me on for years (I met his family, twice - and still no commitment either for or against a relationship.
I was in my car enjoying music and just thinking out loud to myself - and felt this moment of longing where I wanted to share this joy with someone. I had that feeling before but this time there was another thought inside of me that realized that no one really knows me as well as I know myself. And that these moments where I’m enjoying my own company aren’t missing anything. No expectations to live up to, no one needing things from me, I didn’t have to worry about how others were doing - and it felt liberating.
Shortly after I met my current partner and were happy together but definitely enjoy and appreciate our alone time. And the reason our relationship has been going for as long as it has is because I know on a personal level that either one of us could leave at any time and we’re fine. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be happy in any relationship.
But that’s my approach, and I think it’s different for everyone, so… ymmv
Wow that sensation of enjoying yourself in a moment and just taking it for a moment of your own happiness and not that you need to give it to anyone else is REALLY validating. Thank you for that. I needed to read that.