How happy should you expect to be in a long-term relationship?

8 comments

1. Emotions will fluctuate over time, which is 100% normal. But if you’re more unhappy than happy, if you can picture your life better without them then it’s time to move on.

2. If anyone is “joyfull” 99% of the time in anything, they are lying, taking something, or have some weird imbalance in their brain. That is not life or reality. Why should we be “joyful” doing everyday things? You want to be smiling away while peeing? Brushing your teeth? Folding laundry? Vacuuming? Grocery shopping?

   What matters, is, when everything that has to be done has been done and you’re finally resting at the end of the day, are you relieved to be resting with your loved one. Is this the good part of your day?

3. “Happy” is such a dangerous word. It sucks all the value out of feelings like “content”, “comfortable” and “safe”. People who have long term relationships with lots of intensive highs often also have lots of intensive lows and that’s not the kind of relationship to aspire for. It’s normal to somewhat mellow out over time.

   However, if you struggle finding any happy memories with your partner from the last six months or so and there’s no good reason for it, maybe you aren’t happy often enough. And if you can remember more moments where they actively caused you grief, maybe they’re worsening your quality of life rather than improving it.

4. Happy.

   Life is life, there are good days/weeks/months and bad ones too. The honeymoon can’t last forever but when things level out you should still be happy.

   Being with my husband and thinking of my happiness level… well, it sorta remindes me of high school hanging out with my best friend every day/night during summer vacations. We weren’t like “happy” to hangout every single day, there was no magic spark/element to it…. but it was nice and normal and comfortable and we had fun just being around one another doing something or nothing.

5. Happiness is such a fickle thing. Stability, trust, respect. These are the things that are important in a long-term relationship for me. Happiness comes and goes, but knowing your partner is there to support you through thick and thin is what matters, imo.

6. I have about the emotional capacity of a stump, no way I’m going to be gushing after a few years (at least not constantly, intermittently gushing is what I aim for)

7. Define “happy” and “joyful”. As other said, being “content” 99% of the time is realistic. Living in extatic joy every day? Not so much.

   What 99% happy all the time looks like to me after 4 years with my current partner: I look forward to seeing him every day when I get back from work/when I wake up in the morning. If we run into any issues, we work it out by communicating. We rarely argue. We enjoy spending time together, and time apart. I can’t think of a single thing he does that makes me unhappy. My ex-husband did many things that made me unhappy (alcoholism, anger management issues, poor bedroom skills, seeking validation in other women).

8. Do you look at that person and feel that they’re the perfect one for you? That you won the lottery when you snagged them, even if not everything is perfect all of the time and things take work?

   I think comfortable love is OK, but lukewarm is not. Then again, I’m not in a relationship and I broke my last two because they got lukewarm. I’d rather wait for real love -even if it never comes- than settle and give someone less than my 100%.