Happy Marriages Start with Happy Partners

H

One thing I learned from screwing up my first marriage is that happy marriages start with happy partners. It’s not the other way around. As much as your mate might want to add to your happiness, he or she cannot make you happy when you are not.
In my second marriage, Barbara Sher’s book Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want has been a big part of our efforts to find our own happiness and support each other’s. This wonderful book came out 30 years ago, and it is still so popular that a special 30th anniversary edition comes out on March 24th.
I met Barbara Sher in 2004, at a PBS donors workshop in Bethlehem, PA. Immediately, I signed up to coach others using the techniques in Wishcraft, through something she calls Success Teams. My next team, eight weeks of workshops following Barbara’s great program that will start you on a lifetime of successfully going after your dreams (no self-improvement or positive thinking required), is a telephone team, so anyone can participate.
Whether you join a Success Team or work through Wishcraft on your own, it’s a fabulous program for getting past your procrastination and self-defeating stories about why you can’t do what you love. And Barbara Sher plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary edition in a big way. She’s offering prizes to those who join her, plus a giant, worldwide, 24-hour Idea Party to figure out ways to get you where you want to go, which begins the evening of March 23 for those of us in US time zones (all day March 24 UTC / Zulu / Greenwich Mean Time).
Recent research into happiness shows the pleasure of a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers, or a massage is short-lived. More effective are a career or hobby that engages you daily and a life of meaning, in which you bring your talents to a cause greater than yourself. You owe it to yourself and the man or woman who loves you to find a way to do what you love.

About the author

Patty Newbold

I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.

4 Comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Patty, I love your tag line “…without waiting for your spouse to change”.
    You are so right about being happy in a marriage starts with being happy to start with. Also I would say you owe it to the man or woman you love to allow them to do what they love as well.

  • Patty,
    Thanks for the post. I agree wholeheartedly. Before I was able to have meaningful relationships with others, I had to learn how to have a healthy relationship with myself. I’m on my second marriage and spent the majority of my life searching for happiness outside myself. Not until I accepted who I was, was I able to love and accept love.

  • Congratulations on that happier second marriage, Jared, and thank you for your comment here. I loved this quote from your Spiritual Zen website: “Today if something feels uncomfortable, I realize it’s probably an area in which I have room to grow.”

  • Stephen, thanks for posting. Just joined your Hypersonic Mind website. Looking forward to seeing where you take it.

By Patty Newbold

Assume Love in Your Inbox!

Read About

Recent Comments

Popular Posts

Visit Patty’s Other Site

Enjoy Being Married logo

Archives

Social Media