It’s not unnatural for a person to look to their boyfriend as a source of happiness and joy in their world. The problems begin when there’s a dependence on the man to create that happiness for you.
When you believe the gentleman is the only one capable of your joy or the sole reason for your contentment, it can be an unhealthy mindset and both individually detrimental and for the partnership.
No one wants to be responsible for someone else’s joy. It’s often challenging to focus efforts on personal contentment, let alone being in a position as a happiness resource for a partner.
If that individual were to become unfulfilled, it could leave the significant other with a sense of failing to satisfy this mate’s needs. That’s a discouraging thought process, one that can lead to a fear of rejection, further dampening the ability to create joy in the relationship.
A priority in partnerships is that each person maintains individuality and a degree of independence apart from the relationship.
When there’s an adequate balance between couplehood and self-contentment, the partners can realize a greater desire to connect since each person contributes “diverse experiences” with their role.
Is it unhealthy to rely on your partner for happiness?
The joining together of two people who then become one is how couplehoods were at one time described. Unfortunately, some people take this concept literally with the idea that a boyfriend should then be the sole source of happiness in life. That’s a skewed viewpoint, to say the least.
If most people took the time to think about the ideology, the consensus would likely be that it’s the least unhealthy to presume that all hints of individuality disappear the moment you become involved with someone.
At worst, it can doom the partnership to deterioration since codependency can be exhausting and not sustainable. How can you stop depending on your boyfriend to make you happy; let go of your emotional dependence? Let’s learn.
Remember to be available to yourself
When entering a relationship, sometimes you can forget how to be self-sufficient and make yourself available when an issue needs to be worked through.
Instead, the instant reaction to a problem is to emotionally depend on your boyfriend to carry you through the challenge bringing you back to stability.
When you take a moment to consider self-validation, making yourself accountable for satisfying emotional turbulence, you can then go inward when trying to find solutions or seeking personal joy instead of waiting for someone else to answer that call.
That’s not implying that a partner won’t, of course, enhance this contentment, but that’s all that should be the expectation. A partnership should be an “embellishment” to something you’ve already created. Each partner will share in the other’s individuality plus establish a mutual happiness.
Embrace your personal space
It’s not selfish nor indulgent to anticipate moments of solitude apart from a boyfriend or spouse. The partner should have the same desire, in fact. It’s healthy for people to spend time on their own, either in reflection or participating in solo hobbies or individual interests.
In order to make this arrangement successful, adequate communication is necessary to express needs and desires without there being any misunderstandings.
When you recognize you depend on a partner for your comfortability, happiness, and joy, you must get back in touch with interests that used to bring these feelings to you or learn new things you’ve been curious about but put on hold.
It’s the time to step outside the area where you’ve found comfort to look for renewed individual enjoyment; emotional independence.
Self validate based on individual strengths
When you take a few moments to create a list of personal attributes or strengths, you’ll begin to recognize how you contribute to not only your own emotional stability and joy but add to that of your partners.
These areas of your life merely need to be revisited, each one separately, to strengthen them individually until you reach a point of personal empowerment.
The people surrounding you
While you might be emotionally dependent on your boyfriend for your happiness or even relying on others in times when you have personal doubts, it will be beneficial to look at these people to learn what about them, like your guy makes you look to him for your happiness.
There must be a personal characteristic, charisma, or trait that lends itself to your belief system that this individual has something you don’t personally possess in order to self-soothe.
What renders you incapable of the results you receive from him? It’s essential to determine what drives your admiration for the man, where his strengths are, and why you come to the conclusion that he could be your only source of joy.
While dissecting the narrative, you’ll search for what’s unique about the guy that gives him the capacity to bring you the happiness you so desire.
But the idea is to eventually learn more about how you can put in the individual effort to be successfully happy and avoid the habit of emotionally relying on someone else to do the work for you.
Your boyfriend can lead by example to show you how he finds his own personal happiness, but he shouldn’t be the person you hold responsible for providing your joy.
Break familiar patterns
Usually, searching for the next person to be codependent with is a pattern that establishes over time spent in relationships where that’s the course of the partnership. The mate is the person you not only find happiness and personal contentment but they provide your validation.
The way to break habits is to find out where they stem from, the root of the issue. Once the underlying problems are addressed, there’s a greater likelihood of repairing the current state of mind.
What initially fueled the codependency on a mate for happiness could have resulted from a toxic situation carried on with each partnership after that because you didn’t recognize that component of the toxic union.
Once you make the connection and realize these are not behaviors you want to continue into a healthy relationship, you’ll be able to heal and grow.
Learn your value and wallow in self-love
If you place the responsibility for your happiness on your boyfriend, that implies little confidence in your ability to bring joy to yourself. In order to experience self-confidence, you need to feel your worth and have a strong sense of self-assurance.
These blend to create what speaks to your mindset of personal value and can dictate self-esteem.
For someone to establish self-love, there needs to be an appreciation for the person you know yourself to be, self-validation, not requiring anyone else to approve. That will give you the capacity to walk away from unhealthy situations because you’ll recognize that you deserve better from a partner.
When negativity enters your thought process
In that same vein, you must recognize negativity entering your mindset and find a way to dissuade from these thought processes. That’s the only way you can work toward finding your own personal joy and happiness instead of relying on your boyfriend to supply that for you.
In moments when adverse reactions crop up to specific circumstances or self-sabotage is your response to a particular situation, look inward to resolve the emotions instead of depending on a mate to change these emotions for you; self-soothe.
That can merely be a matter of exchanging a positive thought process for the negative conversation you’re holding in your mind – but be realistic.
Positive affirmations have their time and place and people that benefit from them. Still, as an individual, you need to believe what you tell yourself and understand that these counteracting thoughts are more authentic than the negative ones.
It’s effortless to throw your hands up in the air and retaliate to a partner to make you feel better, to take away the negativity for you, and to bring back that happiness that perhaps someone else stole from you.
Still, it’s more beneficial and valuable for you as a person to be able to do those things for yourself and share that with your partner.
Conclusion
Many times people look at a boyfriend or girlfriend as another half, or the individual meant to make their life complete, the person responsible for their “happily ever after,” and that’s literally all wrong. But it sounds good in a fairytale.
The fact is you should have an entire life established before another person enters the mix. This way, you have something to share with that person, and each of you can further enhance the individual circumstances you bring with a relationship.
A partnership is a component of your world; it doesn’t take over. Individuality and independence are vital parts of who we are as people. These dictate self-worth, confidence, and self-assurance leading to overall personal value. No one can be the emotional answer for you, and you shouldn’t want them to be.
