Happy Wife, Happy Life with a Surprising Twist
Have you ever heard this saying? I’m sure you have. Happy wife, happy life. Sounds amazing right? Well as a woman it sounded pretty great to me, and super cute. (who doesn’t love a good rhyme!) For most, it’s been a little jokey saying that men usually chuckle to each other when one of them is mentioning something their wife did or bought, or asked of them. Like as long as you do everythng your wife says she’ll be happy and you can enjoy a long easy ride to the finish line.
Any ideas what’s wrong with that picture? A few people (maybe men? Or maybe women wanting play fair) started using the saying “Happy Spouse, Happy House”. Cute huh?
Here’s the thing, if we are expecting that being happy solves everything, and being happy is as simple as getting our way, well then we are in for a rough ride through this thing called marriage. Life sucks sometimes. Marriage is hard sometimes. Compromise is important sometimes. Well, most times actually. And as much as it took me a bit to learn that I couldn’t always get my own way (I grew up pretty spoiled I’ll admit), once I did learn that and started to revel in the joys of compromise, only then did our marriage really feel like it began to flourish! It turns out happy, while incredibly important in life, is not the only thing that matters in a true, lifelong relationship. Shocker, I know.
“ It turns out happy, while incredibly important in life, is not the only thing that matters in a true, lifelong relationship.”
But let’s get back to happy wife, happy life. We have to add happy husband, happy life too because most cool poems don’t rhyme anyways right? It’s not as simple as making sure we both get our own way; we’d have to be clones of each other for that to happen. What it does help us tune into though,is respecting each other, making sure the compromises go both ways throughout the marriage, throughout the year, and honestly, throughout each day. Marriage is chock full of compromise. Would you agree?
But why is compromise such a dirty word? The more we try and see each other’s perspective and choose things we normally wouldn’t because the other really wanted to, the more we grow as individuals, and for sure as a couple.
Warren has an adventurous palate when it comes to eating. He loves those tiny, hole-in-the-wall eateries with more character in their owners and food than in the interior decor. Left on my own, I’d likely not have tried much of the delicious morsels that have been placed in front of me over the years, or met the wonderful humans so proud of their craft. For many years, Warren has supported my home based business by not only cheering me on, but joining me on many of the business training and celebration trips. And while his intention was to just be my cheerleader, what he found was some key personal growth, made some life long friends, and developed a new and possibly surprising respect for a different type of business model than what he had always known.
There’s a lot of “sports widows” out there, I’ve known quite a few over the years! So when Warren started watching more and more NFL football I decided that instead of spending my afternoon scrolling Pinterest, I would dive in and join his Fantasy Football league, watch a few A Football Life docuseries to get to know some of the players, and spend Sunday afternoons together! When I decided to give golfing a try, he was delighted! What I started for him because I knew he wanted to golf with me so much, I ended up really loving and have begun to fall in love with everything golfing as a couple can be for us, including spending time with other incredible happy midlife couples.
My love of hiking, especially through the mountains has led Warren on a few paths he may not have taken on his own, and some incredible views that he has grown to love! We push each other to expand our interests and activities and that results in a much more rounded couple life for the both of us!
What wonderful growth we can enjoy by walking in each others shoes throughout this winding path of a marriage! When we do and say things for our spouse that in turn makes them happy, it’s the ricochet that bounces back that gives us a happy life too! There’s nothing like that feeling that we just made the most important person to us feel really great. We’ve always been told that marriage is about compromise. What we weren’t told is that when we do compromise, we both reap the rewards.
