217. It’s freedom not marriage that makes us happy and healthy

When I talk about good relationships I think of freedom. To me that’s what a happy romantic relationship is about, the freedom both people feel to be themselves without sensing that their partner is judging them or trying to change them. Now comes a recent essay in Time magazine about marriage, saying: "There's good evidence that it is freedom that makes us healthy and happy, not the bonds of marriage."

The article, by John Cloud in the February 8, 2007 issue, cites some interesting facts from a recent book titled, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, by Bella DePaulo. One study, she says, cites the fact that married people are only 0.115 points happier in life on a 0 to 10 scale than singles. But the researchers couldn’t tell which came first, the marriage or the happiness. Maybe, Cloud points out, happy people are more apt to marry because they’re more social.

DePaulo cites another study that concludes, "It is better to have no relationship than to be in a bad relationship." That’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone.

In general, what all the studies show, Cloud says, is that we tend to feel better when we can mate up and then end it when things go bad. And we feel worse when we can't find a partner or when we feel trapped by a bad partner. Thus the conclusion that it’s freedom that makes us happy, not marriage.

As we’ve been pointing out in these articles, we make assumptions about how finding a mate would make us happy in these mature years of our lives. But do we really know? Wouldn’t senior or mature dating be more pleasant and easier if we didn’t hold onto the idea that we’re absolutely sure we need a mate? The stress could end.

When we expect experiences to bring us happiness we haven’t noticed that all experiences repeat themselves endlessly and never bring lasting joy. We’re always on to the next experience, looking again for satisfaction. Yet the Source that makes all those experiences possible is never striving, searching, or stressed at all.

That non-judgmental Source, or awareness, is the changeless background that all experiences show up in. It’s that knowing that lets us say, “I had an experience.” When we live from that awareness, where we simply witness life, we’re like the movie screen, unaffected by the drama showing on it. We see life as it is rather than suffering the pain of want and need, trying to get what we don’t have.

Maybe, as the article points out, what we don’t have isn’t better and we’re just stuck with our own idea that it is. Trusting that Source can end the entire struggle. Whether you have a relationship or not will happen or it won’t. Why not go with the flow of life as nature does and just be happy now rather than living for that day “when”?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer