Something my mother used to say

I was thinking about her yesterday and remembering that one of the things she used to rail against when I was a teenager was people in books, movies and real life who praised the love of their life for "making them happy".

My mother would insist, loudly, that this was a very bad sign. You are responsible for your own happiness, she would say. There is nothing more unfair to the person you are in love with than expecting them to make you happy. She'd go on to say that if someone tells you they were miserable before they met you, you should dump them and let them be miserable again.

I have to say that I didn't agree at the time but I sure do now. We need to figure out what happiness is and how to pursue it ourselves before we get married. Getting married and hoping you can work it out together is an awful thing to do to the person you marry.