by Keven Card

Created on: February 17, 2009

Most of us grow up watching movies about a boy who either has to win over or save a girl from some horrible fate in order to capture her undying love so they can live happily ever after. This leads many of us to believe that love should be as easy as is portrayed on the silver screen.

However, when we look around to find all the people in this world who have found that one person who is their fairy tale love, our search uncovers mostly the opposite of what we had thought a relationship and marriage should be. We find that people are happy for the first year or so and then they discover that their mate has faults and that those faults are not what they fell in love with; not long after, their focus changes to what they don't like instead of what they loved about them in the first place. Those faults, whether it be something as petty as leaving their dirty socks on the floor, or being unable to see the other's point of view during an argument, are just a couple of the many things that have the potential to ruin a relationship. Focusing in on things that we dislike make them seem worse than they really are. Sadly, after a while they give up on that person thinking that they just weren't the right one.

We believe that every relationship has the same stages; we start out in love and after some time we find out that the one we love isn't perfect, we fight a lot trying to change them and when they don't change we come to a crossroads. Have you ever wondered why for some couples, happiness seems to be the rule and not the exception? The difference is in the decision that they make when they arrive at the crossroad. We believe that every couple at that place has four choices to choose from.

1. Quit on the relationship.

2. Stay with them, but stay focused on the negative which eventually leads to the love being lost and then you're more like roommates who resent each other.

3. Stay with them pretending to be happy while pursuing other romantic encounters (Basically, trying to have your cake and eat it too.)

4. Make a decision that despite their faults you're going to focus on what you love about them and do everything in your power to make them happy.

I don't think I have to tell you which one we chose, (we chose option 4) because we both knew that we loved each other and we had started out so perfectly and we realized that our only problem was that we were too focused on the few things that we didn't like instead of all the things that we loved about each other. We start to think that the grass is greener on the other side but either way the grass still has to be mowed.

Listen, happiness is a choice; it's not a feeling. My wife's family still lives on an island in the Pacific and they have very little as far as opportunity or possessions and looking in from the outside we would say that they live in misery but what's astonishing is that they are some of the happiest people I know. The most important thing to them in their lives is their relationships with their family.

There is a saying that insanity is repeating the same activity but expecting a different result. If you want to stop the insanity do the exact opposite of what you're doing. Stop focusing on what you don't like about your mate; instead focus on why you fell in love them. Remember happiness is a choice not a feeling so if you're presently unhappy, make a choice to be happy.

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