Notes on: Having Happier Relationships

'Having Happier Relationships' is taken from the course, 'Managing Happiness,' by Arthur Brooks on edX.org.

Having Happier Marriages

There are some practical things you can do to increase your chances of having a happier marriage:

1. Do not take the relationship for granted. When you are in a relationship, especially if you have kids, day-to-day life can become routine and busy, and it becomes easy to ignore each other. You can have date nights, do something spontaneous or try new things to liven up the relationship.

2. Have a bedrock of affection. Arguments are inevitable, but when there is a bedrock of affection they tend to not escalate as much or last as long. You can reignite affection by reminding yourself of why you got together in the first place and reflecting on some old memories together.

3. Communicate when you are both in the right mindset. Sometimes we may suppress issues, but almost always they crop up in the form of resentment at a later date and become much worse. The healthier way is to create a culture of communication but ensuring you do it at the time you are both receptive.

Having Happier Friendships

There are a couple of characteristics that indicate a close friendship that can make you happier:

1. Feeling supported. There are all kinds of support: there is emotional support, there is lending a helping hand when you need it, there is instrumental support. Generally feeling supported by people gives you a sense of security which enables you to live a happier life.

2. Giving each other the capacity to be yourselves. This means allowing each other to show up as your genuine self and not feel judged, but at the same time also having the courage to be truthful to each other, even if it's a difficult thing to say.

There is a whole complicated web of factors that happen in relationships, and each relationship can provide something different.

In Western societies there may be this romantic ideal that suggests your partner should provide everything you need to feel fulfilled in relationships, but that is almost never the case in reality.

You may have some friends you confide in, but they never confide in you, and you may have some relationships where they meet your emotional needs and you also meet theirs. It's OK to get different needs met by different types of relationships.