Relationships, love and happiness
Relationships, love and happiness :
Relationships are our number one source of happiness. Even so, they could usually be
better than they are. How? look no further than the way you treat your cat or dog. To our pets we
give unconditional love without asking for anything in return. We express affection without
reserve. And that leads to the generation of one of the body’s most important chemicals, oxytocin, Oxytocin is essential to bonding, mental health and happiness. And all you have to do to
generate it is touch. It’s as simple as that. If your pet gets more cuddles than your partner or your
children then that’s a situation you need to put right straight away. In this chapter you’ll also
learn how to keep ‘walking on air’ with your partner by following the 13 special rules.
We depend on relationships as surely as we depend on air. In survey after survey, the conclusion
is the same. Relationships are the single most important source of human happiness. On average:
* People who are married or living with someone are happier than people who live alone.
* People who are close to their relatives are happier than people who aren’t.
* People who have close friends are happier than people who don’t.
* People who get on well with colleagues are happier than people who experience friction at
work.
* People who have pets are less stressed, more long-lived and happier than those who don’t.
Pets
I’m going to start with pets because it’s with our pets we have the least complicated relationships,
and, in a way, the best. You might think I’m being facetious but I’m not. Just think about it for a moment –
the way we love our pets, and the way they love us, is a model for what human relationships should be.
Your love for Fido doesn’t depend on him being the most beautiful dog, nor the most intelligent,
nor the most useful, nor anything like that. And Fido’s love for you doesn’t depend on your looks either,
nor your wealth, nor the size of your house, nor anything of that kind. Basically, you love Fido because
he loves you. And he loves you because you love him.
Hanging out with Fido and, in particular, stroking him:
* lowers your blood pressure
* reduces your level of the stress hormone cortisol
* increases your level of oxytocin – a peptide that makes you feel affectionate as well as, in turn,
increasing the ‘happy chemicals’ dopamine and serotonin.
The curious thing is that all of the positive effects can also be achieved through loving physical
contact with other people. The fact that animals make such a clear difference is proof that we seldom get
our human relationships right.
It’s all down to expecting too much of the wrong kinds of things from our friends, relatives and
partners. And we end up getting less of what we really need. Enjoy people as you enjoy your pet. Don’t
complicate things. Enjoy them for what they are. And not for what they can do for you.
Pets have other things to teach us, too, such as ‘seeing’ emotions – which is why your dog
disappears the morning before an appointment at the vet or why your horse refuses to be cautht when
you need to give an injection. When you interact with animals you have to learn to get rid of your negative emotions – genuinely get rid of them – because animals can read you like a book. That’s how they
survive.
Of course, merely buying a pet (or, better still, adopting one from a rescue centre) isn’t immediately going to make a profound contribution to your baseline happiness. But as time goes by, and you
bond, so you’ll feel the benefits. But don’t forget that animals also have rights and needs. Only get a pet
if you’re sure you can look after it properly for its whole life.
Be tactile
We’re going to apply the first lesson you’ve learned from your pet. Count the number of times
you stroke your pet in a day. Now resolve that you’ll have at least the same amount of physical contact
with everyone who’s close to you.
You see, we often forget that we, too, are animals and need to touch and be touched. Why
should we have less of this wonderful tonic than a dog does? We cover our bodies completely with
clothes most of the time, which already makes it difficult, and, on top of that, we’ve introduced dangerous
social conventions. Theat we’ve now become afraid to touch one another is a disaster for happiness.
The amazing substance oxytocin, which increases in your body when you stroke your pet, is vital
to your mental health and happiness. But it’s no use relying on your dog or cat as your sole source as
oxytocin binds you to whatever you’re touching In other words, if you want to feel bonded with someone
and you want that person to feel bonded with you, touch. Of course, If someone doesn’t want to be
touched by you they’re not going to like you because you touch them. Probably the reverse is true. I’m
talking about your partner, your children, your brothers and sisters, you friends and so on – people who do
want to be close to you.
Oxytocin’s extraordinary role began when you were born. It was responsible for your mother’s
contractions, it was responsible for making milk flow from her breasts, it was responsible for making her
maternal and your father paternal, it made your parents more likely to stick together and it was why they
didn’t abandon you when you cried for the hundredth time in a day. On top of all that, it helped your brain
develop properly – without it some of your brain cells would have died. So if it hadn’t been for touch and
oxytocin your life would have been so very different.
Don’t play mind games
Now let’s turn to the second lesson you’ve learned from your pet. Dogs don’t play mind games –
and nor do other animals. Of course, they like games of the stick-throwing kind and the rolling about
kind. But dogs and animals don’t play games of the ‘I’ll pretend I’m not pleased to see him’ kind. They’re
honest and straight forward.
They’re also uninhibited. Inhibition is a special involuntary kind of game playing and it’s one of
the great enemies of meaningful relationships and, therefore, of happiness, Inhibitions make us hide part
of ourselves away, so we can’t fully give ourselves to our friends, relatives and partners. Our inhibitions
inhibit others. Our inhibitions make other people think they’re seeing reality when, in fact, they’re seeing
an illusion. Our inhibitions make liars of us. We pretend we’re being honest but we’re not.
What we’re all seeking is more meaningful contact. We want to engage with other people at a
profound level. Talking about the weather hardly constitutes a meaningful engagement. If anything, it’s
the reverse. It’s saying: ‘You’re not close to me; you’re only permitted to talk to me about superficial
things.’
So instead of talking about the weather, try talking about things that are more personal and
profound – happiness, for example. Or coping with illness or disability. Or dealing with redundancy.
Learn to ‘see’ emotions
The third lesson you can learn from your pet is the visibility of emotions that we discussed
above. Of course, you already have a limited ability to ‘see’ emotions and so does everybody else. But
you can develop things much further. If you want to get on well with other people you have to push your
happiness and your love ahead of you so they can easily see it.
You won’t be able to push that aura ahead of you if you’re a judgemental sort of person. Don’t
approach others with a feeling of hostility or suspicion, with your positive. emotions hidden away behind
your back like some precious metal. Other people will sense it.
Remember, you can’t empathize fully if you’re harsh on people who are differnt from you. For
example, if you’ve never smoked you’ll never understand someone who’s addicted to nicotine unless you
seek to understan it non-judgementally. Nor, unless you’re open-minded, will you be able to relate to
people from different social backgrounds, different cultures or different age groups. Obviously, you’ll
widen your circle of friends if you can understand those differences.
* Be interested in other people.
* Be compassionate towards other people.
* Be responsive – use facial expressions and tone of voice.
* Trust people with small things and work up to big things – don’t distrust people without reason.
* Don’t be judgemental.
* Try to find something you agree with.
* If you disagree, mention the thing you agree with before mentioning the thing you disagree with
Living with ‘the one’
Will you be happier if you and your partner separate? It may seem an odd question to pose in a
section all about love. But let’s get it out of the way now. Because a recent study has shown that when a
relationship is unhappy, men and women benefit equally by splitting up. If you’re not going to spilt up, the
alternative – the only alternative – is to stay together and make your relationship happy. There is no
middle way on this one. Staying together and being unhappy or less than happy is not what you got
together for.
It’s your right to be happy. And, never forget, it’s your partner’s, too. So which is it? Are you
separating or are you staying together? Make your choice. If you don’t have the same goals, if you don’t
want the same kind of life, if you’re not travelling in the same direction, if you stifle one-another’s creativity rather than enhance it, then you’re probably not going to be happy, whatever you do.
If you’ve plumped for staying together, read on. You’ve just committed yourself to building a
relationship that makes both of you very happy. And one of the most important way to do that is to learn
something new and wonderful about your partner, yourself and your relationship every day.
Avoid the projection trap
Don’t copy D.H.Lawrence – he fell for Frieda Weekely, who became the model and inspiration for
so many of the female characters in his novels. She left a home, a husband and three young children to
be with him. He called her ‘the woman of a lifetime’.
Before long, they were battering one another.
Lawrence made a well-known mistake. He projected onto Frieda the fantasies he wanted to
believe in. Remarkable though she was, she was never going to be able to live up to them. Frieda
equally projected onto Lawrence her fantasies about great writers. Artistically it was a fruitful combination
and it had its heights. But ‘happy’ is not the word for the relationship.
Happiness comes from discovering a reality much more interesting than anything you could have
imagined. If you and your partner have been ‘projecting’, then, at some point, you’re going to come down
to earth with a bump. It’s why, sooner or later, scientists say that the ‘walking on air’ feeling just can’t last.
The most cynical give it just a few weeks. None of them give it more than two years. But they’re wrong.
And I’ll explain how to prove them wrong in a moment.
There’s another kind of projection, and that’s projecting onto the relationship. The composer
Wagner provides a pretty good example. This is what he wrote to his fellow composer Liszt: ‘As I have
never in my life known the real and true joy of love, I will raise a monument to that most beautiful of
dreams in which, from beginning to end, this love is truly and entirely fulfille. ‘The monument was his
most passionate opera in which Isolda literally dies of love on the corpse of Tristan.
It’s a beautiful vision in a way. Rather unromantically, psychologists call it the ‘collapse of ego
boundaries’. The two had become one in life. And in Wagner’s extreme fantasy they also had to be one
in death. But having a woman, as it were, dying of love on a daily basis doesn’t get, say, the kids bathed.
Wagner wouldn’t have known true love if he was staring it in the face because he was looking for the
signs. That was his problem. He didn’t realize that getting the shopping was love. He was too caught up
in a world of myths and make-believe, as well as his own megalomania.
Rules for walking on air
As we’re already seen, that ‘walking on air’ feeling comes from the chemicals PEA, of which we
get a huge hit in the early days of a relationship. Admittedly, you’ll never again quite achieve those
levels, even using the additional techniques we’ve discussed in the chapters on eating and exercise,
because there’s an element that comes with novelty. But you can stay high all your life if you follow these
rule.
Four kinds of acceptance
* Rule number 1. Accept your partner’s love. You don’t, like Wagner, insist it has to be expressed in a
particular way. You have to be free to express your love your way and your partner has to be free to do
the same. Simply enjoy the love. Bathe in it. Be grateful for it, because it’s a wonderful thing.
* Rule number 2. Accept the way your partner is. You don’t, like D.H.Lawrence, tell your partner how to
dress or behave or what to think or, indeed, anything else. In other words, you don’t project your fantasies
onto your partner.
* Rule number 3. Accept your partner’s growth. You don’t try to keep your partner the way he/she was
right back at the beginning of the relationship. You both have to be free to develop. In fact, learn to love
change. Because if there was no change there could be no improvement. Would you, at, say, age 40,
really want your partner to be the same as when you first met 20 years earlier? Not to know any more?
Not to have acquired any more skills? Not to have more insight and wisdom?
* Rule number 4. Accept that two people are different and always will be (especially if one is a man and
the other a woman). You already love some of the differences. Learn to love all of them.
Nine further rules
* Rule number 5. Always remain curious. Your partner is actually an inexhaustible mine. You’ll never run
out of treasures as long as you keep digging new galleries.
* Rule number 6. Always give support. support is very important for both sexes but especially for women
who have a strong need to be able to talk about themselves and their problems. In one study, 41 percent
of women who suffered a ‘stressful life even’t became depressed if they were given only a low level of
support by their partners, but the figure fell to 10 percent with a high level of support. Another study
found that relationships in which partners react enthusiastically to one-another’s good news are the
happiest; don’t be grudging or uninterested.
* Rule number 7. Always build your partner up. We’ve already seen how damaging negative thoughts
and emotions can be. If you foster them in your partner – possibly as a way of gaining dominance in the
relationship – you’ll end up destroying him or her. Don’t criticize and, above all, never make personal
attacks.
* Rule number 8. Talk, talk, talk – and make it meaningful. One study found that talking to a woman is
more meaningful than talking to a man. Both men and women reported that talking to a woman resulted
in a conversation that was pleasanter, more intimate and – this is very important – with more self-disclosure. If you’re a man, learn to be meaningful.
* Rule number 9. Don’t make comparisons (see chapter 3). Don’t say or even think: ‘He/She earns more
money than my partner.’
* Rule number 10. Don’t hold onto negative thoughts or emotions (see Chapters 3 and 4).
* Rule number 11. Provide plenty of physical contact. As we saw earlier, oxytocin is essential to your
health as well as the health of your relationship.
* Rule number 12. Have plenty of sex is the source of several ‘happy chemicals’. One study found that
satisfaction with a relationship correlates very closely with frequency of intercourse minus the number of
rows. Sex is dealt with in the next chapter.
* Rule number 13. Do something happy together every day.
