The Boundaries of Happiness

I had confused love with responsibility for others' happiness. If someone I cared about was unhappy, I believed it was my job to fix it. If I couldn't make them happy, I had failed at love. This belief created an impossible dynamic where I was perpetually responsible for emotional states I couldn't control.

The truth was revolutionary: I am not responsible for another person's happiness, nor are they responsible for mine. Each person's emotional wellbeing is their own domain. I can contribute to someone's joy, but I cannot create it for them. They can enhance my happiness, but they cannot manufacture it within me.

This boundary isn't cold or uncaring. It's actually deeply respectful. When I stop trying to make someone else happy, I'm acknowledging their capability to find their own happiness. When I stop expecting them to make me happy, I'm claiming my own emotional agency. We can share joy without being responsible for producing it in each other.

I've learned that the happiest relationships are ones where each person takes responsibility for their own emotional life. We can support each other without being accountable for each other's internal states. This creates genuine intimacy rather than codependent enmeshment. Happiness is something we bring to relationships, not something we extract from them.

Today I can notice when I'm trying to make someone else happy or expecting them to make me happy, and gently return responsibility to where it belongs.