Is Love Meant to Make Us Happy?

by Mari Ruti 

Although we are culturally programmed to view romantic love as the answer to life's difficulties, I think that happiness is rarely love's main goal. 

If we expect love to make us happy, we automatically interpret its setbacks and disappointments as a sign of failure. But what if happiness is merely one aspect of love's multifaceted mission?

What if love is more interested in our growth than our happiness? From this perspective, romantic setbacks and disappointments might actually be more effective in accomplishing love's aim than its more triumphant moments.


By this I don't mean to valorize suffering. I'm not saying that we should purposely court setbacks and disappointments, or that we should be pleased when these are what our romantic lives deliver. I'm not in the business of glorifying pain. But there is something to be said for understanding that love may be trying to teach us lessons that have nothing to do with happiness - at least not in any immediate sense.

Read more: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-juicy-bits/201104/is-love-meant-make-us-happy