I think it’s important in a relationship to understand that you cannot make a person happy. You can make a person smile. You can make a person laugh but you cannot make a person genuinely happy. That is a decision and a feeling that the person themselves have to accomplish. It’s hard because we all want our partners to be happy and feel happy but it’s just simply not our place to control or decide. Furthermore, I believe that it is important to create and maintain this independent feeling and present to the table as such. When two people come together in such a intimate and pure way we find ourselves becoming more dependent on the person to provide to us certain feelings such as happiness; when in reality we need to still live our own independent lives and remain on top of our own emotions. We should come to the relationship presenting happiness. We should not give our partner the power (or more or less the stress) of controlling our happiness. Sure, they should still give support, reassurance and do what it takes to make being happy simpler. And this goes for both ends, we should do what it takes to make our relationship stronger every day and each other’s lives easier but we should both do it while we are happy. Happy independently and together. I think it makes for a stronger relationship.