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What is a Ridiculously Happy Wife? Part 1
One of the things that feels nearly impossible to do when you’re really struggling in your marriage and feeling like it’s hopeless, is to make yourself happy.
When you’re so depleted and hurt from the things he’s said to you, or the way he’s treated you for so long, hearing me talk about being ridiculously happy might feel like me talking about jumping from the ground onto a skyscraper. It may just feel like it’s not even realistic.
And even if it seems like it might be possible to make yourself happy, it might seem like it’s not going to improve your marriage because he’s still going to be hurting you, fighting with you and tearing you down. And most human beings won’t even start trying to do anything that feels doomed from the start. And that’s logical, because what’s the point if you think you’re just going to feel bad again?
So it’s hard to get started, even just to experiment.
Unless…
Unless you feel seen, heard and understood. And you wouldn’t be so down if you felt those things from your husband. When you’re not getting those essential nutrients that everyone needs to thrive, it’s pretty hard to just pick yourself up and get happy.
And yet, in my experience, being happy is an indispensable first step to making your marriage last, to making it feel relaxed and fun again.
So it’s a conundrum: You’re unhappy because your marriage is struggling, but your struggling marriage makes it hard to get yourself happy. And until you get happy your marriage will struggle, in my experience.
Unless you have a group, a tribe, or a coffee klatch that not only sees, hears and understands you but also does all of that without judging you, so you can be authentic.
This is something I stumbled on early on in my own marriage journey, with a support group of women in my living room. It took me over ten years to create programs on our campus that provide a safe community of like-minded women, where you can share very authentically and there’s no judgment. A community of women who are supportive and equally committed to creating a lasting marriage, who are passionate about having a great relationship, who believe that marriage is important, because it is!
And what we saw was that the community, in turn, provided inspiration and connection, and accelerated the transformation because women who were struggling with making themselves happy found strength to take action.
Connecting with like-minded women has been key to success for so many, including me. Because it turns out, the group itself fills a hierarchical need that I never knew I had.
The community of Ridiculously Happy Wives provides essential interactions, even now that my marriage feels easy and sweet. Being part of the community on our campus gives me one of the critical pieces that I need to show up as my best self in my marriage, which is how I became a Ridiculously Happy Wife.
First, I got happy. Then my husband started piling on to make me even happier. And he hasn’t stopped since.
And it’s not just me. Tens of thousands of students report the same thing. They say they didn’t know how much they needed the community until they got into it.
And not just anyone can be a part of it. Our community thrives because we share certain values, so we want to make sure you’re one of us before you join. That’s why you can’t just go to the website and sign up without being qualified.
If you’re going to male bash, well, you can’t be in our community because we’re focusing on what we want–not what we don’t want.
If you don’t support marriage this is not going to be the place for you because we are determined that having a lasting marriage is essential.
And maybe you’ve just got the tiniest shred of hope for your marriage and sometimes you forget where you put that tiny shred. That’s okay. You can still be part of us. That’s one of the reasons we stick together, to remind ourselves that there is always hope. Joining our programs is a way of declaring you have hope, even if you don’t always feel hopeful.
It’s hard to explain in words how fortifying it is to be part of this tribe. It’s something you just have to experience for yourself, which is why I wanted to share this Empowered Wife session with you, to give you a taste.
All of the women on this audio recording knew beforehand that this session was being recorded so I could share it here on the podcast, and they generously and authentically shared just as they always do.
Here’s a taste of what it’s like to be part of a community of women who are invested in being Ridiculously Happy Wives.