Originally Posted by
Torrasque
I sacrificed my college and career paths for love. It was dumb, but it was extraordinarily rewarding. It set me back nearly an entire decade foraging a loving relationship with a wonderful woman, budding with mystique and beauty in mind, body, and soul. I learned much of not only the human condition, personal responsibility, and the meaning of sharing your life with someone that you love. She was a woman with one of the hardest lives that I could comprehend, she had a lot of baggage, but I'm a determined guy, and I worked with her to aid her in overcoming many of the obstacles in both our lives, though mainly hers. She was a woman who was nearly completely unaware of happiness being possible when we met. She was so self-sacrificed into her role as a mother that she had forgone her own desires for decades. Looking into her eyes, you could see the woman inside her silently screaming for release from the bonds of her own trapping life, most of which, I learned was forced upon her by a wide variety of leeching people.
However, what Will Smith said is mostly true. You cannot force someone to be happy. You can, however, provide them with opportunities to seek happiness or simply let them learn how to accept happiness into their heart. In the case of my relationship, my wife needed someone there that was trustworthy, respectful, and willing to help her through her painful existence in reaching towards something tangible that she could grasp for a sense of happiness in herself. After a long and grueling journey, I feel that by the end, she managed to admit that she was finally happy.
For me, I can cherish the fact that I am mostly responsible for aiding her in attaining even a small dose of happiness that she deserved far more than most people should. However, she was the one that grasped it, I only can take credit for leading her to it.