I believe that having a happy marriage and a partner who you can communicate well is one of the important factors for happiness. However, romantic love is not the only trigger for happiness. There are are loves such as relationships with children, parents, friends, coworkers, siblings, cousins, and so on. So not only romantic love is a way to be happy, but also friendship love, companionate love, and parental love also leads happiness.
Birnbaum on page 26 says that :
“More than 50% of human happiness
derives from a good love partner;
Less than 50% of good love partners
are good marriage partners.
A pre-requisite for a good love partner
and/or mate
is the ability
to give love well and
to receive love well”
I like Birnbaums point “a pre-requisite for a good love partner is the ability to give love well and to receive love well.” We should not always take things for granted. We should always appreciate things we receive and also should know how to give them to the other person. It applies not only to love, but also to many things in life. For example, We may take our parents’ giving us allowance for granted. We may forget to appreciate it, because they are our parents, and we may think that they should always support us. But, I think they we should really appreciate their hard work and when we are settled and have a decent job, we should pay back. When a person really loves you and gives you things that he can give to you, you should be very thankful and should love him/her back the same or even more. I do not mean that we should always measure things up, but what I mean is that we should appreciate the other person’s effort.
나는 행복한 결혼생활을 가지고 당신이 정말 대화를 할수있는 파트너를 가지고 있는것이 당신에게 진정한 행복을 가져다 준다고 믿는다. 그러나 오직 로멘틱한 사랑만 행복을 일으키진 않는다. 자식간의, 부모님간의, 친구간의, 남매자매간에, 친척간에 사랑도 포함되어있다.
나는 범바움이 “사랑하는 파트너에대한 기본 과목은 사랑을 잘 주고 잘 받을수 있어야한다”라고 말하는 부분이 좋다. 우리는 항상 무언가를 받는것을 당연하게 여겨서는 안된다. 우리는 우리를 사랑해주는 사람들이 주는것을 받을때, 감사하게 여겨야 하며, 또한 우리도 그들에게 사랑을 줄수있는 방법을 알아야한다고 생각한다. 예를들어. 부모님들이 우리에게 용돈을 줄때 우리는 너무 당여시 여긴다 왜냐하면 그들은 우리 부모들이고 우리 부모님들은 항상 우리를 지지해줘야한다고 믿을수 있기 때문이다. 하지만 우리는 그걸 너무 당연히만 여기지 말고 나중에 자리를 잡고 좋은 직장을 가졌을때, 그것을 다 돌려줘야한다고 생각한다.