There are three key choices girlfriends need to make in order to be happy and enjoy their good relationships. Three choices that feel terrifying to make in the moment because they go against everything we are primitively programmed to believe. But if you have the courage to make them, you will stop ruining your relationship with your fear of loss and start enjoying what you’ve got here and now.

When you are consumed by grumpiness, insecurities, and jealousy, there are few things more provoking than someone suggesting that “you just have to choose to be happy”. How the hell are you supposed to be happy inside a brain that is constantly playing a highlights reel of you getting left, cheated on, lied to, betrayed, deceived, and tossed in the trash?

What I want to offer you today are three choices you need to make as a grumpy girlfriend that pave the way for relationship happiness. Now, these choices aren’t easy. They are some of the hardest choices you are ever going to have to make. But if you commit to making them every single day, you will get better and better at making them.

These are the choices I learned to make in order to enjoy my good relationship with my partner, and even though they went against everything my brain had learned to believe… the relief, freedom, and empowerment on the other side made it all worth it.

1. Choose being happy over being right

Grumpy girlfriends live in a world of truths that are very painful and fuel their insecurities, jealousy, and fear. Our ego-driven need to be right at all times is one of our biggest happiness obstacles. Choosing between being right or being happy simply means that anything you believe that is hurting you or standing in the way of your happiness… could be wrong.

You can either be right about the thing that is hurting you or you could be wrong about it and be happy. I know what you’re thinking… “This sounds like toxic positivity!”. It’s not. It is just offering you the alternative of releasing being right about something that does not serve you.

“My partner will cheat on me at some point.”
Okay, you can be right about that or you can be happy (for now, until it happens!).

“Other girls are better than me.”
You could be right. Or you could be happy.

“My partner is the one for me.”
This might make you happy while you have your partner. But if the relationship ends, you get to choose if you want to be right about it or if you want to be happy.

“I have to see it coming.”
Right? Or happy? Your choice.

“Being cheated on means I did something wrong.”
Right? Or happy?

→ Happy, relaxed, confident girlfriends choose to be happy over being right about these thoughts that cause them so much anxiety and pain.

2. Choose surprise pain over preparation pain

We are programmed to constantly look out for danger and prevent pain as much as possible. So as girlfriends in good relationships, the threat of that relationship ending is constantly looming over us. A threat that we need to prevent at all costs. But if we can’t prevent it, the next best thing is to prepare for it.

One thing all my grumpy girlfriend clients have in common is that they are preparing for pain that has not yet happened. They are looking out for danger and getting ready for shit to hit the fan. Why? Because we all agree that seeing it coming and being able to say “I knew it” makes the pain of losing our partners a lot less painful.

But is that true?

Actually, the heartbreak of being left, cheated on, or lied to is painful regardless if it came as a surprise or if you “saw it coming”. That shit hurts. And it’s supposed to! It’s the price we agree to pay for the benefit of experiencing a romantic relationship.

The difference between surprise pain and preparation pain is how you treat yourself if you are surprised by heartbreak or betrayal.

“I should have seen it coming”
“I should have known”
“I’m so naive and stupid for thinking everything was fine”
“How embarrassing that I was happy while this was going on”
“I’m pathetic”

These thoughts are the difference and these thoughts are what we try to avoid by preparing for the worst and “seeing it coming.”

So in order to choose surprise pain over the drawn-out preparation pain that ruins your relationship here and now, you need to promise yourself not to add additional pain to the situation if it were to happen. Refuse to blame yourself, stab yourself in the heart, and make your partner’s choices mean that you did something wrong.

→ It’s not pathetic, naive, or embarrassing to be happy and enjoy your relationship up until the very second when you find out that something bad has happened.

3. Choose to embrace free will (for better and for worse)

Your partner’s free will is one of the biggest threats to your relationship and your emotional safety. The fact that they can choose to leave you or cheat on you at any time is excruciating to think about. This is why so many grumpy girlfriends try to control and manage their partners’ free will through emotional punishment, manipulation, and control disguised as “boundaries”.

But nothing in this world is 100% good or bad. If it’s factual, then it just is. And depending on how we view these facts we are going to have very different relationships with them.

So when grumpy girlfriends hate their partners’ free will because it might lead to the relationship ending, they are missing a very important part of it. The part where the partner is using their free will to be in a relationship with them. So far, the partner has chosen to be with the girlfriend day in and day out. But that free will is dismissed and ignored.

In order to be a happy girlfriend, you have to make free will your friend. You have to accept it and embrace it as a beautiful part of a relationship. Yes, it might lead to the end of the relationship one day. Either because of your free will or theirs. But until then, both of you are using your free will to be with each other even though you could choose to be with anyone else.

→ Free will isn’t the enemy. It’s the prerequisite for love, connection, and intimacy. If we manage, control, and limit free will, we will also limit and suffocate the love inside the relationship.

Again, these are not easy choices to make. They require great amounts of intention, discomfort, and courage. But your happiness and enjoyment of your relationship are waiting for you on the other side.

As long as you choose being right, always being prepared for pain, and making your partner’s free will the enemy of your relationship… you will spend your time together being grumpy, jealous, and insecure. When you choose happiness, surprise pain, and you make free will your friend, you will finally be able to enjoy your good relationship.