Responsibity

I have been living in my head, having conversations with this blog, thinking about writing and posting but not writing and posting.  As a result more topics fill my brain, some to be lost forever, some, perhaps, to reappear unbidden, or bidden, in the future.
Responsibility?  Whose is it? for what? is it ever over? once assumed, can we abandon our responsibility? Specifically, can parents rightfully desert their responsibility to house, care for, and love their children? Can a spouse relinquish responsibility for a spouse?  Of course, you would say, that's what divorce is all about.  But what about responsibility for a spouse you are still married to, one you even love?  What does this mean then to no longer be responsible for another?  Can you divide up the responsibilities and retain some while giving up others?
Case in point.  My spouse, whom I love and have no intention of divorcing or even leaving, has frequently chosen to be angry and in his anger, chooses to blame me as the cause of his anger.  I also made a choice.  I made a choice not to be angry.  Okay, understandable.  But I also made a choice to be happy.  Again, okay.  Then I made the choice not to be responsible for either his anger, or for his happiness.  And that was  a sea change.
Just that declaration, I am not responsible for your happiness, that is your personal responsibility, has the potential to change our lives.  And, change them for the better.  Because in truth, we are each responsible for our own happiness, for our own reaction to others, to the world at large.  We can be dismayed over world events, saddened by external issues, or even personal health issues, and in spite of all we can still choose to be happy within ourselves.
I have had many teachers along the way, but I haven't been open to declaring my freedom from the responsibility of making and keeping my spouse happy.  The Dalai Lama wrote in his book, The Art of Happiness, that we are each responsible first for our own happiness.  That this objective in life was God given, necessary, and right.  That to seek one's personal happiness, providing we did so without intentionally causing others' unhappiness, was the path we should follow.  Note the word "intentionally".  If I take an action that leads to my happiness, but another person becomes unhappy because of my choice, that is not my responsibility.  Each is responsible for one's own happiness.
Psychologist David Viscott, sadly deceased by his own hand, taught me that we have little control.  We can control what we do, what we say, and how we react to others' actions and words, and not much else.  Thus, we can't control another's happiness, only our own.
The third teacher was Alanon, sessions I attended trying to understand, and I admit, control, my then spouse's addiction to alcohol.  I learned that I am neither the cause of the addiction, nor will I be the cure.  Each must make that decision, sometimes every day, of how to be happy, how to live without giving into the addiction.
Today, always subject to change, I stand responsible for my own happiness.  I can't blame anyone else if I am not doing that which makes me happy.  I do struggle a bit with equating seeking my own happiness with being selfish, because I have learned that selfish is a bad word.  Nevertheless, to all the people I love, I am not responsible for your happiness.  I trust you will each find your own way.
Adrienne 7/22/2014