What is real happiness?

This question has been plaguing me for the last couple of months. Almost all of my friends have asked me this question “What do you want?” The truth is, I don’t know. How about, I want to be happy and feel content. Will I be happy if I finally end my marriage? Or find love with another man? Or have enough sex? Or maybe my hormones are playing a mind trick on me? I read that woman in their late thirties and early forties experience the same sex drive as young 16 to 18 year old men in their sexual prime. I call it ‘The remaining egg’ syndrome.  Yes apparently my body’s need to procreate and get one of these last eggs fertilized is the reason for my sex drive. Which begs the question, will I go back to ‘normal’ in a couple of months or maybe years? I look at young couples around me and I find myself thinking, is she going to change when she gets to my age? I don’t remember this happening with my Mum…well if it did she hid it really well!

What do I want? I think we all want to love and be loved in return. Surely, everyone wants to be loved. But love really hurts too. I broke my husbands’ heart. Even though I don’t feel guilty about my actions, I feel bad for hurting him. I might not be sexually attracted to him, but he has been in my life for the past 14 years. I care for him and hurting him does hurt me. Can I really be happy knowing that I ruined another person? I know, he will not always hurt as much as he is hurting right now, but do I really have the right to make another person that committed to me feel like this?  Can I find happiness based on his unhappiness?

Does happiness always equal love though…I don’t think so, but I do think that happiness is a much more intense feeling when it is accompanied by love.