Can a person become genuinely happy within a relationship if they are unsure about being in that relationship?

I have been happy in relationships where I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. It took a lot of the pressure off.

If you aren’t sure about your relationship, that suggests to me confusion about whether you should be there. Building on that, given how important relationships are usually in people’s lives, I don’t see how you can wholly happy. You must have things in that relationship you want to resolve and so you are unsatisfied. Hope I am making more sense to you than I am to myself :-) To be happy, you need to reconcile how you feel about your place in that relationship. That doesn’t mean you CAN’T be happy there, but you need to resolve whatever questions you have about it first.

I also agree with @filmfann, but I think that is a different scenario. I too have had times when I didn’t want to be in a committed relationship. I was quite happy to just have things being very loose and no long term expectations or plans, but I think if we feel that way, then we aren’t unsure about the relationship. The relationship is what we are looking for at that time.

GAs—to expand on the question if I may, do you guys think it’s possible for such a relationship to evolve into one that is committed?

I just went through this, and my answer would be No. The uncertainty caused me to remain at a distance and the relationship never gained depth, never progressed and ultimately disappeared.

Yes @ette_ I do. We may start out not wanting commitment but as we get to know the person better, our own circumstances or needs change, yes the status of a relationship can evolve and change. It depends on the people and their circumstances.

I should add, it does also depend on honesty. I have heard both men and women saying they don’t want commitment when they absolutely do but don’t want to scare the person they are interested off and that person doesn’t want commitment. In those cases, no. You have to be honest with yourself about what you want and whether the person you are with is in the same place. If either isn’t being honest, or is at a different place then no.

The only way to achieve this is to live in the moment and not worry about the future.

In my last relationship, I knew the girl well enough to know that it wouldn’t last. I loved her so I was hopeful but I knew better. I was insanely happy at times and insanely miserable at times with little middle ground. When I finally decided to get with her, I thought the timing was right and Iived with the moment but it eventually fell apart anyway. I think a person can be happy and unsure about a relationship but it takes away from it in the long run.

Sure.

I’d say the biggest predictor of whether you will be happy in a relationship is whether you were happy before the relationship. Some of us are just better at being happy.

@6rant6 ga.

still—i would draw a distinction between ‘should i be in this relationship at all?’ and ‘will it last?’ it might never be possible to know a relationship will last, but sometimes you do know for sure that it won’t. you can still have a great in-the-meantime relationship.

but if you doubt that you ought to be in it at all, how can you really be all the way in it? if you’re holding back, sustaining tension, feeling divided—it’s going to affect everything. i don’t see how that state of things is compatible with genuine happiness.

Anything is possible.
Do you have any specifics on why they are unsure currently?

Depends on what you mean by ‘not sure about the relationship’.

@Jeruba I see it differently.

I think it’s difficult to predict where a relationship is headed. I mean really, how good are we at predicting where our individual lives are headed! But a relationship?

So to me, if it’s not good now, fix it or go. If it is good, then you’ll just have to wait and see. You can’t know where it’s going.

I knew a couple who married with him wanting a family and her knowing she never wanted to have children. Ten years later they had three. I knew a couple who married despite religious differences – he Jewish, she Catholic. Ten years later, she converted so that they could take their children to Israel to see his parents. And she kept a kosher house after that – for herself not for him. I knew a player who’d been with (according to him) a thousand women. But he met and fell in love with a women (who already had kids) and he became a committed family man. I’ve known people who thought they were on the same track until one of them turned out to be on a tandem with someone else.

When OP says, “I’m not sure about it” I’m thinking things aren’t quite right. So I go back to rule 1: fix it or go. Otherwise, smile for the camera!