Murph,<BR>Yes, it appears that my H did expect me to somehow keep him constantly happy, an impossible feat.<P>I read an article in today's paper discussing "positive illusion" - the characteristic of seeing their partner's good behavior as reflective of their personality, and their bad behavior as a function of external factors, even after the "infatuation" stage is over. Supposedly those who see things that way are more likely to be happy, even if it is not realistic. People who feel this way are also more likely to resist "alternative partners". People are less likely to be unfaithful if they see their partners as better than they actually are, and others as worse than they actually are.<P>If this theory is true, it would be great for those couple where positive illusion characterizes both partners. Relationships where it characterizes neither probably wouldn't last very long. The problem arises where one partner sees things this way (as I think I did, up until discovery), and the other sees things the opposite way. Then the more positive partner invariably suffers.<P>jamie-lee,<P>Go ahead - a bat, a frying pan, whatever...<P>TheStudent,<P>The article I was talking about above implies that one's chance for happiness is greater if you are unrealistically optimistic - but only if the other person is too. I suspect the chance of two unrealistically optimistic people finding each other is fairly slim - and the worse case scenario, the one that seems most likely to set yourself up to be hurt, is when you are the optimistic one and the other person is not.