Happily Ever After.....a fairy tale?

Published on September 25, 2008 By foreverserenity In Personal Relationships

You know those stories, you've had them read to you as a child, seen the movies, read the novels when you grew up...."and they live happily ever after". Is that an illusion, a lie, are we trying to make an illustion reality? Shouldn't we really not give that illusion to our little impressionable ones?

Hmmm....I do like the, love, love, LOVE the ideal of "happily ever after", and why not? Why shouldn't we? I love romance, love the feeling that being in love makes me feel, seeing couples who really and truly love each other, why is that not a nice thing? Isn't love wonderful? Yes, but sometimes it is not, we all know that.

I had a conversation with my big brother recently. I like being his ear, when he needs to talk, he calls and we talk, or he talks, and I listen with a word in here and there. I like the fact that he talks to me so openly and I try to encourage him. I could wring his awful wife's neck, she's not a nice person and if you follow my blog, you know what I'm talking about.

He told me that he admired my husband and I, the fact that we have been to together so long and the fact that we make it work, our marriage, our relationship. It is not the first time I've been told this by other friends and relatives. It is nice that they admire us, and yes, we have been together a long time now. It has not been an easy road, and we do have our moments! I will be the first to tell you that.

We have our moments of love, being madly in love, passion; moments of anger, joy, disagreements, boy do we disagree sometimes! We are loud, we shout, we get mad, we argue, we hate, we wonder why we are together, we do not see eye to eye on everything! He's a pain in the ass and I know he thinks the same of me sometimes too!lol But underneath all that we respect each other and we really care about each other. In this our...[I stopped to think how long we've been together!lol! I just don't always keep up and he's worse than me where that is concerned!].... but in this our God knows how long year of being a couple and being married, (because we were a couple first before we got married!) we have nothing but love and passion for each other and I can't imagine what my life would be like without him, even though sometimes I do....like no more doing everything by myself....making all the decisions.....ok, ok, I'm not being fair!lol!

The thing I'm getting at is, what we should tell our children when they get older and are able to understand is that "happily ever after" takes lots of work, hard work, and love, and caring, and selflessness, with a bit of selfishness tossed in too, but lots of selflessness! It sure doesn't happen overnight, and it is not going to always be a bed of roses in a relationship. At the first sign of trouble, being a disagreement or something else, unless it is a threat to your life, or something really serious, they shouldn't jump ship. Happily ever after takes two people working togehter towards one goal, despite everything, no matter what, as long as there is love, then happily ever after will be there, it might not be pefrect, like in the fairy tale, but it can be darn sweet!

Comments

JillUser

on Sep 26, 2008

"happily ever after" takes lots of work, hard work, and love, and caring, and selflessness, with a bit of selfishness tossed in too, but lots of selflessness!

I agree with most of what you're saying but I have never agreed with the hard work and selflessness idea of being the only way to make a marriage work. Every couple has their moments when they are upset with each other. You can't have passion without anger. But if you are true to yourself and your significant other BEFORE you commit to Ever After, it shouldn't be that much work and selfishness.

I will agree that if you follow the Fall in Love, Get Married, Live Happily Ever After plan without thinking things through and thoroughly communicating about everything between the Falling in Love and Getting Married parts, then Happily Ever After is going to be more difficult. If you don't discuss how you truly feel about what will make you happy and figure out whether or not that coincides with the hopes and dreams of your loved one, you are bound to run into problems.

We discussed the good and bad of everything. We talked about religion, family size, parenting ideas, where we preferred to live, and what we hoped to do in the Ever After. I can't believe how many people get married without even discussing whether or not they want kids!

So, I guess I will tell my little princess, Fall in Love, Thoroughly Vet Prince Charming, Get Married, then Live Happily Ever After. If Prince Charming doesn't ask enough questions about her, he probably isn't taking the committment seriously enough either.

JillUser

on Sep 26, 2008

To qualify, the reason why I don't agree with there being a lot of selflessness is because if you feel you are sacrificing too much, you will begin to resent and that never ends in Happily Ever After. In order to have a successful Until Death do you Part marriage, both people have to be getting satisfaction from being with each other. If one or the other feels they are compromising all the time (having to be selfless) then they will end up not feeling satisfied with the marriage.

foreverserenity

on Sep 29, 2008

If you don't discuss how you truly feel about what will make you happy and figure out whether or not that coincides with the hopes and dreams of your loved one, you are bound to run into problems.

Most definitely! Some people don't make plans, we really didn't. We knew we loved each other and there was no question about whether or not we were going to live our lives together, it just happened naturally. We didn't plan when we would have children, the first and second happened, the third, was expected, just a matter of when. Not that we walked blindly into our marriage, I guess because we were from the same place, we knew what to expect. But having the details planned out, sometimes that is definitely better if that happens. As far as selfishness goes, I think that is a natural thing for any person in a relationship to feel. But feeling that way too much means that person will have to examine themselves more.

the hard work and selflessness idea of being the only way to make a marriage work.

The "hard work" should probably be worded as dedication.

I agree that if both individuals aren't satisfied, then it won't be a successful partnership. That is the reason why there are so many separations and divorces.

The selflessness part comes in the give and take that each person has to bring to the table. Each have to be willing to give and take, not just take in the relationship. Some people are also naturally selfish and don't really considers their partner's feelings, that is when it just doesn't work.

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