Today I got an email from some heath website I subscribe to ...( mainly to tell me how to look younger and live longer, ahhhh vanity....) "How to Have Your Happily Ever After". These are the three most dangerous words you can use, it completely stunts emotional maturity and growth. There is no such thing as happily ever after and there never will be. Me personally, I don't really buy into the soulmate theory, I think it also ultimately sets us up for failure.
That doesn't mean I have entered into relationships with a view of pessimism, moreover a realist view that marriage is tough, ugly, and at no time is it 50/50. However, marriage is also a wonderful relationship that when done right makes you want to grow and better yourself and share that journey. Its by far the most difficult relationship in the world which is why it fails more often than other relationships.
Back to the article, the first thing I called bullshit on real fast was.... people who are in love with each other don't fight. Pfft, I think I even said, "BULLSHIT" out loud when I read that. Lemme just go ahead and tell ya something, I love my husband and we fight. We have some good ones, and sometimes we have had fights that make us both want to walk the fuck out and quit. Sometimes I miss being a single mom and alone, it was so much easier, but the reality of it is, you love someone, you work at it. If you took a vow for better or worse, sometimes there is a lot more worse than better, but you work to make it better. Giving up is weak and unless its due to betrayal/ cheating, its for pussies.
The second thing that got me triggered is, if you work hard enough things will improve. That's not true... like at all. I was cheated on in my first marriage, and I allowed several chances to work things out. I worked my ass off through therapy, and applying what I learned and it still failed. Like went down in flames, to a fiery crash and massive explosion. I wasn't the perfect model wife. I had my hangups and I was young, overly idealistic, and immature. I used my anger as a weapon of marriage destruction in my own way b/c I was mad at myself . I didn't get my happily ever after I was promised as a child. You work and work and work, and then the writing is on the wall... and that sucks, but painful endings ultimately lead to new beginnings.
The third point was, if someone loves you they will stay. Urm, newp... wronggo. I have never doubted at any point in my life that my first husband loved me, just as my husband now loves me, but love isn't and will never be enough. It sucks like hell when that realization smacks you in the back of the head like a wrecking ball of emotion. Love is a big part of it, but so is trust, empathy, honesty, patience, forgiveness, WISDOM, intimacy, and maturity.... being a whole person. What is it my therapist said once... something along the lines of it takes two whole people to make a marriage work? Sounds about right. You have to enact and have all of those to get through the hard times.
Telling our children especially our daughters or giving them the expectation that one day you will find your soul mate and live happily ever after is setting them up for failure. I believe it is why people ultimately begin to lack patience and look outside of their marriages for happiness to make them whole. Your strength and wholeness isn't found in other people, it is found in you and until that is realized one may have a difficult time in relationships. I've told my children so many times, marriage is hard, but it shouldn't be hard all the time. Marriage can be painful and gut wrenching, but it shouldn't be like that all the time. Marriage takes work and honesty on both sides at all times coupled with healthy boundaries. There will be times when you go through the motions, that's normal.... waves come in, then they go out.
I've noticed more so now than ever people looking outside their marriage to fill that hole of the easy happily ever after, it all seems that way in the beginning. Instead of sharing whats missing and whats needed for a happy marriage people are giving up and going for the easy, swinging from tree to tree, and devastating the one they loved and made a vow to. It's the worst thing one can do in their marriage. If you aren't prepared for hard times, or sometimes not liking the person you married, going through the motions, knowing it won't always be perfection, marriage may not be your bag baby. If you are ready for the journey and know what its going to take, then make the leap.
You have to be tolerant and you have to be accepting. People have expectations of who they want their partner to be rather than allowing them to be themselves. To accept them for who they are is to love them for who they are. You can’t have conditions under which you will love your partner. Don't lose your intimacy, emotional and physical. Its a marriage killer, and its rare that a utilitarian marriage makes it through the long haul. Let's however, not kid ourselves or our children in the lie that the fairy tale is real.
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