What Fairy Tale Relationships Are Really Made Of
Ideal relationships start out with a bang and move quickly, or so we are often led to believe.
The Old Fashioned Fairy Tale
We’ve all heard stories (and watched countless movies) about love at first sight. The story usually goes something like this: the couple met, locked eyes, knew immediately that this was the one, got engaged in a short amount of time, got married, and has been happily married for 20 years. It seems to be THE coveted romantic situation in our society.
So many of us grow up looking for “the one.” We are convinced that there is one person just for us, out of over 7 billion people, and that we will meet them unexpectedly, fall in love immediately, and live happily ever after.
My ex-husband and I met when we were young. I saw him first and just knew. After dating for a few years, we got married.
Our marriage had its ups and downs, as most do. We rode the waves until things eventually went downhill, leading to our eventual divorce after 13 years. It wasn’t a romantic fairy tale after all.
We are amicable now and can openly admit that perhaps we were never ready, and just got married because we thought that’s what we were supposed to do after a few years.
