Once Upon A Time...Happily Ever After

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She met a boy. They fell madly in love. That’s all they needed. They got married and their fairy tale came true, so they lived happily ever after!

That pretty much sums up every single princess/love story out there and it kind of makes me sad.

When I was little, my friends and my sisters would play with their dolls. Their dolls would get married, they had babies, and they would all be a happy little family. That’s not a bad thing, but when my sister and I would go to my friend’s house to play and we would pull out the doll house and the Barbie bin and all the clothes a sense of dread would fill me to the brim. I played with them, because that’s what they wanted to do and time spent with my two best friends was more important than the actual activity. But we would spend a minimum of an hour sitting, dressing and pretending the dolls were alive. If I remember correctly, the Ken dolls would almost always date Barbie and they’d fall in love. Sometimes they’d get married and have a happy family. For me, it seemed like a huge waste of time. Time that would be better spent playing in the dirt, jumping on my friend’s trampoline, building a HUGE house in the field with walls made out of rocks and sticks, or pretty much doing anything other than play with dolls or stuffed animals. Unless we were playing with the baby dolls. I did LOVE playing mommy.

The baby dolls were different and I couldn’t ever figure out why. I just knew I didn’t really enjoy playing with the other dolls because it all seemed, well, too pretend-y I guess. (Well - it’s a word now!)

Sadly, my parent’s marriage was not successful. Both my parents loved us and to this day, they are good friends and beyond civil towards each other (heck, they lived next door to one another for years after the divorce). But in my younger years, I was always a little more attentive to real life situations than most kids my age, and it was evident that my Dad didn’t quite step up where he should. Being aware of this, I think, helped shape my future and my ideals of dating and marriage.

I remember helping my mom with dishes when I was very young, standing on a chair next to the sink, and thinking, I can’t wait to get married and do the dishes with my husband. I’d day dream of my future mate standing next to me at the sink, washing dishes, but of us getting raisin fingers together. Sometimes playfully splashing each other, but mostly just cleaning with one another. Other occasions I’d see my mom going through tough times, or a financial struggle or whatever, and she’d be sitting at the table or on the couch, looking at bills or crying because she felt alone (I don’t know if she ever realized I saw her) and trying to figure out the situation, most of the time alone. And I would think, I can’t wait until I’m married and I can have problems to solve with my husband, and together. I’d envision me and my future husband sitting at the table holding hand talking about a problem and knowing that it would be OK because we were working it out together. I know I’m strange, but I couldn’t wait to have issues to work through! Couldn’t wait to work hard side by side with my best friend.

When my sister and I entered high school (we are only 19 months apart) she dated, had lots of guy friends, and if I remember right a few “boyfriends” as well. All my friends had boyfriends or girlfriends, and “serious” relationships off and on throughout high school. I went on lots of dates but never really had a “boyfriend” not because there wasn’t a guy who I didn’t have interest in, but because the idea never appealed to me. I knew that I was still very young. I knew the feelings I felt were very real, but also my experiences would change who I was in the coming years. I knew that even if I got married young, and found my “soul mate” the time between then and now would be a minimum of four years, and a lot happens in that time. I knew that any serious relationship I started would end one of two ways; either we would break up and one or both of us would be seriously hurt, or we would be together FOREVER. And forever was something I wasn’t anywhere near ready to start thinking about. So rather than take a chance on someone I knew little to nothing real about, I just dated a lot. Had a lot of fun and learned what different people were like. I tested the waters and made a mental list of attributes that I had to have, and would not stand for.

After I got back from serving a Latter Day Saint (LDS or Mormon) mission, I fell into the same pattern. Having a serious relationship interested me more at this point, but at the same time, until I dated a lot (I mean a LOT) I didn’t want to risk an unnecessary heart ache that could be avoided by just having fun and making friends. I figured, I’d go on dates, lots of them, and yes I’d date the same guys over and over again and once I got to the point that I felt we’d be compatible possibly eternally, then we could become an official “couple”.

There was one guy I dated a LOT and hung out with quite a bit and thought I might be interested in taking that step, but when the time came to actually decide on it, I chose otherwise. Something in me held back and I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. So instead I continued dating him off and on, but pursued other possibilities.

Then I saw this nerdy kid. He was roommates with one of my dearest friends. We were all hanging out at another friend’s house to watch a movie. I won’t say what movie it was, as I thought it was one of the most ridiculous wastes of time I’d ever experienced. But I looked over at this total nerd. Knew he didn’t really know me, so I got his cell number from my friend and started texting this nerdy kid out of sheer boredom, hoping to freak him out from not knowing who the crap was sending him these random text messages. Instead of freaking him out, however, it turned into flirting and he asked me out on a date. We went on a few dates and he invited me to his work picnic and introduced me as his girlfriend. I was livid! I wanted to punch him and say “What the CRAP! We are NOT together like that.” But when I turned to look at him, he just smiled at me and held my hand. For the first time in my life I finally felt that this geek was worth risking a broken heart for. 

I took that chance, and no one got a broken heart. It worked out. We’ve been married for nearly eight years, and have four beautiful children.

Here’s the kicker though, we are complete opposites. We don’t have much in common at all! I’m an extravert, he’s an introvert. I’m all theater and parties and friends, he’d be happier sitting at home all day playing his computer. (When I said our mutual friend dragged him, I’m very nearly serious about it – but he did make him come, a choice which my now husband would not have made that night on his own.) We have almost exactly the same taste in décor, baby names, books and movies but other than that, we couldn’t be more different. 

Naturally, we have had a plethora of issues and we’ve worked them all out. We’ve never really fought and our most heated arguments have not been more than emotional for both of us. We work on our problems together and there are many of them. We both make compromises and our marriage is a lot of hard work. And I love my husband more every day because we work together, even if it’s not very well all the time. We are happy and very much in love.

After we had been married for a little while, I was expecting a baby at the time, my mother met a man. They fell madly in love. That’s all they needed. They got married and their fairy tale came true, so they lived happily ever after! Instead of being happy for them, I was pissed! We’d go over to visit and they’d be absolutely glowing! They were always happy, they had positively everything they wanted and needed and my mom couldn’t stop talking about how happy she was all the time. Every freaking second. My animosity for their happiness was disgusting at best.

One night, my husband and I were sitting at home, I had a small baby, I was very emotional from my hormones, I didn’t know how to deal with all of these issues that we were dealing with and all I could think of was my mom and her perfect marriage! She had her happy ever after and I had been lied to! There was such a thing as endless bliss in marriage and here I was stuck with this lump of momentary infatuation I had mistaken for “the real thing” and I blew up. I got mad at my husband, I packed a bag and I put my baby son in his car seat. My husband looked at me with tears in his eyes as I walked out the door and went to my car. I put our baby on the ground so I could open the door and my beautiful husband stood there looking at me. 

“We made promises, and I can’t stop you. But if you really want to just walk out on this and throw it away instead of working at it, what am I supposed to do?” I’ve replayed this over and over in my head. And I’m still haunted by it. But I looked back at him and I honestly didn’t know if I loved him. Had I ever really loved him? It really didn’t matter, because he was right. We had made promises, eternal ones. And I owed it to myself and my Heavenly Father to work it out with this man as long as he was willing to work it out with me. This was the lowest point of our marriage, and the blame all goes to me. I was the one who wanted to quit. I was the one who felt I had been cheated and I was the one who allowed myself to let the fictional stories and envy I had for others cloud my love for my husband. I had allowed other things and other people come between me and the man I married. And for however small a moment that was, I can never ever fully repay him that weakness. But I will try desperately for the rest of eternity, because as it turns out, I love him more every single day.

Shortly after this, my mother divorced her perfect husband. An unwelcome relief spilled over me and I talked to her about it. I told her how I had felt betrayed by her, and how I had felt lied to for all my childhood and how marriage was work. She then admitted that they had had problems, big ones that shouldn’t have been ignored when they were dating, and couldn’t be ignored any longer. They weren’t happy at all and the love she thought she felt had merely attention from a man that had been filling whole she had needed to be filled. But none of it was real, true love. She then told me how jealous she had been of my relationship with my husband.

At that moment, I felt more validated than I ever really knew I needed. I didn’t have a fairy tale ending and I didn’t have a perfect life, but I had a perfect marriage. What made it perfect was that despite all our differences, all our problems and all of our individual imperfections, we wanted the same eternal goals and we were willing to fight side by side for them. Working together. That’s what makes a marriage perfect. That’s what I have! There are still brief moments when my husband and I don’t get along perfectly, but that’s just because we aren’t perfect. Our love has changed and grown and been molded into something I never would have recognized as love when we first started dating.

Don’t give up on your marriage, EVER! As long as your partner is willing to work it out, then work together. That’s what happened with my parents. My dad didn’t want to work at it. I love him, I always will. So if your spouse is willing to work it out, really think to yourself - You made promises, and they can’t stop you. But if you really want to just walk out on what you’ve built together and throw it away instead of working at it, what are they supposed to do? At that point it’s all going to be on you. You will be the one that gave up. Don’t give up! If it’s not a fight, and if it isn’t work, then you’re lying to yourself.

A perfect marriage is two imperfect people working together. Fight for your happily ever after!