Happily Ever After-Fact or Fiction?

The strikingly handsome young prince sailed into the village filled with an abundance of young, old, and middle aged peasants. On his pristine horseback, he moved slowly as he began to navigate his way through the foreign culture. Everything was different from this side of the oceanic sea, that is, until he caught site of a uniquely, stunning young woman. Her eyes were filled with a sincere amount of purity, her statuesque figure was graceful and refined, and after he was granted the opportunity to meet her, her personality was refreshingly charming and filled with a warm nurturing spirit.

They spent several weeks under the stars together learning and growing in love. He taught her the ways of his world filled with style and grace, all the while she taught him the ways of her world filled with lending a hand to those in need and deep humility. Soon, they were married, had an extravagant wedding and lived happily ever after.

In just about every animated and written fairytale, the characters always live happily ever after. Even if you examine an abundance of films, especially romantic comedies made for adults, the characters here also tend to magically live happily ever after. It seems that not only has almost every aspect of creative artistry adopted this notion of happily ever after, but so have we, the people of a civilized society. In our romantic relationships we have somehow accepted that we will one day find our true love, our soul mate and live happily ever after, you know, like in the fairytales.

Now the only problem is, is that in the fairytales we never are actually shown what all happily ever after entails. It is left up to our imagination, as we witness Prince Charming and the newly crowned princess ride lovingly into the effervescent sunset free from all of the stresses and worries that life will bring them. And, yet somehow we hope, imagine, and even expect our life to mimic this fabricated fantasy.

As women, we hope to find our dashing prince, who will sweep us off our feet, treat us like the princess that we know we are, and if we’re lucky have an endless cash flow so that all of our financial burdens might be a distant memory. As men, we hope to find our amazingly attractive princess who will cater to our every need, support whole-heartedly all of our endeavors without the slightest bit of resistance, and most importantly respect and serve us like the kings that we are. By the way, did I mention she’s got to be attractive, good-looking, gorgeous, or at the very least—pretty? Okay, just checking. Now, one cannot forget the most significant quality in our picturesque, happily ever after relationships, which is your partner and your life together, will be—perfect. Okay, so not all the time, just most of the time, like more than 50% of the time.

Now, this is where the real problems begin. We have, often times unknowingly projected some unrealistic fantasy onto our loved one, or future loved one, and expect this to be what a normal, healthy relationship will look like. However, this is extremely problematic. How can anyone live up to such a bizarre and illogical dream? How can anyone expect to compare to beautifully creative words written in a romantic love story? Now, this goes for women and men, but is especially true for women.

So, what do you think? Do you believe in the notion of happily ever after? Is it possible for a person or a couple to really live happily ever after?

I’m sure a lot of people out there would easily say no, of course not. Nevertheless, I without a doubt, completely free of hesitation think that it is entirely possible for a couple or an individual to live happily ever after. Utilizing my rational optimistic ability, I’m confident that this is most certainly plausible. As for the skeptics, I’m sure they have one question, how?

It is possible to live happily ever after. Now this does not mean that everything is going to be “happy” all the time and they’re probably will be moments, in which we are not happy most of the time. But, this doesn’t mean that we are not living happily ever after. In order to live happily ever after, you have to work at it, just like anything else. The mark of being able to live happily ever after is to be able to experience the extreme highs and the extreme lows of life and still come out of each situation as a unit, an even stronger unit than before. Being able to sustain the emotional rollercoaster of life, the deep traumatic pitfalls of various situations and for your relationship to not become severely broken as a result—that’s what it means to live happily ever after.

That being said, in the traditional sense of everything being perfect, well that’s most certainly no possible. I’m sure most will agree that the notion of something being perfect is both impractical and unfeasible. So, to live happily ever after does not include something to be perfect, since theoretically, nothing is perfect. However, it does mean that with the right amount of consistent effort, a steady amount of diligence between two people maintaining open, honest communication, while continuously learning and growing together, living happily ever after can exist.

Positive, healthy, happy, and fulfilling relationships can be a reality. These relationships with continuous work can manifest itself into the concept of living happily ever after. As Margaret Bonnano puts it, “it is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.” That being said, we should attempt to strive to live happily ever after and make that a reality as we move forward in our romantic relationships.

- Written, dedicated, and perhaps challenged, but eventually accepted by and for the Thompson Director! :-) (Lol!)
- Wow! Who knew? There’s an ideal song to coincide with this article, it is my hope that you may find it enjoyable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IZOcEEqTC8 (The Song: Happily Ever After (why, of course)! The Artist: Case)