Growing up you often hear stories ending with “...and they lived happily ever after”. Typically when you hear that type of ending, its’ associated with fairy tales.
Anytime my mind hears it, I know that what happened is make believe and not based on real life events. Those words operate like the flashing yellow warning lights alerting me to what’s ahead.
Whenever a story begins with “Once upon a time..” or ends with “they lived happily ever after”, I know it’s a fairy story. Even though I know that, apparently there are many people that don’t.
There’s even relationships expert that promotes their material with the byline of “You deserve a happy marriage” or some derivative of that such as “Get the respect you deserve” or “you deserve to be abundantly happy“.
It may be a slogan you want to hear, yet experience with fairy stories should warn you about happily ever after endings.
I’ve even seen article from a ‘Christian’ perspective saying “You deserve a happy marriage” followed by a series of reasons for it.
Let me share with you some hard truths that many couples ignore.
Even though the happily ever after’ wording is giving you a warning of danger ahead, you may be one of those who fell for the fairy tale stories. Part of you believed the story and now feels disappointed that your marriage is not one of those happily ever after endings.
They give you the warning for a reason. Those warnings alert you to dangers ahead. In this case, the danger is one of unrealistic expectations.
When you feel you ‘deserve happiness’, it puts you on an emotional roller coaster. This is the same line of thinking that led to the affair in the first place. Putting yourself and your marriage back into that kind of thinking after the affair is inviting trouble.
The cheater believed they deserved happiness and what did it do for your marriage? If you fall for the same thinking that YOU deserve a happy marriage, will things end any better?
I know these are hard questions to consider, but you’ve outgrown fairy tales. If you want your marriage to work, it requires you put away childish things, such as the fairy tales and fairy tale expectations.
Marriage is for adults. Going into it with childish thinking like ‘you deserve a happy marriage’ is unrealistic. It creates expectations that are unworkable for you and your spouse.
In my video dealing with communication in marriage, “Let’s Talk: Hurting People and Healing Questions” I talk about the danger of unrealistic expectations. Real life problems need real life answers.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
3 Responses
I hate the word “deserveâ€. Heard that word over and over for years. My response was always NO, you must work for….. no one deserves anything. Obviously the person who thought she deserved something, decided to pursue happiness. This left a trail of destruction that never quite resulted in happy. In fact the pursuit was a never ending failure that drove them to more extremes. Interesting is the males who prey on these individuals know how to constantly feed the “you deserve†as a method to get what they want. Deserve in my opinion is a flag for lack of character and a sign of weakness.
Anonymous,
Thank you for writing. I like the way you think. I agree that ‘deserve’ is a word that creates more problems than it solves. It troubles me that there are so many experts using the idea of ‘deserve’ and chasing happiness. It has left and continues leaving a trail of destruction.
Those peddling ‘you deserve’ approaches appeal to those wanting easy answers or self-centered solutions to their problems. They don’t realize that selfishness created the problem. Using the same thinking is not a good solution.
Jeff
Anonymous,
You are correct about the deserve ploy. This is one reason seducers and marketers exploit it to their benefit.