Marriage, Fairy Tales, and Elephants

What is love and marriage all about?  Based on statistics, our society ranks pretty high in the clueless department.  Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce.  When we look around at the other fifty percent, how many of us say, “Yah, they have what I’m looking for?”  So, what is the purpose of love relationships?  Are we responsible for one another’s happiness?  Does love mean putting our partner’s feelings before our own?  What is a soul mate? 

Our earliest memories of romantic love are from childhood fairy tales.  Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White are all rescued by a handsome prince and live happily ever after. Cultural programming leads us to believe we need to find that one perfect person to be happy, so we can live happily ever after.  We are surrounded by nearly every form of media available telling us what love should look like.  Unfortunately, the Hollywood version of a soul mate has far more to do with fantasy than any real resemblance of true love.  Romantic love is a myth.  The characters on the screen often know little of one another, fall madly in love and magically overcome all obstacles in their path by the power of their love.  Many couples are walking down the aisle with unrealistic and impossible expectations.

 
We have visions of another person completing us and making us feel whole.  Romantic illusion gives us such a high because we feel loved by this person that seems perfect and thinks we are too.  It’s exhilarating.  When the high wears off we are left disillusioned with the real “imperfect” person. In love relationships it can be difficult to face or even acknowledge our feelings to ourselves, especially if we are holding onto the romantic illusion as if our very life depends upon it.  Many couples will attempt to ignore this reality until there is a huge elephant in the room, with no way around it.  In an attempt to subdue and avoid our own inner conflicts, we set out to persuade one another to change.  This rarely produces the results we are looking for, starting with gentle persuasion and escalating to power struggles.  Meanwhile the elephant has become so enormous that is all we can see.           

 
Recognizing the myth of romantic love in our culture is the opening up and opportunity for real growth within us.  Our ability to truly love comes from developing a deeper connection to ourselves.  There are no “Princes” or “Princesses” that can rescue us.  We must rescue ourselves by developing a relationship with our true self.  No one else can make us complete.  It comes from doing our own inner work to discover and love who we truly are.  That means paying attention to our thoughts and emotions to uncover what our personal values are, accepting our limitations as well as our strengths.  We can only love another to the extent that we love ourselves.  We cannot share with another that which we cannot find within us – it cannot be found outside of us.

 
Marriage and love relationships offer us our greatest opportunities for personal growth and to develop healthy interdependence with another person.  Instead of perceiving issues as conflicts or problems to be solved, we gain far more by asking ourselves, “What can I learn about myself from this situation?”  It gives us the opportunity to look at our defense system and limiting beliefs.  Instead of focusing on what your partner said, pay attention to how you are feeling in response to it.  When we are grounded in who we are, it provides us the ability to respond to one another instead of reacting to the situation.  We stop expecting the other person to make us happy.  There is tremendous freedom for both people when they stop pretending in order to please the other person.  If we realize it isn’t our job to make each other happy, we also realize we are not responsible for one another’s unhappiness.  Our emotions belong to us and no one else has the power to “make” us feel anything.

The more we know ourselves, the more capable we are to have a relationship far deeper and satisfying than any illusion of romantic love.  Authentic love provides us the acceptance and deep connection we long for with another.  We discover new ways of looking at our relationship concerns. It is always evolving and changing so we maintain a freshness, void of boredom. It is more mysterious and passionate than the illusion of love, filled with a sense of wonder and the unexpected (in a good way).  Authentic love never expects the one to give up who they are for the other.  Instead of feeling captured by our relationship we feel liberated because we are supporting and encouraging one another to be more fully who we are.  We can be a union of two whole individuals as we go through life.

I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options.  That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.

                                                                                                       Candice Bergen