“Your happily ever after” is not just in the fairy tales but it happens in real life too. But you need to work for it, here’s how to live happily ever after with the person of your dreams!
You are starting to despair that you will ever get your happily ever after with the man of your dreams? Have you been looking everywhere for your prince but has every person let you down, over and over?
Are you ready to give up? Let me tell you that it is possible to get your happily ever after by doing just one thing!
And what is that thing?
That thing is recognizing, and accepting, that your happily ever after is never going to be like what you see in movies or one TV.
Does that mean that you need to settle? That you won’t ever get the romance that you long for? That you must accept whatever comes along or to make do with what is in front of you?
NO!
What it means is that, if you can add a little dose of reality into your dream of finding your prince, and the life that you will live with him, you will be way more likely to be able to find, and keep, the love you seek!
Related: How To Keep Your Marriage Happy: 5 Things To Do And 5 Things Not To Do
So, how do you do that? What must you do to find your happily ever with the man of your dreams? Let me share!
How To Get Your Happily Ever After?
1. Don’t expect perfection.
Think about every rom-com that you have ever seen. Think Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Ryan Reynolds.
The characters that they play are literally the most perfect guys in the world. They are handsome, smart and emotionally intelligent. They know how to say the right things and be there when we need them. They have just the right amount of money, have a cool job, have a perfect family and maybe even an adorable kid.
They, and they alone, can give the protagonist the happily ever after they have always wanted.
But they, I am afraid, are characters created by writers – the ideal of what every woman wants.
I am afraid that the rom-coms on which we have based everything we believe a relationship should be are exactly the things that hold us back from finding a good one.
Why? Because nobody is perfect.
Sure, many guys are as handsome as any movie star but they might be also guys who say the wrong things, or who don’t have a very high EQ. They might be guys who are struggling with their jobs or who have a fraught relationship with their families.
But they also might be guys who are working hard to get ahead at work, who volunteer at food shelters, who know that they don’t always say the right thing but are working on it. And those imperfect guys are exactly the guys you want!
So, if the guy you love isn’t perfect, that is ok. It’s important that you love someone, warts and all. Don’t walk away because your person won’t meet you on the top of the Empire State Building with his adorable kid in tow!
2. Don’t ignore your differences.
Think Breakfast Club. Think Pretty Woman. Think Crazy Rich Asians. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. Think Dirty Dancing.
Think about almost any other rom-com that you ever seen.
What is the one underlying theme that they all have in common?
The idea that two people from entirely different walks of life can fall madly in love and build a life together.
And that, I am afraid, isn’t as easy as it sounds.
I can’t tell you how many of my clients come to me because they are struggling with their partner and a big part of that struggle is because they come from such different backgrounds.
For one of my clients, her boyfriend was raised in a super religious, off-the-grid kind of family. Nothing at all like her middle class, sub-division upbringing. She just doesn’t understand why he does the things he does and neither does he.
For another client, her boyfriend grew up in an orphan in the inner city. He had made it out and is very successful but he has a hard time being ok with the fancy trips her family takes every Christmas.
It can be very hard for people from different backgrounds, different levels of education, different political or religious beliefs, to build a life together. Each person is the way they are because of their background and if those things don’t necessarily jive, it can be hard work to meet somewhere where both are comfortable.
And this can be a huge issue. Especially once children come along.
Now, I am not saying that this can’t happen. Every day, people who are very different do make their relationship work. But they have to dig deep and be willing to work together to do so, to do things differently and to accept differences.
So, if you want to get your happily ever after, be aware that, sometimes, while getting the bad boy from the other side of the tracks might be very romantic, as time goes on you could find that that exact thing is what drives you apart.
Related: 5 Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me About Marriage
3. Don’t expect quick resolutions
Movies last about 2 hours, usually. And, over the course of that two hours, two people meet, fall in love, struggle with an issue and then resolve it and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, in real life it doesn’t work that way.
Couples have issues. Sometimes issues can be resolved really quickly but others take time. And, both people in the relationship need to be willing to do the work to resolve them.
Unfortunately, while this is easily done in the movies, not so much in real life.
Why? Because, unlike characters written for movies, many people just don’t have the skills that are important for working through issues.
And, even worse, sometimes people do have those skills but they don’t match up with their partners’ and, therefore, doing the work to resolve the issue can be impossible.
There is one particular thing that I hear my clients believe they need to do, something that I always see in movies and, when I do, I always yell at the screen.
It happens when a couple is having a disagreement and one person makes a statement, something somewhat profound, and then they turn and walk away, leaving their person unable to say anything, left to consider what their partner has just said.
This makes me crazy!
For couples to work through issues, they must talk about them. No storming away, hoping that your person will follow you (like you see in the movies). No issuing ultimatums, hoping that your person will just love you enough to change (like you see in the movies).
Resolutions are messy. They are fraught with emotions. They are sometimes unattainable.
If you can accept that any issues that arise might not resolve quickly, that you are two different people with two different perspectives and that you might want different things, that things don’t resolve easily like they do in the movies, then you just might get your happily ever because you won’t be let down every time an issue doesn’t get resolved right away.
4. Don’t expect world rocking sex.
When I was growing up (yes, back in the dark ages) our access to sex was limited.
Sure, we could steal our father’s Playboy and maybe stumble upon some porn on cable TV but, more often than not, sex in movies and on TV was hard to find.
Things are different now. Sex is everywhere. Men grow up watching porn regularly. Detailed sex scenes in movies are the norm. Advertisements show perfect bodies and don’t even get me started on social media!
But, I need to tell you that the sex you see in movies isn’t real sex. It’s not even close.
I remember watching The Affair. The two people who were having the affair had the most amazing sex. I used to watch it and wish that my sex was like theirs. And, when I had sex with my boyfriend, I was almost always disappointed.
So, if you want to get your happily ever after, know that sex is messy. That different people like different things. That couples don’t always orgasm together. That people have hair in places you don’t expect it.
And that is ok.
5. Don’t assume that love conquers all.
This is the one that breaks my heart the most – having to break it to my clients that love doesn’t conquer all.
Why, oh why, can’t they just be together? They love each other very much but the relationship just isn’t working. Won’t their love ultimately prevail?
Sadly, usually, no.
Again, people are only human. They bring their own peccadillos into every relationship. They have different levels of emotional IQs. They have jobs that are stressful and difficult family relationships.
And, no matter how hard a couple tries to make it, sometimes there are things that just can’t be overcome.
One of my clients has just broken up with her boyfriend of 6 years. She tried so hard to make it work but they were just too different. She was silly and spontaneous, he was more serious and sedentary.
She tried to twist herself into a pretzel to make things work but it just didn’t.
She broke up with him, primarily because their personalities just didn’t match.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love him but that love wasn’t enough to make her happy or keep the relationship afloat.
Again, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the love is enough to find success working through the issues. The love opens people up to doing the work that they need to do to find their way back to each other.
But it doesn’t always. And accepting that, accepting that sometimes things just don’t work and that you must move on, is the best way to find the love that you are seeking.
Related: The Grey, Gritty Details of Long Term Marriage: Is “living happily ever after” really a thing?
So, there you go, the things that you must recognize and accept if you want to get your happily ever after.
I know that none of this seems romantic and that that makes you sad. But the reality is is that true love, true romance, can be achieved if everyone recognizes that life is not like the rom-coms.
By accepting that people aren’t perfect, that the sex might just be messy, that things don’t resolve quickly and that love doesn’t always conquer all, you give yourself the space to find real love, a love that can last a life time.
And, while this might be different than the stuff you see in movies, it really is the key to getting the happily ever after you have always wanted!
So now that you know the 5 secrets, reach out and find your happily ever after NOW!
Written by: Mitzi Bockmann
Originally appeared on: Let Your Dreams Begin
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