When was love not enough? I feel like we grow up getting taught that real love will conquer all, all you need is to find true love and everything will be sorted. If something was a problem in your last relationship it was because you didn’t truly love them, because isn’t true love loving the other person exactly as they are.
The idea of true love and finding the one, once upon a time really did seem just to be a fairy tale, it wasn’t real. Then I met my husband. He was perfect, we fit just like a jigsaw puzzle together. It was true love, such deep deep love, and what once seemed like a fairy tale, all of a sudden seemed like a possible reality and a possible future. The husband, the children, the dogs, the house, the family, the in-laws, it all seemed like it was actually something I could have. I never wanted to get married and I never wanted kids because it just seemed so unrealistic and something that a realist like myself would never settle down to do. But then I did it. I bought the house and we moved in together. We bought the dog and we raised him together. We had the baby and worked out how to be parents together. Then we got married and life seemed set and ready, the fairy tale was real, finally…
That’s the thing about fairy tales though, they always end with ‘and they lived happily ever after…’ There’s no extrapolation on that. It’s a simple 6 word sentence that sums everything up with the idea that once you’ve done those things, once you’ve gotten to a point, it all just works. You love each other forever, and you want to be together forever and true love lasts and trumps all. Then you look at reality. You look at divorce rates these days in Western society, and it’s clear either a whole lot of people are marrying someone who is not their true love, or true love doesn’t always last. So why do we get taught this stuff as kids? Why are life lessons based on fairy tales that aren’t real? Where are the fairy tales that teach us how to realise someone isn’t good for us, or realise when we aren’t good for ourselves? Where are the fairy tales telling us how to go through separations and divorces?
Sometimes people f**k up, sometimes people fall for the wrong person, sometimes external factors separate couples, and sometimes you look at your relationship and you realise you are so far from where you started. The love you once had for one another, loving the other just for being themselves is no longer as easy as it once was. Somehow you’ve slowly changed each other and you both aren’t perhaps completely yourselves anymore. Sometimes you feel unheard or alone when you’re right next to your partner. Sometimes you feel taken for granted, and sometimes you just look at your partner and even though you want to want them, the connection isn’t there anymore and you’re not really sure when it disappeared. The love is still there, the friendship is still there, and the want to be in each others lives is still there but no matter how you try it just doesn’t work. Every time you get shot down and you get back up to try harder and harder, it’s like you lose a little bit of your soul, a little bit of you each time, and you start to wonder when enough is enough. But that’s the thing! We’ve been taught that you don’t give up on true love, because true love will always prevail, true love will always find a way.
That’s just it isn’t it though, we’ve been taught how to live reality through fairy tales that aren’t real. So when do we decide? When do you look at yourself and say enough is enough? You’ve given all your energy, all your heart, all your soul, even all of you brain to try and a make it work, make it better, make that love pure and real again. When do you finally say I can’t? When do you finally become the one to let go and give up?
Chicks, Dicks and Pricks 