5 Counter-Intuitive Ways To Get Your 'Happily Ever After'
Follow these steps, even if they seem a little silly.
Vulp / Shutterstock Do you 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 accepting that it is never going to be like what you see in movies or on 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?
Absolutely not.
It means that if you can add a little dose of reality to your dream of finding your prince, you will be way more likely to be able to find and keep, the love you seek.
Here are five counter-intuitive ways to finally find 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.
Know what (and who) you're after
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 very high emotional intelligence. 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.
3. Don’t ignore your differences
Think of the 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 have ever seen.
What is the one underlying theme that they all have in common?
The idea is 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.
Look for common ground
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.
One of my clients had a boyfriend who 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 orphanage 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, and 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 are not compatible, 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.
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 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.
Take the time to talk it through
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 as they do in the movies, then you just might get your happily ever after 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 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. Different people like different things. Couples don’t always orgasm together. 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 eccentricities to every relationship. They have different levels of emotional intelligence. 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.
Take nothing for granted — ever
One of my clients had just broken up with her boyfriend of six 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. Love opens people up to do the work that they need to do to find their way back to each other.
But it doesn’t always. And 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.
Mitzi Bockmann is a certified life and relationship coach. She has over 10 years of experience in helping people find happiness in life and love.