Failed relationships are the result of unfulfilled expectation.  Paths cross, each bearing their own needs and wants; each expecting those needs and wants to be fulfilled by the other.  Unfulfilled expectations create disappointment.  Disappointment, as in all things in life, is a choice.  Happiness is a choice gained in losing one's expectations.

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Life is to be lived to the fullest.  Expect nothing - from yourself, others and life.  Just...be.  This does not mean do nothing, create nothing.  It simply means live life fully with spiritual abandon.

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As with any child, I grew up watching childhood fairytale movies about princes and princesses who meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after.  I thought that when I met Mr. Right I would be swept off my feet and cherished ever after.  Boy was I wrong.  I guess my "thought" erred on the side of misconception, assumption, and fantasy.

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What I would like to know is this:  Where did all those childhood fairytales about princes and princesses come from anyway?  And why did I end up thinking that "living happily ever after" comes at no cost and is a "given" when I meet Mr. Right?  In my humble opinion, fairytales give a lot of girls a false sense of reality, and a complex: the "Fairytale Syndrome".

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We grow up dreaming about getting married.  We may not necessarily think about the man we marry...but the dress, location, cake, and stuff sure end up taking up the majority of our dreamtime.  Somewhere in the mix we take on a belief that marriage is a piece of cake.  No, it's more than that; it's the icing on the cake.  And it can be...but not without paying the price.

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The Fairytale Syndrome is borne out of unrealistic expectations.  We expect Mr. Right and our relationship with him to be smooth sailing, filled with roses and romance, kindness and generosity, consideration and thoughtfulness, and so on.  I thought that "Mr. Right" was someone who would cherish me as much as I him, and that my life would be filled with the bliss of our love and adoration for one another.  Sappy and sweet, I know.  But it's true.  I expected us to meet, fall in love, have good jobs, buy a house with a white picket fence, and then have babies.  I expected those things because they are the expectations of our society, in general.  While it may happen this way for some people, it is unrealistic to expect it for everyone.  So many expectations, so little reality: aaahhhh...the downfall of the institution of marriage.

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As it turns out, while I was making my plans for love, life, and my love life, God had other plans.  Imagine my disappointment when my fairytale met reality, and I was left sitting there wondering why Mr. Right feels like Mr. Wrong.

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I think it's safe to say that fairytales are what dreams are made of.  The image one gets from the word "fairytale" indicates something good.  While our "fairytale" idealism is indicative of the good side of Mr. Right, we've got to remember that we live ina. world of contrast and duality, which means with the "good" comes the "bad".  Ah.  Reality check: Mr. Right has a dark side.  I don't remember anything about this, however, in those fairytale movies I watched as a child, so I had no foundation on which to wrap my mind around what this might look like in my Prince Charming.  Sure, I've seen mean men and even have been the recipient of their meanness, but I never thought "Mr. Right" would be anything other than something good.

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In all fairness, I think it would be safe to say, then, that reality is the stuff that makes us run from Mr. Right rather than stand by his side through thick and thin.  I think it's also safe to say that, for the sake of my viewpoint, that reality consists of one's "baggage", or to be more current, "issues".  The surprising thing about "baggage" is that not only does it come as a standard option in Mr. Right, it's a standard option in us princesses as well.

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The duality here is that we cannot have our fairytale without reality, or the good without the bad, or light without dark.  Fairytales provide the fuel (called hopes and dreams) we need to make it through reality (the mud and the muck of the baggage).  What comes out on the other side of this duality is exactly what we have created for ourselves.  The "good stuff" can look more like the fairytale or more like the reality and is completely dependent upon the choices we make as individuals.

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I personally think that people are too eager to rid themselves of a marriage or a partner who doesn't measure up to their expectations and wonder how many failed relationships are as a result of the Fairytale Syndrome expectations.

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I think that when we take an honest look at ourselves, through the eyes of our partner, we can see the reasons for our difficulties.  When we are able to do this, we can see how we each contribute to the conflicts.  And then we are better able to modify our learned behaviors to those that are more conducive to a harmonious relationship.

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There is no pain without conflict.  This is reflected in our bodies, in our lives and in our relationships.  If we are experiencing pain in any area of our lives, we must take a look at it from a perspective of "what is the conflict and how am I contributing?"

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For all practical purposes, without going into too much detail, Mr. Right and I were not interested in each other when we first met.  Mr. Right, especially, resisted while I persisted.  The only, and I mean the ONLY, reason I hung on was because of God (Mother Nature to be exact).  There was a time when I was questioning our relationship.  Mr. Right was resisting so heavily that I was about to, once again and once and for all, convince myself that he was not "the one".  That night, as I slept, Mother Nature came to me in a dream.  She was not a person.  I was shown nature as we know it with lots of green trees, plants and flowers.  But within these things I could sense and feel a presence as I heard a woman's voice say to me, "He is the one.  There is no one else after him."  After analyzing this dream to make sure it was not my subconscious mind somehow trying to tell me that I have a fear of being alone (because I don't), I trusted that voice.  We are still together today, having come a very long way, and I fully expect to create a harmonious relationship that will last "happily ever after".  [Update:  We are no longer together.  Our last moments together ended with a call to 911 that forever altered this expectation of "happily ever after".]

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Years later, when I consciously embarked on my work of emotional healing, I realized that Mr. Right reminded me of the two men who hurt me the most in my life as a child: my father who was an angry, abusive alcoholic, and an uncle who molested me for years.  The only reason I have as to why it took me so long to see this in him is because I was not ready to see it.  But, when I did, I panicked.  I did not know what to do with all of this information as he exhibited behaviors that triggered my learned behaviors as a result of surviving the negativity I endured in the company of these two men.  My only question I had for God was this: "How do I love this man who reminds me of the two men who hurt me the most?"  While the answer was rather simple, the process of loving him despite these similar characteristics was not.  The answer was, "He's not them."

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So, learning to love this man meant learning to love through the negativity, not only the negativity I carried, but also the negativity he carried as an emotional bully.

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Loving through negativity is not the easiest lesson to learn and it requires a tremendous amount of self-love.  The way to increased self-love, of course, is through emotional healing in which the very wounds that absorb the negativity around us are healed.  When these wounds are not healed, we are prone to unconsciously reacting to and taking on the negativity that we come into contact with.  When our wounds are healed, we are in a position to be more mindful as we come from a place of inner peace and calm.

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Self-love comes into play here because the more of it you have, the better you are able to stay balanced.  Self-love gives you the patience, the fortitude, and the tenacity to deal with the negativity in your highest form, a place of Light.  When learning to love through negativity in the game of life, one becomes a tolerant player.

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I'm reminded of a story that I one day channeled from Beyond:

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The Bullfighter

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There is a Master Mind of the universe in charge of the global experience.  Global existence is governed by the law of natural order.  The balance of this order becomes upset due to human emotions, much like a bullfighter.  The bullfighter has one objective: to provoke and conquer.  The bull has one objective: to attack and conquer.  They are in the same ring together, each with their own objectives, goals, instincts and methods.  They each have abilities unique to them to reach their goals.  The bullfighter has learned and uses techniques to entice and enrage the bull to ensure victory.  Defeat is not an option for the bullfighter.  He will hone his techniques and style to ensure victory.  Only occasionally will the bull surprise its opponent and enjoy victory.  In the meantime, the bull forges on, attacking in response to the fighter's commands, with victory eluding it time and time again.

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The beauty of bullfighting is that without the two opposing sides entering the same ring pairing up to rumble, they would not have anything to do.  Not all bulls fight.  Not all men are bullfighters.  Men and bulls pair up and then go the distance as they dance their dance to the end.  They have entered into an agreement of sorts to dance with each other until the end.

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Men and women pair up by means of a pre-incarnation agreement.  They agree to partner up to help one another explore their earthly, human boundaries.  These boundaries are primarily of emotional origin, secular by nature.  Opposites do attract, only in that they, as a whole, represent balance.  However, human differences can create toxic relationships.  They are toxic merely because of the inability of both partners to unite emotionally to accept and protect each other.

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What happens when the bull and the fighter are raging maniacs?  They put on one heck of a show.  What happens when one of them decides to change and do their emotional work?  They come to understand their role in the pairing and become more accepting of their partner making the relationship less toxic.  The partner will eventually see that the fighting bull is no longer a fighter and eventually loses interest in provoking the bull.  He, too, in time, will choose to either move on to another bull or succumb to his own emotional work and become more peaceful making the relationship even less toxic.

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The bullfighter and people like myself (those on the path of emotional healing) have a lot in common: without the rumble, we would have nothing to do.  In other words, my "arranged" marriage to Mr. Right was a set up within which I was to do my "work" (emotional healing).  And what better way to do my work than to be paired up with a man that offers me the opportunity, on a daily basis, to do this?  Because of this, I firmly believe that families are not for loving but are an endless opportunity for growth; because, now that we have four children, not only do I have one large tornado to challenge me in balance, I also have four little ones (they take after their dad).  Oh, joy!

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When pondering my relationship, I received this infused understanding that involves three stages of boundaries and flow of energy:

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1.  He is a circle.  I am a circle.  We meet and my circle ceases to exist as it becomes absorbed into his circle.  I am no longer an "I".  In becoming a "we", I have become a "he".

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Our "we" is not a "we" at all...it is a "he".

This phase comes from a place of tradition, conformity, obedience and control.  There is no resistance and comes from subconscious thought.  This is when we lose our identity.

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2.  Then, I pull my circle completely out and away from his.  I detach.  We are not a "we".  I am me, and he is he.  This is the process of leaving him emotionally.  I leave his circle to find myself by establishing my boundaries and defining who I am in the "we" of the relationship.

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There is a pulling away to form boundaries and identity.  There is much resistance.  This is a place of change as a result of more awareness.  It is a place where conscious choice begins to enter into subconscious choice.  

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3.  Lastly, I ever so slowly begin to merge my circle with his as we reunite in a new form wherein my circle is not completely engulfed into his, but rather overlaps his just enough so that I keep my identity in tact as I remain an "I" within the "we".

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There is full awareness in thought and action.  Power has been restored.  Healthy boundaries and identity are established.  This is the place where harmony is created.

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That, my dear, in a nutshell, is how I learned to live with an emotional bully.

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Love Him Anyway

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His level of awareness is not always up to yours.  He reacts and makes choices based on what he already knows, whether it be from his experiences or from childhood rearing, or from what he "thinks" he knows.  He hasn't made the connection that life is not always as it seems or appears.  He's not aware that he creates his world, and that the quality of his life is dependent upon the choices he makes.

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In your mind, you know the choices he should make: God, family, career.  But he's been burdened with the "I'm the provider" and he will provide at all cost, even at the cost of putting career before family.  Be patient with him, my dear.  He will learn to act by what he chooses.  He is never far from you.  It is in depth that you are seeking his companionship.  Depth takes time.  So, be gentle with yourself.  Let him make his choices.  Know he loves you.  Do not argue with him to try to get him to see the error of his ways.  Know he loves you, and love him anyway.

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Families are not for love.  They are our greatest opportunity for growth.

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Love through negativity.

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Harmony is energy flowing.  Negativity causes stagnation.

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Mr. Right does not always equal our "soulmate".