R is for Reality Check

As we become adults, we learn to let go of those things that we keep in childhood idealism. Our parents try to warn us of many of these, but one thing that is never spoken of until experienced is fantasy love.

"Happily ever after". It's at the end of every Disney movie and every fairy tale with a happy ending. The prince and princess fall madly in love, share a romantic (and chaste) kiss, then ride off into the sunset.

What happens the next day?

In our world today, we are inundated with stories and movies having a continuing story. Yet, even in these sequels hardly do we ever see that true love does not beat all odds, that the hero saves the day, that the villains get their comeuppance.

Surrounded by these ideals, I grew up as any big-eyed dreamer. I saw myself being saved by a "white knight", being swept off of my feet, and living happily ever after. I knew the Little Mermaid songs by heart, saw myself twirling on a hillside like Belle, and always knew I would be forever happy once I found that someone special.

...Can you feel the 'but' coming on?...

I had a wonderful, romantic relationship. I was blissfully happy. Blindly happy. Stupidly, naively happy. And it all ended a week after our one year anniversary.

I will not state so publicly what caused the destruction of my dreams--it is not particularly important at this time. What is relevant is that I received the harshest reality check of my entire life. I admit I became a bit bitter, a tad angry, and slightly resentful toward my spouse. I left him a couple of times to try to settle my head and my heart, and when I became pregnant things only complicated tenfold. If not for my daughter, I probably would not be with him today. I would have given up long ago.

How many times can your heart break before it shatters completely?

How many ways can you be run through by deceit and lies?

Please believe me when I say unequivocally that I still love my husband--yet I have learned that witless love does not exist in the real world. Love comes with heartache, suffering, bruising, and healing. Healing is the part which takes the longest and is the hardest to do. A scab begins to form and then it is ripped off to become twice as sore as the original. I am trying to heal, to forgive--but I find it hard to do so when every time I try, he repeats that which broke my heart the first time nearly five years ago.

I love him, yet without trust, is it enough?