They say fairytales are not real, but why am I constantly hoping for my charming prince?

For the prince on the white horse - the handsome hero who comes to fulfill the fairytale’s happy ending.

I always dreamed about a happy long-lasting relationship, with the person who I would spend my life with, the person I would care for, love, and support in bad times and good ones. The person with whom I can be most intimate, authentic, and vulnerable. The person with whom I will share my genetic material and raise a mixed mini version of ourselves. But what if this type of fairytale became an endangered species?

Maybe social media mixed with unrealistic Disney movies set a bar too high for an average male. Maybe I am living a distorted reality?

It’s strange how some male thinks about their spouse, and some don’t at all.

For some, the word “we” doesn’t exist.

For some, it's the center of their world.

They say they will die for you and yet never include you in their present or future plans.

They tell you what you want to hear at that moment but never try to fix things in the long run.

Men say their main goal is to make you happy, but then they act weird and let you down.

Some men say they want to make their partner happy and they do make them happy.

Some men say they want to make their partner happy but have no capacity for it.

And some men because that big love they feel towards their partner hurts them - some intentionally some unintentionally.

They say “People change.”

But at the same time, people don’t change.

When you look overall picture - it’s the same human being as it was before.

Yes, you can argue, that people can change - incrementally.

Physical and mental changes are not sustainable.

It has to be an identity change to be a REAL change.

How many people do you know who worked on themselves so much that they changed their identities at the root of their being? I will give you the answer: not many.

Just look at your ex-s. How many of them changed after 5-10 years?

None.

Maybe they are physically different.

They have grown up and embraced the new habits and duties that came with age, but they didn’t change in their core.

You can’t make a prince from the frog just by kissing it.

If he doesn’t see himself as a prince he will never become one, even if you give him the throne, crown, and power.

(The mindset is a miracle.)

So the change you are hoping to see in your partner…- sorry to break your (and my) hurt - probably won’t happen.

Just learn to want what you have or die unhappy.

Or…

Be brave enough to move on in hopefully search for a more fulfilling relationship and, therefore life.

Adjust expectations, face reality, or move on.

The perspective is the beginning and ending of all human suffering.

Sometimes I wish I had been born in a Muslim country.

Being denied the freedom to choose your life partner is one of those unfathomable scenarios for Western civilization. Yet, there is a hidden desire for its reality, as it could potentially relieve you from so much pain.

Trusting my mother, grandmother, and aunts to select my life partner would be unimaginable, on one hand, comic, but in the end, 55% of marriages that occur in the world today are arranged marriages and the global divorce rate for arranged marriages is 6.3 %.

So, that famous statistic that half of love marriages end in divorce? That’s true, but only when it comes to first marriages, half of which are dissolved. Second and third marriages fail at a far higher rate.

If you could choose, would you rather make sure your daughter got a prince you selected (with her navigations) and secure her fairy tale (and statistically 10x higher for a long-lasting happy marriage) or you would let her go through all this pain?

Sometimes, having no options is the best option.

The truth is…

They are complicated because you are complicated.

Your relationship is a reflection of yourself at that moment.

Your relationships can’t go further than your current limitations.

Relationships are the only form of union where you can feel so much love and pain simultaneously.

Your partner is the source of all your suffering and joy.

How is that possible?

Maybe, I don’t know for better.

Maybe, that’s what people call a toxic relationship.

I wonder how on the other side of the spectrum, a relationship looks like.

Or maybe there is no other side of a relationship.

It is what it is.

Joy and suffering coexisting together, feeding each other perpetually into the beast that will eat you alive.

If it seems like males are lying to you, they probably don’t.

You are just lying to yourself with high expectations from them.

One day they tell you you are their whole world while another day they are too bored to get to see you.

If early days are like this, what to expect in the future?

Is the “It’s boring to me that I have to drive to see you” the beginning of the end of the relationship?

Either my expectations are unsynched with reality or men’s verbal output is not synced with their actions.

Is it okay to settle for less just because of love?

Sacrifice your standards for peace in the relationship.

Or sacrifice your relationship for your inner peace.

I am not a feminist, or idealist either, but what is it that two human beings of opposite gender and similar age can’t go along?

What if a happy long relationship is possible only if you accept that there will be a lot of pain “to suck it up” along the way.

And me?

I am bleeding.

Once shattered into pieces soul is hard to glue together.

The one who finds the strength to believe in love after her/his heart was broken will live forever.

Alchemazing grief into love is the trait of Gods.

Love is only eternal, everything else is transient.

When I slept over this essay I realized how dark it sounds, like there is no more space for true love on this earth; for the love that outlives the moon and outshines all starts; for love that I believe in.

But, don’t let my pain fool you.

Keep believing in fairytales because I certainly will do.

I know God will give me the man I deserve.

The one next to whom I will spend my life happy and fulfilled.

With unshakable faith in love,

Your Angela <3