Love is not a three-step program: I like him, I marry him, and we live happily ever after. There is much more involved in the process. It is not something you stumble into like a hole in the ground, as fairy tales would have you believe. I may say this because I have never experienced it this way, but I do not understand how someone can unknowingly slip into such a huge emotional state without any activity on their part. These tale’s teach us that love is a passive process, if you sit around singing into a well that someday your prince will come, or lay sleeping for 100 years with your lips puckered up, you’ll meet the man of your dreams. And

When I heard these fairy tale’s I thought there was a certain order things had to go in. First the characters would fall madly in love at first sight (like that ever happens), then the man would overcome any obstacle to get to the girl, he would sweep her off her feet to the perfect dream wedding, and live happily ever after. I created an illusion from this idea, that if I didn’t have the perfect wedding it would ruin the marriage. Because that was the final point at which all of their dreams came true. I never heard about the marriage counseling Prince Charming and Cinderella went through, or the temptation Prince Phillip had when Sleeping Beauty wasn’t around. Those things don’t happen in the fairy tale marriage, so they must be horribly wrong and mean big trouble for the real-life couple. I have let this idea run ramped in my marriage, I didn’t have the perfect dream wedding: we got married at the courthouse during lunch hour when I was 8 months pregnant (I’d love to see a fairy tale with that in it). In my head, the marriage was doomed from the start. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go!” spoken by Princess Fiona in Shrek, pretty much describes my feelings as well. Where was the romance, the prince confessing his love, sweeping me off my feet out yonder window and down a rope onto his valiant steed. I was convinced there was nowhere for our marriage to go but down because of our less than perfect beginning.

Then there is the myth of finding our soul mates. From these fairy tale’s I was taught that you would know when you meet “the one.” The love at first sight phenomenon. Of course, this assumes that there is only one person who is right for you—a so

Some topics in this essay:
Tale Love, Meg Ryan, Fiona Shrek, Sleeping Beauty, fairy tale, live happily, fairy tales, Charming Cinderella, fairy tale’s, perfect dream wedding, perfect dream, dream wedding, true love, idea love, perfect beginning, love sight,