Here’s the Real Story on "Happily Ever After"
The happily-ever-after myth was anchored in my psyche when I was a kid, in the tale of Cinderella. All the Hallmark movies that came later only reinforced it. But in my mid-forties, I saw the myth perpetrated on me for the half-truth it was.
Prior to that, I bought into the happily-ever-after myth. I spent my twenties and thirties looking for the prince. When I was thirty-five, I thought I found him. I married him. We moved to the castle. We did not live happily ever after.
I wanted to know why.
The Spiral Path to “Happily Ever After”
I told myself if I could define the stages to “happily ever after,” I could have it. So I read about:
Women’s history, buried below men’s history, in prehistory
Women’s psychological development, different than men’s
Women’s spirituality, including ancient and intuitive practices.
From this research, I developed my first crude “happily ever after” map. I shared it in workshops. I traveled through it personally. I began to reclaim parts of myself. Several years later, in graduate school, I translated its “happily ever after” stages into the language of story—personal, ancestral and cultural. Again, I traveled through it, this time in a deeper and more embodied way.
What You See Is Not What You Get
Personal and cultural myths such as “happily ever after” are not what they appear to be, I learned. They are symbolic and metaphoric portals to the soul’s deeper narrative, buried below the ego’s storyline.
Whether it is a fictional prince like the one in Cinderella, or a real one, such as my ex or the partner who came after him, each reflected the part of myself I didn’t own or couldn’t see or didn’t want to see.
Indeed, the characters in the happily-ever-after tale of Cinderella—the protective mother, the magical godmother, the victimized child, and the wicked stepsister—were all parts of myself. Alas, so, too was the prince. He would not save me. I had to save myself.
Or, as writer Pam Houston said, “I had to learn how to be my own cowboy.”
I am still learning. It has not been an easy happily-ever-after trail ride.
The Spiral Continues
But it has been a rich one. And as I think about dating once again, after one too many trail rides and a backside sore from the saddle, I have to wonder. What psychic footing will the next prince offer in my journey to “happily ever after”?
What does your prince—past, present or future—offer you?
M. Carolyn Miller, MA, designs narrative- and game-based learning. She also writes and speaks about the power of story in our lives and world. www.cultureshape.com