Perfect Fairy tale

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

    I was watching a dating show on a popular station last night. I find it fascinating to hear and see other people’s thought processes. The contestants had been looking for love year after year but were coming up empty handed. They finally surrender their love life over to someone else in hopes they could match them with the right person. In the contestant’s interviews they said things like, “I’m looking for my perfect match” or “I’m looking for the fairy tale ending.”  The words perfect and fairy tale were red flags. There is no perfect match and there is no fairy tale.

     Some of the other contestants said, “I want someone with no baggage.” No matter who you date or marry they’ll have baggage - you’ll have to deal with someone’s mess. There’s no escaping this fact. When you commit your life to someone there will be junk to deal with - your junk and their junk. We all have junk! It’s just the way it is and it’s beautiful in its own way and in its own time.  

     I guess I wasn’t tempted by fairy tale ideas because my hubby and I were best friends for almost 11 years before we got married. We knew each other well and there weren’t any surprises, honestly. That doesn’t mean everything is smooth and easy. Merging two lives comes with complications, none of which can be described as perfect or a fairy tale.

      Sometimes I think the idea of finding the perfect match has more to do with the worship of ourselves. We want someone who complements our personality style, someone who makes us look good, someone who gratifies us, someone who promotes our rank in society, someone who appeals to our senses and someone who makes our lives easier. It’s all centered on a ME mentality.

        Marriage done right makes us holy. It smooths off our rough edges and forces us to grow in ways we can’t even imagine before experiencing it first-hand. I often wonder if people have missed out on their person because they have too many deal breakers, to many self-worship ideas on their list. Of course this is not true for everyone. But it makes me wonder when I see dating shows where people are listing all their “must-haves” in a spouse. Most of these “must-haves” are based on self-worship.

     What if your person looks different than you imagined? What if they don’t have a degree?  What if they live a few states over? What if their personality is not the one statistics says you’re most compatible with? What’s on your must-have list? Sometimes we miss God’s greatest gifts because they come packaged differently than we wanted. They aren’t God, they are human. You can encourage your spouse to get a degree; you can move to the same state; you can learn to celebrate your different personalities. None of these are deal breakers. How many of our deal breakers have easy solutions that would actually help us grow as a person if we embraced?

      If our relationship is based on perfection and a fairy tale what happens when problems arise? We will abandon ship! We won’t have the staying power and resolve. What happens when the butterflies leave? Will you be able to invest in your marriage long term cultivating more butterflies?

         What about those couples that seems to have it all? The ones that make us want a fairy tale? If it’s based on a movie, book or other fictional outlet, than it’s just that, fictional. If it’s a real couple you admire, it’s probably a couple who has learned to be grateful and see the best in everything. It’s amazing how we can create our own perfect and our own fairy tale by simply believing the best and cultivating a grateful heart. This doesn’t mean circumstances are perfect or fairy tale like. Other times when a couple seems to have it all it’s simply us catching a glimpse of their soon fading fire, like a shooting star. We see the beauty and wish it was ours only to realize how fast it burns out. We shouldn’t compare and envy others relationships because we don’t see it within context. It may be as fleeting as a shooting star.

      The best way to pick a spouse is not with a wish list, but with prayer and common sense. We can live (make it work) with many people, but the key is to find someone you can’t live without. Once you find someone you can’t live without, you’ll have to spend the rest of your life working at the relationship.

         Lifelong relationships take a lifetime of work. If you’re lazy, selfish, and only want someone who meets your “self-worship” list than finding a lifelong partner may not be for you and that’s OKAY.

       As a Christian I believe that couples are supposed to become one. As we grow we actually form a oneness that transcends just our bodies. It’s spiritual.