Where’s My Happily Ever After?
As little girls, we’re taught to strive for marriage and family as the ultimate goal. As we grow into womanhood, society further waters this idea of marriage. The institution of marriage is a must have. Must do. You’re incomplete without it.
What About the Boys?
What about the boys? Do we teach them to strive for marriage? On the contrary, society does not provide boys with the expectation that marriage should be a main goal. A lot of times, when a man wants marriage, it doesn’t come from societal expectation, it comes from desire. A raw need to find somebody special to love; that one life’s companion. These kind of men see their lineage extended through the family they intend to build.
Now, what happens when that dream of love, marriage and family dries up? That’s where his story comes in.
His Story
He must have been all of 11 or 12 years old when he came into this country from Haiti. Like most kids flying into John F. Kennedy airport, the twinkle of NYC’s skyline leads him to believe everything and anything is possible. On that plane, gazing over the city of Queens lights, every one of his dreams has already come true.
Growing up as one of his friends, I most certainly see his drive. I see that he is different. While boys will be boys, he has a certain level of clarity and maturity almost non-existent in guys his age. He’s different. I see that, we all saw that.
Not that it matters in the context of this story, but he’s good looking. With a keen resemblance to 90’s R&B crooner Bryan McKnight, a nice height and amazing athletic ability, we just know that whomever he marries, she’s going to be a gorgeous woman. This gorgeous woman would go on to give him equally as gorgeous children. That’s our expectation of him – success, love and marriage. What we expect of him is only but a mirror reflection of what he expects for himself.
His Reality
Now, years later, he’s looking at a stack of papers calling him to court over his youngest daughter. Child support. Although he financially provides and spends time with his child, the child support motion is a chess move made by a vindictive ex-girlfriend.
This feels like a character assassination. All he wanted out of life was to be a great father and husband. Now look at where’s at; lumped into the same boat as a “deadbeat dad.”
Where’s my happily ever after? He shakes his head and thinks about all the expectations he had for his life. While the career success is there with a well paying, stable job, his personal life is another story.
The pit in his stomach grows deeper as he thinks about the battle that is about to ensue as now he has to counter with his own motion for visitation. Where’s my happily ever after? His life wasn’t supposed to be like this. His reality didn’t meet his expectations.
The Death of a Dream
Expectation versus reality leads to the death of a dream. In my friend’s mind, just like mine, in our 40’s we were supposed to be happily married with a family to come home to every single night.
The reality is indeed jarring, to say the least. Instead of building a warm home full of love, he’s met with a 10 year relationship exhaustive with both physical and emotional abuse. Oh yes my friends, it’s not only women that deal with domestic violence, men are victims as well.
As badly as he wants it, marriage alludes him. In contrast to having a wife, he’s got the stereotypical baby’s mother. An angry, oftentimes emotionally unhinged mother to his child at that. After every incident of violence that he experiences with her, he wonders how he got into this space? Things were supposed to be so different. His happily ever after distorted by the cruelty of reality. Instead of dodging bricks from his child’s mother, he should have been pulling in his wife close to say I love you with random kisses.
His daughter is born and the relationship turmoil continues, but he still holds on to the dream of family and marriage. In between love and war, fallacious thinking takes root. His thought? Perhaps if I hold on, if I give more years to a situation that hasn’t been working, then maybe things will magically work out and fall into place.
Unfortunately, that’s not how things work. You can’t keep investing or sowing into a situation that doesn’t reap any fruits. He makes the error that I once did. That crucial mistake is believing that giving more years to a bad relationship will make it better.
For my friend, ending the relationship meant the death of a dream. The expiration of all that he hoped his life would be.
Expectation vs. Standards
In life, there are expectations and there are standards. An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen. A standard is the action you place behind expectation to ensure that what you expect, becomes a reality. It’s likened to faith without works. You can have all the faith that you want, but without action, it amounts to nothing.
Similar to myself, my friend led with expectations and ignored standards. Quite simply, we made the wrong choice in partners. Had we applied a standard to such an important choice in life – relationships, our outcomes would be different than present day. I see this example with my cousins who trusted God, applied standards which led them to making the sensible decisions that ultimately led them to their amazing husbands and wives (yes, I’m shouting you all out: Kevin, Vanessa, Tamika and Chelsea).
This Blissfully Single Lesson
So my friend – he made a mistake. This blissfully single girl over here – I’ve made my fair share as well when it comes to love.
There’s hope though. It may not feel like it for my friend right now because emotions are still raw, but there’s life after the death of a dream. Meaning, ending a toxic relationship only gives way to an opening for God’s blessing wrapped in opportunity. This time though, we’ll get our happily ever after by leading with a standard, to meet our expectations.
Wishing you all love and more importantly, peace my friends,
