Fairy tales, romantic songs and movies

Most fairy tales tell of ‘love stories’.

Love, there, is represented as an heroic and all winning force capable of leading a young, sweet and beautiful girl and a handsome, courageous young man through much hardship, thus enabling them to earn for themselves the right to be rewarded with a precious prize: falling in love with each other, marrying and living happily forever after…….

The ‘forever and ever’ love capable of bestowing on the couple happiness, fulfillment, completeness and passion is the promise held also by romantic, heart melting songs and movies.

Symbolically, they seem to suggest that the before marriage and after marriage times are gauged in the dichotomies: lack of love: love, dangerous world: safe world, loneliness and lack of fulfillment: companionship and fulfillment and last but not least, dullness: passion as opposite characteristics of an undesirable or desirable life. It is, therefore, not surprising that most girls and boys dream that one day they will meet the ‘prince’ on a white horse, who will fall madly in love with them and protect them forever or the wonderful ‘princess’ who will be eternally next to them as an inexhaustible source of smiles, care, tenderness as well as hot passion. And so it goes that people end up seeing marriage as a point of arrival. Full stop!

All these stories, however, by not going beyond the ‘forever and ever’ promise do not concretely explain what both partners should do in order to maintain this hypnotized ‘forever and ever’ relationship nor, and most importantly, they do not give any indication as to the criteria which should guide a girl to the recognition of her real ‘prince’ and a man of his real ‘princess’. What qualities should each one of them posses in order to enter a suitable relationship followed by marriage? What do they need to develop in themselves in order to make marriage an experience of personal growth and deep fulfillment?

Hard facts

The statistics drafted by experts from all over the world show that, these days, one marriage in two breaks up. That is, 1/2 of all marriages, sadly, end up in a divorce. The situation was slightly better ten years ago, when one marriage in three ended in the same way, that is 1/3 of them broke up.  Although this growth may appear tiny, on close examination it is, indeed, huge: it amounts to a 1 1/2 increase in divorce rate in just one decade. Detailed statistic, in addition, reveal that the greatest number of divorces (40 % about 1/3) occurs in the first 4 years of marriage, and that about 2/3 occurs in the following 5 to 9 years.

Researchers point out that one of the main causes leading to divorce is the way, in which people enter it, such as:

- Wanting to be free from parents, to have sex, to ease loneliness, to be happy, to be adults, pregnancy, financial interest and immigration purposes, to only mention a few.

Statistics also reveal that people who marry at a younger age seem to be more able to take the brunt of sharing a common space, than those marrying later in life. This could be due to the fact after 30 both sexes find it more difficult to change themselves, and adjust to the requirements of a shared household and to the demands of family roles.

Interestingly, although in 64 % of the cases the court may suggest that before getting divorced couples think about it for a few months, only 7% of them go back on their decision.

The causes for a divorce vary greatly although, amongst them,

- matrimonial incorrectness, sexual dissatisfaction, adultery, incompatibility of character and vision, psychological and practical lack of education about home life and, as a consequence, accumulation of errors in family relations, disappointment in the chosen partner as well as alcohol abuse are the most common.

In greater details, people who end up divorcing attribute the reasons for arriving at such decision - in order of importance - to the following:

1. Psychological and practical lack of education of both or one of the spouses, who seem to be unprepared for a home life (42 % of divorces), shown by the roughness of their mutual behavior (insults, humiliations, lack of attention for each other, unwillingness to help with the house management and the education of children, inability to give to each other, absence of spiritual interests, greed, communication break down, inability to smooth and eliminate conflicts).

2. Alcoholism of one of the spouses (31 %, women and 23 %, men) involving, also, domestic violence and abuse.

3. rimonial incorrectness (15 %, women and 12 %, men) amongst which 9 % of the women interviewed pointed to lack of help in the running of the household. These data may well lead to the conclusion that, nowadays, the majority of husbands help with the house chores (40 % of men do everything their wife asks them to do in the house).

4. Lack of emotional bond (37 %, men), tenderness (29 %, men), an ordered sexual life (14 %, men), care (9 %, men) as well as feeling held ‘with a lead at the neck’, enslaved (14 %, men).

5. Miscellaneous:

• Household disorder (3,1 %),
• Difference in vision with regard to financial matters (1,6 %),
• Material difficulties (1,8 %),
• Unreasonable jealousy of one of the spouses (1,5 %),
• Sexual dissatisfaction (0,8 %),
• Lack of children (0,2 %).

Badly matched marriages, besides causing a lot of pain to both partners and leaving them with a feeling of guilt, shattered hopes, betrayal and distrust in the opposite sex, can also cause several- from mild to rather serious - health problems. Recent statistics report that, in more than 45,5 % of cases, people complain of problems of the central nervous system, like nightmares and headaches, as well as depression (18,2 %). Gynecologic diseases are also quite common (10,9 %), as well as digestive and cardiovascular diseases (9,1 %). Urinary disorders (3,6 %) and skin diseases (1,8 %)are, as shown by the figures, less frequent. All the ‘side effects’ of a tense marital relationship are amplified in time of extreme crisis (in 81 %). 

Last, but not least, the effects of unhappy marriages is extremely hurtful and may causes severe emotional damage to the children, the innocent victims of adults inability of properly negotiating difference and conflict in a close relationship.

Is the ‘they lived happily forever after’ of fairy tales and romantic songs a dream destined to remain unfulfilled? Is marriage, as well as the desire to share one’s life with a worthy partner, an impossible illusion?

Case history

Carla was still a young woman when she met Charles. Theirs was  the classical ‘love at first sight’, and it made her feel strong, wanted, beautiful…magic! The whole world looked different, like new and full of bright colors. Even people seemed to be much nicer and kinder than they had been before meeting him. Love, indeed, had transformed her perception. She felt strong and ready to move mountains, if needed, to be next to him, to protect their relationship…..

The dream, however, was short lived.

She soon realized that Charles had a drinking problem. Her dreams were shuttered! She loved him so much that she thought she could have the strength to help him to get out of this habit. She could not live without him, even if he was an alcoholic! Her heart was broken! She started to keep watch on Charles, to spy on him, to search all over the place for the hidden bottle….He made repeated promises of stopping, but that day never came…She lost her color, her sleep, her appetite and, with them, her smile.. They married. She hoped that marriage could give him stability and warmth, that the children to come could shift his habit. She wanted so much to have children, to become a mother! Things at home got worse, and she landed in a world of despair, becoming every day more and more like the shadow of her old self. She prayed God to help her, to give her back her love, her dream, but even God seemed to turn a deaf hear to her supplication…. 

She did not know how she had got there……all these happy people, smiling to each other, full of warmth and love! She had seen the seminar advertised on the Internet and, on the same web site, she had read a story similar to hers, of a couple who had managed to find love again.

In the days she spent at the seminar she cried a lot, but each tear seemed to be able to clean her mind and her heart. Color came back to her cheeks. What was it that they were saying? They were talking about the premises of a correct relationship… that a man was meant to protect the woman, whilst she was meant to be her ‘muse’, his inspiration….. She learnt that a woman could attract the right partner, if she developed her inner spiritual, feminine dimension. She could see herself changing, laughing, and dancing. She heard of a school for the ‘harmonious development of children’, which was about to open in Russia under the guidance of an Enlightened Master, Guru Sotidanandana. She recognized the wisdom of His vision……that children deserve to be brought into this world by healthy, mature,  spiritually developed parents, able to see the need of the new born to fulfill his destiny, to be helped to grow into ‘himself’.

And than this practice:’ I deserve’…what had she said then, blinded by her own tears? “I deserve to meet my ideal partner! I deserve to have a great relationship! I deserve to be happy! I deserve to grow spiritually!” 

Could Charles give her all this? Could they have a relationship of mutual help, support and spiritual growth?

A new hope started to emerge in her being!  She deserved more than she had, she deserved more than Charles and of a life spent as a watchdog trying to smell the hiding place of a bottle of wine.

She left the seminar with a smile and a song in her heart. She knew what to do and she knew that she would not regret it!  

A new life had started for her, and she was sure that the ideal partner for her would soon materialize …