Happily ever after

Forty four years ago today I donned the uniform that girls of my generation yearned for.  The one many went to college for, the MRS. 

I thought it was the happily ever after I had been waiting for all my life.  I imagined birds singing,  Deer watching with tear filled eyes of joy.  Prince Charming smiling at me from the altar as I floated towards him in layers of pearls and white fluff.

I sublimated that fact that I had been looking at Prince Charming through eyes trying to see what wasn't there, but from that moment on I would dedicate my entire life to fulfilling his smallest wish, (or at least the ones I deemed worthy of filling.)

Those became fewer and fewer as time went on.  It never occurred to me that we both might have been happier if we were in it together and not just for him, (but I have to say I wanted him to want what I wanted.)

The trouble was that we both changed as we grew up.  At twenty I wanted only to make him happy (as long as it didn't offend the sensibilities I was told I had.)  At thirty I wanted him to love our children the way I did.

By that time we were both on such disparate paths that we would never again walk side by side, but we stuck it out another nineteen years.

By the end a counselor told us that the only thing we had in common was that we both loved him. Looking back I don't think that was true.    I don't think either one of us loved him anymore.

Our final separation was one of the most loving things each of us did for the other.  It set us free to find ourselves, unencumbered by all the emotional and physical baggage we had been carrying around for nearly thirty years.

It took a while, but for me the last few years have been some of the best I've ever known.