Was you marriage a fantasy or a reality?
Both of you -- right now you are probably reacting that, of course, since your reason to go through the divorce in the first place was because you had to face reality and forget about the fantasy.
Every marriage is a fantasy before the reality kicks in. Whatever fantasy you had is what enabled you to get married in the first place. You thought that your husband or wife was the right person for you. You thought you were the marrying kind of person you knew your spouse to be. You actually thought maybe you wanted the life that each other painted, whatever it might be.
Your ex treated you a certain way during the fantasy period, and that enabled you to fall in love and enabled you to create this fantasy called "marriage," or at least the fantasy called "your marriage."
The reality is that you guys ended up hating each other after a while, really disliking each other, becoming really angry with each other, constantly bickering, fighting,all of that. That's the reality.
So, the question is: are all marriages based on fantasy?
Well, the answer is: kind of. There are many marriages based on reality. There are great marriages out there. There are people out there who have wonderful marriages from the beginning all the way to the end, and they make it work.
But, for the rest of us, we're in this divorce pool of life. I think a lot of us fell in love with the fantasy, and then when reality finally came, we didn't know what to do with it. We didn't know how to make the changes necessary as fantasy slowly started drifting into reality. We didn't know how to make the relationship work, because we did not have the capability to make that relationship work based on our past experiences in all of our past relationship.
Our past relationships will always form who we are today, and if we're able to process our past relationships, we are then able to move forward and have great relationships. Each one better and more positive than the one before. The probably is that most of us don't spend enough time actually processing our past relationships. We tend to sweep all of our issues under the rug. We tend to get involved in another relationship too quickly because we're in the "replacement theory" of relationships, which I've written about. Or, we fall in love with a new fantasy of what we think this new person is and what they're all about.
The problem with that is that we think we're moving forward, but we never really move forward because we haven't fully learned from our past mistakes. The same problem will come up in each relationship, and if these same types of relationships continue through your lifetime, you get more and more frustrated. You get angrier and angrier, and you get more and more bitter.
The unfortunate fact for our society is that most marriages do end in divorce because most marriages were built on a fantasy from the beginning. I know so many people who got married because that's what they were supposed to do, or they always dreamed of finding that perfect partner and being married. They dreamed of having a wonderful family.
They dreamed about that life, but they picked wrong. The reason why they picked wrong is because they picked based on a fantasy they had for themselves and they never listen to the reality that was in front of them. Every relationship that I've ever had that has fallen apart, it has always shown its warning signs in the first 30 days. I just chose to ignore them because of the fantasy I had built up in my head.
If all of you look back on all you relationships, and especially the last one that ended in divorce, the warning signs were probably there in the first 30 days. You chose to ignore them because of the fantasy you were living, because of your desires, and because your wants and your needs required the fantasy called love.
I'm a firm believer that love exists, but it's got to be real love and it's got to be a love that's based on mutual love for each other. You do for each other what the other needs, and you respect one another so that you are able to grow with one another and be each others best friends. Most relationships tend to outgrow one another. Most relationships grow their separate ways.
Once the reality hits, the fantasy tends to be over really quickly.
Author Info:
David Wygant a leading personal dating coach, dating advice professional and image-maker. For 20 years David Wygant has worked to earn the trust of American men looking to transform their love lives. David also has a dedicated women's dating advice site that offers a wealth of free dating information specifically for women.
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