The Happily Ever After Manifesto

In which I move the goalposts.

“Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
- Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

We of a certain age, especially those of us who are women, were raised in the world of Happily Ever After. It didn’t matter if our parents were married or divorced, happy in their relationships or miserable and sticking it out “for the kids,” the message was the same: Your life is a race to a very clear finish line – to a spouse and children, to a white picket fence and a dog, to stability and security and joint bank accounts and family trips to Disney, the whole nine yards.

I do not know a whole lot of people my age who resisted the Happily Ever After myth, and of the people I do know, most are men. Even couples who have chosen not to have kids are still deep in Marriageland, and live domestic, settled lives. This is not a bad thing, of course, and many married people I know are quite happy. But I also see so many tragic stories – people stuck in loveless, passionless marriages, unable to escape the myth, determined to grit their teeth and suffer it out to the bitter end. It’s a powerful orthodoxy we swallow – men and women alike – and once we start praying to the gods of Happily Ever After, turning our backs on them feels like a desecration.

When children are involved, things get even more difficult, as the current American ethos posits that kids are fragile snowflakes who must be protected from painful experiences at all costs. Of course, if you have studied attachment theory and child development, you know that to try to shield your children from unhappiness and change, rather than letting them face the wild winds with your steady presence beside them, is a set-up for disaster (provided you have a good, loving relationship with them; obviously none of this applies in situations of abuse or neglect). As a friend once told me, “It is far better to come from a broken home than to grow up in one.” But often we are blind to this, and soldier on grimly instead, thinking we are giving our children what they need, when the opposite is true. Thus, wonderful people fall into lives of quiet desperation.

Love ebbs and flows, rises and falls. We can love without grasping, lose without self-destructing, travel in and out of Marriageland without getting trapped at the border.

Now, newly single in my forties, with three strong children I love to the end of the universe and back, I look back with very few regrets about my path so far. But I also look ahead with a different perspective. Suddenly, I see the potential to build a Happily Ever After on my own terms, and I am entirely clear on what I do and do not want.

I do not want to live with a man. Not ever again. I do not want to know how my partner folds his socks, or if he folds his socks. I do not want to fight with him about the correct way to load the dishwasher, or whose turn it is to take out the trash, or any of the passion-sucking daily squabbles that arise in every cohabiting relationship. I do not want to find myself suddenly “unable” to do the things I’ve been doing just fine on my own - household repairs, managing my budget - just because there’s a guy around who takes on those jobs. (Local friends: if you ever need an appliance repaired, give me a call! As long as there’s a YouTube tutorial, I can do it.) I do not want to commingle my finances with anyone. I do not want to suffer through tense meals with in-laws, although I’d happily share a lovely meal with lovely family members. I do not want someone else raising my kids with me – they have a wonderful father already and don’t need another one. Loving my kids and treating them with kindness are non-negotiable traits in a serious partner, but setting their screen-time limits and their curfew are not jobs that their dad and I need help with.

I want to be with someone I’m excited to spend a Saturday with, or many Saturdays, but who has his own things to do on Sunday. I want a partner who I can enjoy time with and feel connected to and passionate about, someone who lights me up and makes me laugh, who finds beauty in unexpected places and is excited to show me, who is curious about the world and full of wonder, who lives his (progressive!) values, and who is truly kind and compassionate. I want a man who prioritizes and commits to our relationship without being overly possessive; someone who doesn’t (wrongly!) think that our life commitments - to children or work or a romantic relationship - are a zero sum game in which only one commitment can be primary; and someone who won’t coldly cast me aside like some disposable Other Thing when he is done with me. I want someone who understands what he needs to do to live an emotionally healthy life, and is working every day to reach that goal. And I want to offer a shoulder to cry on, and cry on his shoulder when I need to, without those tears translating into the expectation that he must mend my life, or vice versa.

Ultimately, what emerges when I imagine my new Happily Ever After is a vision of a strong and loving partnership, or maybe several successive strong and loving partnerships, between two independent, happy individuals at peace with themselves and their lives. There are so many fascinating, beautiful people out there, so much discovery and exploration to do, and so much potential for love to come striding through the door with open arms. And if love leaves again, for any of the reasons that can take two people in opposite directions, then the world will not end, and one day the door will open again at the right time, and a new love will walk into my life, perhaps offering wildflowers, or chocolate, or just the right poem for the day. The universe is full of wonders, and sweet souls abound. This I believe.

Of course, I cannot think about these things without considering what I want to teach and model for my children. I hope, if I do my job right, that I will show them what it looks like to stand on your own two feet, approach life on your own terms, and bend to let a partner into your world only inasmuch as you don’t twist yourself into hopeless knots in the process. And it goes without saying that I never ever want my highly perceptive daughters to see me stuck and miserable; I already know beyond a shadow of a doubt that living in that world is infinitely worse for everyone involved than the transient pain of upheaval and change. And I hope they will see my resilience - even if it comes with times of sorrow - so that they can learn to live their own courageous lives, with all of the rewards that courage has to offer.

I want my daughters to emerge into adulthood ready to define themselves first, and a relationship second. I never want them to become something they are not in order to please or pacify a partner. I want them to understand that relationships and families can take many forms, and that there is no perfect structure that works for everyone. I want them to see that marriage is a fine option, but divorce is too, if the marriage has run its course, or if staying is worse than leaving. I want them to see that divorce can occur with enough goodwill and collaboration to reconfigure a family without destroying it (assuming both parties act like reasonable adults, which I recognize is often not the case). I want them to feel free to find solid partners with whom to raise children, if that’s their choice, but not to feel that they’ve sold their souls for permanent stability. I want them to know that I won’t respond with denial and resistance if they come to tell me of a break-up, but I will gently support them through, and safeguard the knowledge that love will come their way again, with wildflowers, or chocolate, or just the right poem for the day.

Love ebbs and flows, rises and falls. We can love without grasping, lose without self-destructing, travel in and out of Marriageland without getting trapped at the border. The poet E.E. Cummings wrote, in one of my favorite love poems:

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

To close and unclose, to allow love in when love comes knocking, to let love go when the time comes, and to fold gently inward when solitude is our closest friend - this is the only Happily Ever After for me.

P.S. Speaking of relationships, my friend Martha publishes a wonderful Substack newsletter called Sex on Wednesday, available here. It is always informative, frequently hilarious, and sometimes tragic. If you never knew that a sex toy could be mistaken for a grenade, well, you’re going to want to read her writing…