My youngest daughter, however, was annoyed at the movie. (If you haven't yet seen the movie and don't want the ending spoiled, stop reading now.)
My daughter's annoyance stemmed from her belief in happily-ever-after endings. Neat and tidy and where everything turns out the way it's supposed to.
She's 13 and still thinks this is a perfectly reasonable expectation. I'm 52 and I don't disagree.
While I shared some of her disappointment (even after everything I know about life and love and marriage, those happily-ever-after fantasies die hard), I realized something.
We can all have more than one happy ending.
And I got thinking about so many women who come to this site with the same sense of loss that I felt after D-Day: This wasn't the way my life was supposed to go. This wasn't my happily ever after.
And when everything feels ruined, when our dreams lie in splinters, we can lose sight of another possibility. As the saying goes, we can stare so hard at the closed door in front of us that we miss the window beside it.
And when everything feels ruined, when our dreams lie in splinters, we can lose sight of another possibility. As the saying goes, we can stare so hard at the closed door in front of us that we miss the window beside it.
That conviction, that our life was supposed to turn out a certain way, holds us back. It limits our imagination. We can climb through that window if we only notice it and give up the idea that the damn door is supposed to be open.
We come to our expectations honestly, of course. We stand in front of family and friends and exchange vows, promising each other fidelity and friendship. And our future stretches out before us, a bit hazy in some ways but crystal clear in others. We will grow old together. We will weather storms but not storms of our own making. We will live happily ever after.
D-Day smashes that fantasy to bits. Even if we survive, which we highly doubt, our happily ever after is over. We can't imagine smiling or laughing. We can't fathom how we'll ever believe in love again.
But the heart is resilient. Even a broken heart has the capacity to love. Perhaps especially a broken heart.
But it's different.
Gone is the certainty that everything will turn out fine. We know too well that love can be messy. That people we trust can betray us. That the marriage we thought was solid had cracks.
But here's the thing. Happily ever after didn't die with the betrayal, it was always a fantasy. We stake our hearts on a storybook fiction. Nobody lives happily ever after because it's not possible. Everyone will have pain. Every marriage will have cracks.
Knowing that doesn't strip marriage of its power, it gives marriage its power. Because it forces us to realize that a promise isn't a guarantee. It's an intention and it's up to us to live up to that intention. To make choices that are true to that intention in ways big and small.
Our husbands failed to do that. And we get to decide whether we're willing to let them try again.
But no matter what we choose – to rebuild our lives with him or without him – happiness is still within our power to achieve.
There will be more pain, in some form or another. There will be joy, in some form or another. There will be no happily ever after.
That was never your ending. It's no-one's ending. But that doesn't mean, when you reflect back on your life, you won't smile. Indeed, if you follow the path that feels the most right for you, if you live your own life with intention and integrity, the sum of your life will always skew toward happy. Not a whitewashed happily ever after but another ending all the richer for the many many colors it holds.
