For those who love a good romance, rom-com or the fairy tale classics we’ve watched since childhood, it can be difficult not to look for or expect love like what you see on the screen. Love, in the movies, is demonstrated by grand gestures and over-the-top displays of affection that most never experience in real life. There is always some sort of life-ending drama and it seems all hope is lost, then BAM, a fairy tale ending.
I’m a sucker for these movies as much as the next person. I cry, laugh and remain pleasantly surprised when everything works out perfectly in the end, just like it always does. But when life doesn’t work out like the movies, because it never does, I’ll admit I can be a bit disappointed when my husband isn’t standing outside in the rain with a boom box declaring how much he loves me. But I love him anyway.
My husband and I don’t have fairy-tale love. We have real-life love and as much as it’s not made for TV, I will say it is so much better.
I know he loves me, not because he’s smitten and can’t do anything but love me all the time. I know he loves me because in the 14 years we’ve been together we struggled, we argued and we got to the point where we couldn’t stand to look at each other for a little while. But we always choose to love each other anyway.
What movies don’t tell you is that love is a choice. A choice you make day in and day out no matter what.
Some days it’s the easiest choice. You look at your spouse and think about how lucky you are to have them, how wonderful they are and you replay your greatest moments in your head.
Some days it’s the hardest choice. You look at your spouse and think of how angry they made you, all of the things they do wrong and how you want them to take you outside and give you the most passionate kiss in the rain while they remind you “if you’re a bird, then I’m a bird.” But they don’t.
Sometimes, I like a little more romance than my spouse. And instead of expecting him to know and read my mind, then be angry with him for not, I ask. I ask him to take me to a special dinner where I can dress up and feel pretty. He usually reminds me that I’m always pretty and don’t need to dress up to be beautiful, but he understands feeling beautiful means something different to me and we go.
He might find my need to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner corny or unnecessary, but he loves me anyway. I might find the need to tell him what I want instead of magically finding myself at dinner because he planned it and prepared the entire evening in a grand gesture a pain, but I love him anyway.
Let your favorite romance movies be a guide of something you might like to incorporate in your relationship, or just something you watch and enjoy. Don’t let it be a reminder of what you don’t have in your relationship.
Your relationship is real and that one in the movie is not. Find ways to fall in love with your spouse over and over again because the feeling of falling in love is the closest we get in real life to those fairy-tale feelings.
For help with this, make sure you’re following CityView for some real-life tips and tricks.
Keep making the choice to love your spouse. Tell your spouse what makes you love them and what you need from them if you aren’t getting enough.
When it comes to the little things you don’t like, remember, we all have a thousand little things we don’t like, especially as the years go by.
But, love them anyway.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Love Issue” February 2025 e-edition here.
Sounds like my marriage. Maybe I should be taking your advice instead of giving you mine.