Prince Charming's Agony

As a connoisseur of fairy tales, I so enjoy a good love story. In fact, I collect Fairy Tale and Mythology books and movies. Retell those old classics, film-makers. They are all the lovely archetypes we love.

A few years ago, I learned a hard lesson. Fairy tale archetypes are not real life. I know this seems like a "duh" kind of lesson. But let me be clear - we enforce this to young women and girls every single day. We tell them to look for Prince Charming, or the Fairy Prince. But he's not real. There is no such thing as Prince Charming. In fact, any guy who comes to you presenting himself as a "Prince Charming" - girls....RUN AWAY FAST and Do NOT listen when he tries to charm you , he's probably going to use, abuse and toss you aside. The legendary Stephen Sondheim brings a touch of reality satire to Fairy Tale Princes in his show, "Into the Woods."

This first act song, "Agony" displays the ridiculous selfishness of Princes who meet 'their princesses' but only to show how pompous and shallow the princes are. I learned this in a hard lesson where my Prince Charming turned out to be a very disturbing Narcissistic abuser. You can read about Narcissistic abuse in this article. 

It took me years to get out from it - about 4 or so to see it for what it was and call it abuse (even though people were telling me the whole time), and several more to heal. In fact, in some ways, my amazing husband is still helping me deal with the damage done by the boy previous to him.

Some of you might have read my letter to my ex's exes - which has some interesting outcomes. Three of the women on that list read it and reached out to me. This led to uncovering the real and true depth of depraved abuse we suffered under. One wasn't in a 'relationship' long enough to really know, but she was used as much as the rest (the first one) and the other two - were just like me. Never given title of girlfriend (until after when he needed a convenient explanation of what we were in his life), but strung along an emotional see saw of "I love you, I don't want you, I need you, please don't leave me" along with a world of sexual deviance, emotional manipulation and abuse, triangulation, and gas-lighting - all to bolster image and ego of this man-child. Of course, none of it is his fault - to him or his close circle - or latest girlfriend. We are the villains - his victims, the ones who survived, walked away and spoke truth about his behaviors.

I have not spoken much about this stuff because it has taken a long time for me to untangle the mess, repair the damages. But also, to be honest, I was not brave enough to face the fallout that might come from loss of friends, or judgement for remaining in a terrible relationship that ruined me. And guys, it destroyed me. Only by the staying hand of God and a good set of people around me, did I not drive my car off to end my life on at least two occasions. But that's beside the point.

Truth is truth. Guys who present themselves as FAIRY TALE PRINCES ARE ABUSERS.

let me describe for you what to look for - and it's NOT Prince Charming.

• Men who prove themselves trustworthy over time, quietly waiting for a woman to choose. 
•  like my husband who didn't convince me of his character, his integrity spoke for itself.
• Men who don't just use flowery speech - the show you in action and truth who they are. 
• like my husband who, while we were dating and still doesn't do fancy language. He just steadily shows his character
•  Men who do not manipulate you to worship their awesomeness.
• like my husband who never would have ever manipulated my emotions and still does not.
•  Men who work hard and make true efforts endlessly to be a part of your life.
• My husband's schedule when we were dating was : Wake up t 430, work at 6-230; drive to 2nd job, work til 8, then drive to my work to see me for ten minutes and stay up to talk to me and make sure I got home safely at 11 pm, and start all over the next day.
• Men who are faithful and spouting "technicalities" of what is and isn't faithful/cheating
• like my husband who understands that cheating isn't just sex. That kissing, talking to other women intensely, relationships that border on close friendship, etc are ALL cheating.
• like my husband who does not,would not think to get "technical" into what faithfulness    is. It's eyes for one woman alone.
•  Abusers like my ex would have a string of multiple girls  always who were "friends" hanging around waiting to adore him. That's not the integrity of a faithful man.
• Men who have control of their own physical body and lust.
• like my husband who before I met him did not ogle women even though we were in a place frequently where I saw young, nubile, attractive women who were scantily clad. I watched  him for MONTHS and knew that compared to other boys and man-children around, he was  in control of himself.
• Men who do what they say and say what the do.
• like my husband - if he said he was going to call, he called. If he made plans, he never broke them, no matter how tired he was. He sacrificed energy, sleep, LIFE to PROVE he cared for me.
• Men who take care and protect you emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
• like my husband who took care of me when I was a wreck, He protected me physically from harm and still does. And spiritually? He has his own relationship with Christ that i don't have to coach. He prays for us, follows the lead of Christ on his own, without needing my help to limp along.He doesn't need me to assure his status with God. He knows and he is a MAN of God.
• Men who are respected and honored by people around them.
•  like my husband who has no one speak ill of him. He is respected by every person in our workplace from the janitor to the president of the company.

The not good guys? They pretend to be "prince charming" because they cannot be any of these other things. There's nothing but dishonor, lack of integrity, deviance, deception and unfaithfulness at their core, just like my ex. And let's be honest, shallowness. Because boys like my ex 'break up' with a girl telling her she's not skinny enough to be dated (yes that happened and the girl he did it to is beautiful and did NOT deserve that kind of BS). This boy - he's incapable of faithfulness. He's in a relationship now, but he'll be just like the Princes in the reprise of "Agony" in due time. He will long for what is "just out of reach" always.