why "happily ever after" is a lie [and real love is so much better]

we all grew up watching the same movie- the prince, the kiss, the credits, the happily ever after. 🤍 but no one ever showed us part two. no one told us what real love actually looks like after the credits roll.

this week on the self love archives, i'm getting honest about the fairy tale lie: how growing up on disney and "happily ever after" quietly set us up to expect love to be perfect, effortless, and low-effort- and why that expectation keeps so many of us stuck. (i'm a pisces, a romantic, and a former princess-obsessed little girl, so trust me, i had to unlearn this one myself.)

here's the reframe: real love isn't something that falls into your lap. it's built. the conflict, the hard conversations, the growth- those don't happen in the absence of love, they happen because of it. and the most impressive thing you can do for your inner child isn't waiting to be chosen… it's learning to choose yourself.

we get into what healthy, conscious, reciprocal relationships actually feel like, the one question that tells you everything ("does my inner child feel safe here?"), and why real love is so much better than any fairy tale.

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Transcript

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We all grew up watching the same movie. The prince, the kiss, the credits, the happily ever after. But no one showed us what happens after the credits are rolling. No one showed us a part two, what happens after the happily ever after. No one told us that real love requires making choices, making commitments. It requires showing up even when it's hard. It requires so much more than just the passiveness of a fairy tale. And the thing is, a lot of us are walking around as adults waiting for the fairy tale to still kick in. That fairy tale that you're waiting for, it's a sham. It's a lie. But real love is so much better, and I'm gonna prove it to you Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. I am your host, Julia Salvia, also known as your self-love bestie, and I am a pro at this subject. I knew every single Disney movie, every single Disney princess. I wanted and believed that I could have the fairy tale ending and the happily ever after. I am also a Pisces, which is literally the number one sign out of all of the astrology signs that truly believes that there is a fairy tale and happily ever after. That there is some sort of dream life that you are supposed to live, that you are supposed to have. But the thing is, is that at some point in our life, reality comes and smacks us so hard in the face and is like, "Hello, wake up. There's no such thing. There… It doesn't exist." But I think we've got it all wrong. Look, the fairytales did us dirty. The fairytales set us up to expect perfection, and we know here that perfection doesn't exist. So if perfection doesn't exist, this whole fairytale happily ever after also doesn't exist. And I think that consciously we know that. Consciously we know that there's no such thing as fairytales or happily ever after, but I think that subconsciously we're still waiting for things to be low effort, to be smooth. I s- I think that when relationships get hard, we automatically consider that this person isn't the one, and I do it all the time, even in my own relationship right now as it exists right now today. I sometimes get into my head where things get hard and I'm like, "This, this isn't the one. It's not perfect. W- we fight. Like, this happens and that happens, and we, we don't agree here, and there's conflict there." But that's just not true. We're taking out the consideration that we are literal human beings and not just characters in a movie. Things are not always going to go smoothly. Things are going to change. There are going to be disagreements, there's going to be conflict, and there's going to be things that are so joyful, and there's gonna be things that are amazing that you just didn't expect either. Look, conflict, growth, and hard conversations, all of those don't happen in the absence of love. They happen with love. We're, we're in a conflict and having these hard conversations, and we're experiencing growth with this person that we love or this person that we want to be with because we care about them, because we love them. Otherwise, I'm not fighting with you. I'm not, I'm not having an argument with you. I'm not, I'm not having a discussion with you. I'm not sitting there and trying to figure out a compromise or figure out how to make this work. I, I'm gone. Goodbye. I'm not fighting with you for no reason. If I don't care about you, I'm not fighting with you. Toodle-oo. Having hard conversations and growing together, like, that is part of love. Like, that, that is love. That- that's love doing its job because we're holding each other accountable, because we're communicating with each other, because we are understanding and realizing that we are both two separate individuals, two separate human beings, and we are completely different from each other, and we're having these conversations, and we're communicating because we are aware of that, because we are aware of the reality of that. I wanna be so, so, so clear, though, that two things. In relationships, you are supposed to have hard conversations. It's like a rite of passage in a relationship that you wanna have with someone for, you know, a long period of time. But there are also relationships where there is, I wouldn't say a right or a wrong way to argue, but there are extremes as to where if something doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't. If something doesn't feel… If you don't feel loved because this person is disrespecting you, this person is being unkind, like- That is a whole different subject and a whole different story. I'm not talking about that here. What I'm talking about is the nuances of being in a relationship with someone, with anyone, not just your partner, but with your friends, with your family. There's always gonna be hard conversations. There's always going to be disagreements, but there's also going to be agreements, and there's always also always gonna be easy conversations, too. There's going to be, be the nuances of both and everything in between. But there is also situations where someone isn't respecting you, and that's something to… That is just, like, a huge red flag. I'm not talking about the red flags or even the pink flags here. I'm talking about the realization that you and this other person are both human beings living on this earth, in this world, and you're not perfect, and you sure as hell are not two characters in a fairy tale. I think the truth is, is that if you are waiting for a relationship to be 100% effortless, then you're just chasing fiction or chasing something that doesn't exist. And, and if a relationship is 100% effortless, where is the depth in that relationship? Is there any depth in that relationship? Is there any value in that relationship if it's 100% effortless? My ex would always say to me all the time, "A relationship is supposed to be easy. A relationship is supposed to be easy." And I would always push back, like a re- relationship is, is not supposed to be just easy. It can be hard at times, and it can be easy at other times, but it's not supposed to be easy all the time. And honestly, if a relationship is easy or effortless 100% of the time, it's a complete, it's a complete utter lie. Because one of you is being complacent in that relationship. One of you is not being honest. One of you is not actually sharing your truth. And that's not to say that hard conversations can't be easy because you both have the utmost respect for each other and you know how to communicate with each other. It just means that there are still hard conversations happening. There's still depth happening. There's still growth happening. And if I were to look back at that relationship where my ex was always constantly saying, like, "A relationship is supposed to be easy. A relationship is supposed to be easy," it turns out that was his excuse for not having hard conversations and for not actually taking accountability for the things that he was doing that were disrespecting me. The inner child in all of us watched these movies and expected to grow up and find this fairy tale, find the one. But I think what our inner child really wanted is to be chosen, is to be seen, is to be understood. And all of those things are possible in a healthy relationship. And when we do have all of these things in a healthy relationship, like, it feels amazing. It feels so aligned. It, it feels easy. It feels like, thank goodness I have this person in my life who knows me, who trusts me, and I trust them, who I feel like I can be vulnerable with, I can share my life with. Like, that feels really good. Like, that is available. That does exist. In real love, like, that does exist. I want you to know that, and I want you to know that so deeply. But I think what gets lost in translation is that you don't just immediately have these things. These things are built. Real love is built I can't just meet someone and automatically know what they like, who they are, what, what makes them feel seen, what makes them feel understood. How do they communicate? What do they enjoy? How do they feel at home with themselves? I don't know any of those answers. You don't know any of those answers when you first meet someone. So you need to build on that. You need to learn that. And sometimes it's a forever process, and it's a, a process where you just continuously get to know this person more and more and more, and you get closer and closer and closer. And there's no time limit on this. There's no, "Oh, you need to know this about this person in one month, three months, five years." It's all on your own time. It's all reciprocal with this person that you're in a relationship with or hoping to build a relationship with. But when you have it, but when you've built it Boy, does it feel so good. So the relationships that you have now, your friends, your family, your partner, do those relationships feel connected? Do they feel deep? Do, does, do they feel reciprocal? Do you feel respected in those relationships? Do you feel seen, heard, understood, safe in those relationships? And my hope is that you do. And truthfully, your inner child, your, your, the little girl in you that used to watch these fairytales, I think she's gonna be so impressed with you, so impressed and so excited to have these relationships in her life. You could even go as far as asking, does your inner child feel safe here? Does she feel loved here with this person? That is the real test to the relationships that you have and that you are surrounded by. We are choosing love consciously, not choosing love passively. Like, we're not waiting for a fairytale to just come plop into our laps. We are consciously building the relationships with the people that we love and the people that we want to love. And that's the reframe right there. That's how we take this subconscious thought of waiting for the fairytale to fall into our lap and consciously putting to action all of the things that we want from our relationships and how we wanna show up in our relationships, healthy relationships. Being a conscious part of my relationships has, has felt really good. Like, "Hey, we've built something together here, and I love this for us." This all comes back to self-love. That relationship that I had with my ex- I didn't love myself enough to fight for what I deserved until I did, until I left, until I said, "I don't deserve this." You cannot build real relationships if you do not fight for what you deserve, if you don't know what you deserve. And maybe that's the first step to having these relationships that are tenfold better than any fairy tale relationship you have ever seen in any movie. And when you become a conscious part of the relationship that you have with yourself, and a conscious part of the relationship that you have with others, it feels so good to know that you have built that. You have built yourself up to know what you deserve, to know that you have a level of expectation that you are worthy of in your relationships, that, that you're worthy of with yourself, so that means you are worthy of it in your relationships. So you know that the person that you are in this relationship with respects you at the level of respect that you have for yourself. If you're waiting to be swept off of your feet, I think that you're gonna be disappointed. The most impressive thing that you can do for your inner child is to stop waiting to be chosen, and start choosing for yourself. Start choosing yourself. Start choosing your partners. Start choosing your people, your relationships, and the things that you surround yourself with. The fairy tale may not have been real, but you have the power to build anything and everything that you want to, including the relationships. And that right there is so much better than any fairy tale ever could be. And your inner child, honestly, I'm sure that she's very impressed with you. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode on the Self Love Archives podcast. I want you to share with me your favorite Disney princess, Disney character. I have to go with Meg from Hercules. I love everything about her. She is very much… I just, like, I c- I see myself in Meg in so many ways, more than I ever have for any of the other, like, Disney princesses or any of the other Disney characters. Meg, she's that bitch. She's that girl. So let me know who your favorite Disney character is and tell me why, 'cause I wanna know why you love this character so much. I hope you guys have the best week ever, and as always, I will be back here next week. We'll actually be talking about the Self Love Book Club book of the month of June, and I'm so excited to share it with you because it kinda feels a little on theme for, for June, for what we're talking about now. Everything feels, like, all in theme. And I actually would love to know, too, I would love to know what you guys think about our monthly themes. Have you been following them? How has it been going? And let me know all the things. So favorite Disney character or favorite Disney fairy tale, and also let me know how you feel about our monthly themes. Okay. I hope you have the best week ever, and I will see you back here for our book club month book episode of the month. Bye.