Happily Ever After- Really?

Heaven descended upon the tabloids this week when Arnold Schwarzenegger opened up about his “love child” with the housekeeper of his California home; the home he shared with wife Maria Shriver and their three children.  This story comes on the heels of controversies like Tiger Woods and his countless mistresses, Jesse James cheating on America’s Sweetheart Sandra Bullock, and Mel Gibson’s rage toward former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.  These high-profile actors are unfortunately, no different than the everyday people we surround ourselves with—we all fall susceptible to cheating, lust, anger and wandering from the moral code.  But where does that leave us?  Happily ever after—really?

The Sugarland song Happy Ending contains a line that has always rung loud in my head and my heart:
“It’s the reason for living,
it’s the reason the cage bird sings,
it’s why we see it in the movies,
all the way to the closing scenes. 
We’re all looking for a happy ending.”

As the press exploits the short-comings of human nature and the pain caused by it, how are we supposed to believe in happy endings?  The tabloids have me looking at my own world in a very grim nature these days.  I am a single, late-20s, professional woman who wants to find “the one” and believes (I think) in true love and destiny.  However, I find myself helping a friend go through a rough divorce because her ex-husband thought it was justified to hit her when she was pregnant and upset him. I have another friend who has gone missing after dating a man she met online. She has been missing for two weeks and the “boyfriend” has committed suicide- how do you see the silver lining in that story?

How does true love survive and does it really even exist?  I believe that love is a choice and a commitment.  That when you stand on an alter with that one special person, saying the words “for better or worse” and “I do” means that you will commit to love even when the “like” does not exist.  Now (disclaimer)… I have been called a dreamer and an optimist but the tides may be changing.  I have been on dates with strange men, lazy men, offbeat men and very attractive men; but it is a struggle to look at the scene and see a “Prince William and Kate” story rather than a “Jesse and Sandra” or “Arnold and Maria” story at the end of the plotline.  We go to movies and we go on dates expecting a happy ending, a conclusion and closure- not to be disappointed or hurt. 

So—coming full circle—is marriage and love all it’s cracked-up to be?  If so, then how do we explain the pain it causes, the suffocation of human desires and the struggle to commit to love during the rough patches?  And why do most humans still desire and search endlessly for love?  We have made Match.com and E-harmony millions upon millions of dollars over the years by believing and pursuing love.  Single people have been told to grocery shop on Friday and Saturday nights, join church clubs, alumni clubs and talk to strangers we find attractive at the coffee shop next door.  Are these tips foolish or another way of the world combatting the depression of bad marriages and bad relationships with an undying hope for true love?  I believe our world is witnessing a battle; a battle between the anticipation and confidence of a happy ending vs. the facts of tabloid stories and unfortunate news articles. 

God built our bodies and minds to believe in something greater than ourselves and maybe that is love…an unattainable but ever hopeful love.

“Love is just a word until it is proven to you.”
--Unknown