O Happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As in the morning's silver melting dew.
- Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, Stanza 4

Yes, true happiness is enjoyed by only a few, as most people in the world aren't really happy at all, except, of course, for small children. Oh, the adults may be content, or satisfied with their lot, resigned to their fate, settled in their routine, but to be truly happy. hardly.

And even those who are happy, at one point never experience that feeling for a long time, as it is as ephemeral as the morning's silver melting dew, which glistens for a fleeting time, then disappears as the sun rises. And yet, all the fairy tales of our youth ended with the words, "And they lived happily ever after."

No matter what happened from the very first words of, "Once upon a time," and all the trials and tribulations in between, of dragons and dungeons and warlocks and witches, Snow White in her comatose state after eating the tainted apple, the prince who gave her CPR to revive her, and all the hanky-panky that may have occurred with the seven dwarfs, the story ended with, "And they lived happily ever after."

All the stories ended that way. But did they really live 'happily ever after', or was it merely to make us feel good as we closed the last pages and went to bed, living vicariously through the characters and subsequently ourselves? Who really knew what happened after they were supposed to live 'happily ever after', and how come no one ever started a story that dealt with what happened after the happily ever after? To me that's when the real story begins, the tale of what really happened in the happily ever after era.

Well guess what, that's when the worries really start, during that phase. That's when the prince discovered that Snow White was carrying on with two of the seven dwarfs, and she in turn found out that he was a necrophiliac, that's why he molested her as she lay prone in her casket. That's when reality hits home. Now, I don't want to burst any child's bubble who reads fairy tales, but am I wrong to think that? I don't think so, for based on my research, 'happily ever after' is a real mother, plus kids nowadays don't read that stuff anyway.

A recent report stated that of all divorces, women under the age of 25 comprised more than 50 per cent. Even I was surprised at that figure as no way would I imagine that half of all divorcees are women under 25. My word, a woman of 25 is still a pickney, even though they give the illusion of maturity, yet they make up half of all divorce cases. What happened to their 'happily ever after', what happened to their knight in shining armour, their Prince Charming, their Nirvana?

Was their happiness only reserved for the wedding day, only to vanish after the last guest went home? Clearly, if they divorced by age 25, it means that they got married at around age 19 or 20, with the 'happily ever after' lasting a mere four years on average. Perhaps they should have changed those endings to read, "And they lived 'happily ever after' for a short time." That would make it more credible.

But why is this period of happily ever after so short? Well, I have my theories, backed up by research, and for one, this age thing is a factor. There should be a law that prohibits couples from marrying too young, say 35 for men and 28 for women. Sure, you're going to say rubbish, what about having children? But the fact is, most men and women below that age are simply not mature enough to handle the 'happily ever after' of marriage.

Below that age, the man's brain is addled by sex, and that's all he sees in his bride, how she looks enticing and how much he wants her. "What a woman criss, I must married to her to get that body forever and live happily ever after." So he marries her and has her, repeatedly, over and over, every night, trying to finish it, until he can't go any more, and as they say in Jamaica, him clide (a corruption of the word cloy, past tense cloyed.look it up).

So his lust diminishes and there is nothing else to hold him, for that's all he saw in her. He then loses interest, and poof! there goes the 'happily ever after'. That's why they say that for every beautiful woman, there is some man who is tired of making love to her. All because of the fact that it's all he saw in her, her body was his happily ever after.

It happens to the women too, and in many cases more rapidly than the men, as after a few nights of marathon sex, she asks herself, "So is this it, is that all there is, is this the happily after that I read and dreamed about, this repetitious pounding, mauling, sweating and chafing? What a let-down."

I know of women who've felt that way from the first night of the honeymoon. Women have told me this about their marriage, "You know what is true, I should have left him from the first week of marriage, but it looked bad, so I stuck it out and looked happy for a few years."

The hard, cold fact is, people often expect too much from each other, and when those expectations are not met, then they are bitterly disappointed and move on. While courting, everything is great, both parties are on their best behaviour, they go out a lot, he spends on her, she never says no, she's always dolled up and they have great times. To me, that should be the time that's called 'happily ever after', for that's when the good times roll.

Talk to any wife of age 40 and over, stuck in a dead-end job, saddled with four kids and a husband who merely exists, and ask her if this is the 'happily ever after' that she envisaged. Speak to any husband, married for 16 years to a wife who has no interest in him, save for providing for the house, and ask him if this is the 'happily ever after' that he thought it would be. Ah, the majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and most women only see 'happily ever after' in the storybooks.

"They should have locked up those writers of those fairy tales for misleading us and giving us false hope," this couple told me. The figures speak for themselves, the courts are clogged with divorce cases, and those who are not divorced merely exist and mark time in their relationships. Some people fool themselves with the illusion of happiness, equating it with a lifestyle of material possessions, but when you really talk to them, you hear how unhappy they really are. Many wives bury themselves in the lives of their children, pay the penance of child rearing, neglect their husbands, but will still bleat about living 'happily ever after', even though they hardly speak anymore and sleep in separate bedrooms.

At times, no one is to blame, as even the mere fact of growing old is a contributing factor that militates against 'happily ever after'. "My word, here I am approaching 60, is this it, stuck with the same woman until I die. what do I have to look forward to?" The women echo those sentiments also, as the prospect of growing old and stuck in a rut is often scary and a major cause of unhappiness.

Snow White was young and pretty once, and the prince who rescued her was a strong, strapping youthful lad. Now she is middle-aged, miserable and wrinkled, and he is old, fat and paunchy, unable to mount his steed or anything else for that matter. "So this is the 'happily ever after'. I should have stayed in a coma with the seven dwarfs."

"This is who I end up with. She's still comatose, I should have saved Rapunzel instead."

So both she and he say respectively.

We should treat 'happily ever after' as here and now, on the first day of the relationship, from the first hello, and not look down the road to any future bliss. The best days are the first days, for with time, the equation changes. Facing the task of raising children who need constant care, food, school fees, clothing, guidance and discipline is daunting, and cannot be described as happily ever after. Still, we do it and are happy at times, but it's more duty and stress than happiness. Feel the pressure of finding rent, mortgage, light bill, water bill, phone and grocery, plus car payments and talk about 'happily ever after'. But we do it, and we survive, content with our lot.

So instead of looking forward to the illusory 'happily ever after', we should start the stories with, "They met and were happy in the beginning," and end with, "And they looked forward to an uncertain future, fraught with untold perils with the prospect of illness, old age, maybe wealth, maybe poverty, but we wish them all the best." That's how I would start and end my stories. But 'happily ever after?'...Nah.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

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