Letting Go of the Fairytale
Before I made the biggest mistake of my life, I took a trip with “Carlos” to the French Alps. Though I’d only known him for a few months, at the end of the first week of our whirlwind romance in Rome, he took my face in his hands and told me he loved me.
With every fiber of my being, I threw fuel on the fairytale fire that had caught in my soul: I had met the love of my life in Italy. We would spend the rest of our lives together. Anything that threatened to undo that narrative was quickly discarded, exiled to the basement of my subconscious—only to be unpacked years later when I was trying to make sense of a disaster.
After hours of driving along a single-lane dirt road that switchbacked up a steep mountain with no guardrails, we arrived at a tiny gîte he’d visited many times. That’s when I started picking up on patterns. Like how he’d never been with the same woman twice. Once, he told me, he hiked so far ahead of a date that she got lost and had to be rescued by helicopter. “Chilly ride home,” he shrugged. That was the end of her.
But I didn't let that story put out the fire of my fairytale. Off we went, hiking into the Alps. He left me behind, too—though not for miles. He’d eventually stop and wait, which I took as a sign that he cared.
Then there was the river. One day, we went “hot dogging” on Class IV rapids. I was the only English speaker in a group of international tourists. Safety instructions were given in French, Spanish, and Italian. When it came to English, the guide said two words: “Don’t panic.”
We were each handed a glorified kickboard with a shield and handles, then told to throw ourselves into the roaring river. If we flipped upside down, we were to hang on and fight our way back to the surface. Moments after launching myself into the icy current, I flipped. Completely submerged, disoriented, adrenaline surging—I somehow managed to right myself. The guide in the kayak quickly appeared. “You okay?” he shouted.
I looked up, gasping, scanning the water. Carlos was already far ahead. He hadn’t looked back.
That was the moment I should have panicked—not about the water, but about the man.
That was the moment I should have left him in Europe.
But I needed the story more than I needed the truth. I needed the fantasy more than I needed safety.
So, after two years of immigration paperwork and legal navigation, I married him in a surreal little ceremony along the St. Croix River. And for the next four years, I lived inside a fairytale—alone.
He withdrew for days at a time with no explanation. There was no argument, no incident—just cold silence. At first, I thought it was a language barrier. Or maybe cultural. But when I’d ask why he wasn’t speaking to me, he’d say with clinical detachment, “You need too much attention. You’re insecure.”
I asked him to leave more than once. Each time, he stayed. He’d bring home grocery store flowers and leave them wrapped on the counter like a cat dropping off a dead bird. Not a gesture of peace, but proof. Look what I did.
After nearly four years of marriage, following another stretch of meanness, I told him again to go. And this time he said, “I think I will.”
It took a few more months for him to move into his own apartment. In the meantime, he slept on the couch. When he finally left, he left behind the imprint of his body—a greasy shadow on the old leather, next to the claw marks from his cats. Like a ghost embedded in the furniture.
Friends were the ones who finally said out loud what I hadn’t dared to admit: he left just after the conditions were lifted on his green card. Four years. Just long enough to make the marriage look real.
It’s easy to look back and say, I should have known. But love stories don’t fall apart all at once. They unravel quietly, thread by thread, while you’re busy narrating a fairytale to yourself—and to everyone else—because the alternative feels too humiliating to say out loud.
I didn’t want anyone to know. I felt like a complete fool.
My daughter, who was in college at the time, eventually asked me gently, “Mom, how long did you know it wasn’t going to work?”
I looked at her and said, “Oh, honey. Almost from the moment he stepped foot in the U.S.”
She didn’t say anything at first. Then, with more compassion than I expected, she asked, “Mom… why didn’t you say anything?”
What she was really asking was: Why did you do this alone?
I’ve spent years sitting with that question.
What I’ve learned is this: when we believe in a fairytale, we often think letting go of it means we’ve failed. That we weren’t strong enough, wise enough, good enough to make the story work. And so we hold on, even as it cuts us, because walking away feels like confessing something shameful.
But letting go of a fairytale isn’t failure. It’s growth.
It’s knowing the difference between longing and truth. Between fantasy and real love. Between solitude and loneliness.
And what I’ve learned about doing things alone?
You don’t have to. Not ever again.
Sometimes it takes a witness to help you see your story clearly.
If you're navigating heartbreak, self-doubt, or the tender work of starting over, I offer private coaching for people who are ready to reclaim their power and write a new ending.
Or simply reach out. I’d be honored to walk beside you.