Relationships

5 Childhood Beliefs Women Shouldn't Bring Into Adult Relationships

by Maheen Khan

Women are a rare breed.

We can be go-getters, achievers, run both a business and a household, divas, fashionistas, super moms, you name it.

We have incredible strength, and even in your darkest times, when you didn't know how you would make it, you did.

At the same time, we have complex feelings and emotions. We crave love, perfect dates, a family and so many more things. Each of us is on the lookout for "the one."

As little girls, we grew up believing certain things that make relationships harder when we grow up. Here are few of those things:

1. Prince charming will come.

Each of us who read "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast" or any other fairytale, always believed Prince Charming would come on his white horse and sweep us off our feet.

We all imagined our happy endings, but as you grow up, you realize this isn't always true.

You will meet many guys. Sometimes, the right ones but more often than not, the wrong ones.

Wrong doesn't necessarily mean he isn't a nice guy, though. Maybe you two just aren't compatible or you want very different things from life. He might be someone else's prince charming, but he's definitely not yours.

Because of our clouded judgment, we mistake him to be "the one." It is then you realize you might have to encounter a few mistakes to land perfection.

2. You will never get hurt.

Relationships are hard and not everybody has them figured out. You grow up believing the world is a beautiful place and nobody gets hurt.

When you go through your first tough breakup, you find out how untrue it is.

A broken heart is never easy to mend. Finding the courage to love again after having your heart broken is even more difficult.

You might get hurt more than once, but in the process, you also discover this newfound courage to get back up each time you fall.

3. You will never be played.

Guys come in all shapes and sizes, and they might not always have the right intentions for you. You might encounter a guy like this at some point.

As fate will have it, you might fall hopelessly in love with him. You are vulnerable, he’s done and said all the right things and he becomes the center of your universe.

But, what happens when you aren’t the center of his universe?

He starts to flake, cancels plans, gives you mixed signals and plays the "one foot in and one foot out" game.

You both know where this is going and you hope against all hopes it’s not going south. He was supposed to be different.

This is extremely hard, especially when you never believed it would happen to you.

4. You will always be treated like Daddy's little girl.

Remember when you were a kid and your dad always called you his princess? Well, relationships do not always work that way.

This sets a lot of high expectations, but a relationship is a two-way street. You get what you give.

You will have to make a few sacrifices and give up on things important to you for the other person. But, when you are in love, it's no big deal.

The other person's happiness makes you happy, just like how your dad found happiness in your smile.

5. It's going to be easy.

Just like everything else in life, nothing worth having comes easy. Love and relationships are a part of that.

Sometimes love alone isn't enough; there are greater things that control our lives.

We always imagined a happy ending, but when you grow up, you find out the story really begins after that happy ending.

What happens five years after the happy ending? The two people look at each other with the same love in their eyes, but probably not with the same excitement and fluttering heartbeats.

If you look closely, you might also find a little less happiness in those eyes. It is then that you realize a relationship requires a lot of work to stay afloat, and love isn't always enough.

So, why is it that as we grow up, the little girl who believed all these things gets lost somewhere?

After a few scars on our hearts, we don't really look at love the same way again. That little girl gets lost because she is terrified of the pain after a heartbreak.

She learns to build walls around her heart and protect it like a soldier. The guard goes up after you realize you can also be played.

That little girl is now a woman who also knows how to play the game.

Why aren't all the things that we believed as little girls true? Because we are just beautiful souls brought up listening to fairy tales in a cruel world.

Your strength isn’t lost, and you will find it once the rose-tinted glasses come off.

You'll find it when you realize your vulnerability, your naked body, your bare heart and all those flaws and perfections are perfect. Because they make up who you are.

Anyone who can’t respect that isn’t worth it, and someday, your fairytale will come true.