Beauty and the Beast Rewind: the typical relationship.

This classic is filled with inspiration and romance. It captures the hearts and awakens the imagination. But the story is different than real life in only one way, yes one: Its backwards from the “typical” relationship. If we were to play this film backwards, we would see an all to familiar synopsis. One, most of us have been in close proximity to, if not played a major role in. Let me give you the rundown, backwards:

We have a couple that are madly in love, happy and destine to live happily ever after. A prince and princess. They have learned to love and earn the love of the other. But then one of them starts to change (maybe both of them change) and selfishness set in. The once prince charming now is prone to being alone, doing his own thing and even becomes mean. He has lost his manners and looks less and less like a gentleman with each passing year. Soon the love is a forgotten skill and self is the only motivation left. Now the transformation is complete. The man has become the beast. The woman tolerates it in hopes that things will get better, hopes for a small glance, a small jester, but the longer it goes, the home slowly becomes a prison: The beast, it’s warden. The request have been replaced with demands. The two were so much alike and in love-now are almost different species and incompatible at best. Things get so bad that all signs of love are gone and fear has taken its place. Questions fill her mind: How did he get this way? Why is he so mean? Can he change? Should he change? Is it may fault? The only thing left to to is flee, to run, to return home into the comfort of family, leaving the beast alone and lost. But the home of our youth cannot fill our souls of our adulthood. We need a helper, a true love, a friend for life.

So we have the classic story told backwards. A fairy tell turned around and into real life. This story happens too often. The culprit: complacency and selfishness. See when we have been exposed to something for a long time, that something becomes expected and even deserved. We forgot what it was like to earn the love of others because, well, it’s just been there all this time…and it’s MINE! This is our mistake and this is where the cures of the beast set in. Complacency leads to selfishness. Selfishness is a trait for beast, not couples.

So all along, the cause of the curse is the cure for the curse. Unselfish acts earn the care of others. Not demands, not expectancies, not arrangements. Nope, just unconditional love. That means, regardless of the way they act, I choose to love them. REGARDLESS. Once we set conditions, we are not being unconditional and unselfish. Conditions like honesty, kindness, and loyalty. If all these fail, unconditional love is there to win the day. And make no mistake: setting a number of times he/she can fail at any of these is a condition.

The great thing about unconditionally love is that it starts with the only one in the relationship that you can change: YOU. But rest assured, it is contagious. 

SO there is hope for the beauty and hope for the beast, as long as YOU are willing to set the new unconditional standard in the home.

And they lived happily ever after…

P.S. I choose to focus on the man to stay true to the fairy tail but this is a gender neutral problem. The man or the woman can become the beast, sorry ladies.