I belong to a generation of women who were exposed to the your-prince-will-come, happily ever after theme. I was horriblly abused as a child, so these themes had special resonance for me. My favorite movies were Cinderella (with Leslie Warren) and Wizard of Oz. In Wiz I identified the Wicked Witch of the West with my mother, and hoped that someday I'd believe there was "no place like home".

Far worse was Cinderella. She had an evil stepmother, but her prince came and rescued her. I fantasized from 5 years old that someone would come rescue me. And up into high school and my twenties, I HAD to believe my prince would come. (It never occurred to me that it could be a princess!)

Those June Cleaver households were the extreme opposite of what I experienced, and I became sullen and angry the more I saw those scenarios.

It took a lot of self-talk (and later, therapy) to disabuse myself of all those childhood fantasies. Of course, I went the extreme opposite -- told myself that there were no good people (or men) in the world, and all I could rely on was myself. It took my up until my late twenties before I came to a more healthy and rounded view.

But to this day it's still hard. I tend to lapse back into the mindset that there are no good people out there. All mother's spoil and at the same time mistreat their kids. Men always cheat. But a true reality check usually brings me back into balance. And I'm so glad I found someone healthy who treats me with dignity, respects my views and opinions (and indeed seeks them out), believes I'm smart and funny and just plain awesome. But I went through a long period of being attracted to the very people who would disrespect me before I taught myself to look at the average person and see their many positive traits.

The prince never came, so I became attracted to darkly handsome, quasi-dangerous individuals. But when I realized the pattern, I took steps to change my thinking. Too bad it wasn't until my late thirties! Still and all, I ended up with someone better than what I ever could have imagined for myself.

I guess that's a happily-ever-after story after all!