As kids, we grew up hearing countless fairy tales—almost all of them ending with "happily ever after." Most of us believed in those stories and hoped we'd find our own happy ending someday. After all, that’s what love is supposed to be, right? Two people meet, fall madly in love, overcome a few obstacles, and then live happily ever after. Simple.

But as we experience more of life, reality sets in. We start to realize that fairy tales don’t exactly exist in the real world. And that realization? It can be disappointing, exhausting, or even heartbreaking. We watch relationships fall apart, not just our own but those around us—our friends, our family, even the couples we once thought were “perfect.” Suddenly, the love stories we believed in start to feel more like myths than reality.