Another metaphor to share - because it's soo good!

Present State: Pauline doesn’t seem to be able to meet a ‘nice’ man and any one that does get close she looks for the slightest weakness and drops them.

Future State: Pauline would like to be able to meet a man that she wants to spend time with and enjoy a relationship with.

 

Once upon a time, many years ago there lived a King (Frank) and his daughter, the princess Fenella. Fenella was a happy, contented child with lots of friends. She grew up to be a kind, gentle and beautiful young woman.

At 16 she fell in love with the Prince in the next door kingdom, Francis. They were young, in love and very happy. But the king of that kingdom didn’t approve of Fenella and sent his son off to marry a much more useful princess in another kingdom. Fenella was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried, for weeks. All the joy went out of her face, her life and her being.

Her father, King Frank, was also heartbroken, to see his beautiful daughter so hurt. He decided at that moment that he would protect Fenella from this ever happening again. He built a big castle with a tall tower and at the bottom of the tower was a big heap of dung. He placed the heartbroken Fenella in a pretty room at the top of the tower and surrounded her with a magic glass screen. He decided that he would be the one to find her a suitable husband, one that wouldn’t hurt her like Francis had.

He wrote out a list of all the qualities that he was looking for in a husband for Fenella and shared it with her. He wanted to make sure that her husband would be all that a husband should be: tall, handsome, strong, brave, loyal, honest, kind, gentle, loving, giving etc, etc. The list went on and on! 

Whenever he found anyone he thought was suitable he sent them up the tower for her to see. Fenella would tell them to stand on the trap door and then ask questions to find out whether they were all, or any of, the things on the list. If they failed a single criterion, Fenella would pull a lever and the man would slide down a chute into the big dung heap.  One by one, time and again, princes, lords, earls and viscounts were sent up the tower to be inspected. Each one would fail to meet one of the criteria and Fenella would pull the lever and down the chute they would go, quick as you like, to the dung pile at the bottom, never to be thought of again.

Very occasionally someone would appear to meet all of the criteria and Fenella would allow them to meet her behind the magic glass screen, but always the man would show some sign of weakness and down the chute he would go.

This went on for many years and hundreds of really rather reasonable princes, earls, lords, and viscounts landed in the dung heap.

It was coming up to Fenella’s 21^st birthday and still no husband had been found for her. Although she had stopped crying a few years before, she was not happy and felt that something was missing from her life. She had been in the tower for so long that she couldn’t work out what it might be.

All the while, her fairy godmother had been watching in the hope that Frank would see the error of his ways and let Fenella out of the tower.  But, alas not. So she decided to fix things before it was too late. She appeared once day, after the latest prince had landed in the dung heap, and said to Frank and Fenella, ‘my dears, its time to make you both happy again.’

She used her magic to re-play scenes of Fenella’s former life on the walls of the tower: pictures of Fenella as a child and of Fenella and Francis young and in love.  Fenella remembered all the happy times with Francis: walks in the woods, holding hands, chatting over a lovely dinner. She was able to watch all of this without feeling the same hurt that she had once felt. She began to smile and remember what she and Francis had together and began to think that maybe she could have something like this again with someone else. 

Frank watched all the pictures too and remembered his beautiful daughter active and happy with lots of friends, having fun. He realised that keeping her in the tower, behind the glass screen wasn’t protecting her, but was keeping her from life. It had to stop.

As Fenella watched further, she realised that Francis would never have met the criteria on the list, but she had loved him anyway. No one, she realised, could live up to such an impossibly long list.  What she had to do was go out into the big wide world and really get to know people herself, in her own time. And, she had to leave the glass screen in the tower; it was far too heavy to carry around with her.

At that point the fairy godmother waved her magic wand and the glass screen shattered into a thousand pieces and in its place were a warm coat and a pair of sturdy shoes, (for going out into the big wide world)