Image credit: Photo by Glamhag on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

In the original (non-Disney) version of Cinderella, the evil stepsisters, unable to fit their large feet into Cinderella's tiny glass slipper, cut off their toes. I always wondered what they were thinking. Of all the places to try to hide a bloody foot, a clear glass slipper isn't exactly the best spot. Yet, they are so desperate to be the woman the prince wants that they are willing to grotesquely hack off body parts to do it.

The action is so horrific, it seems unthinkably insane, and yet today, I was thinking that it's exactly what I've done and expected others to do in relationships. No, I haven't literally hacked off my toes (although I'm sure you can find someone who really has undergone plastic surgery for more appealing feet), but at times (often without even realizing it) I've changed the clothes and makeup and jewelry I wore, the way I cut my hair, my body weight, the music I listened to, the books I read, or even the opinions I held. I did those things not for me, but to please someone else.

After all, isn't that the way things are supposed to work in a relationship? I give a little; I get a little, right? So, I expected the same. I expected changes and concessions. I even demanded them. And I was angry when people didn't surprise me with the flowers I'd asked them to surprise me with or wow me by repeating the scripts I'd written for them, words that would show me love much better than whatever they had intended to say themselves. All of us -- the people I dated and me -- had an emptiness inside, something like Cinderella's slipper. And, like the prince's frenzied search across the entire land or the stepsisters' desperate self-disfigurement, we were all craving that fit that was going to put our broken lives right again somehow. We were shaving off bits and pieces of ourselves or carving up our partners in a crazy attempt to fake that one true match.

It has taken me years to see that no matter how many toes I lop off, the blood pooling in a clear shoe and the pain of walking on broken feet will give me away every time. And the truth is, even without the knife, there is no perfect fit. I'm not someone else's Cinderella, and my Cinderella isn't out there walking around (on her two perfectly suited feet) in the form of some person outside me. She's in me, in God. And oh, those slippers feel so good when they're finally really filled.

I even have favorite Disney princess, the one to whom I most relate: Belle of Beauty and the Beast. Belle, the one walking around with her nose in a book, dreaming of a different life, falling in love with a man (or rather, beast) for his library: that's me. In my pre-kid days, I used to commute to work by public transit, and I would read door to door, reading as I walked. Somehow I avoided any major accidents, or maybe they avoided me; I was too busy reading to notice. And I have been known to fall for a man for his library, although I can't say I recommend it.

But I relate to more than just Belle's bookishness. As I have been reading this Disney princess book aloud to my daughter over and over, it has occurred to me that Belle's story is one I used to believe in and wish for. I didn't dream of marrying a dashing, handsome prince; nope, I always dreamed of marrying a lonely, solitary, isolated man who would be transformed by my love.

The beast physically assaults and imprisons Belle's elderly father and verbally abuses and imprisons Belle. But simply by loving and being loved, he's cured, healed, fixed! No more anger management problems, just gentle loving kindness. He loves her, she loves him, and he literally and instantaneously transforms from a monster to a man. Her love is the magic ticket to the happily ever after. It's just what every codependent wants and believes is possible. And just like all fairy tales, it's a fantasy. Now to explain that to my daughter...