Austenland and Me (or, How One Line from a Very Silly Romcom Changed my Life)

This is not a movie review; it’s a post about self-discovery. I’ll need to give a little background about the movie, Austenland, first though (spoilers follow). The movie is based on a novel by Shannon Hale of the same title (which I haven’t yet read). Our heroine, Jane, is a single woman in her 30s obsessed with the world of Jane Austen who decides to blow her savings on a vacation to Austenland (a theme park where romance is guaranteed) in an attempt to get the whole thing out of her system -once and for all. She arrives and, well…hilarity ensues. (Jane Seymour is excellent as Mrs. Wattlesbrook, the resort’s director, by the way). At the end of her stay, Jane decides to reject her scripted romance with "the resident Mr. Darcy” in favor of “something real.”

I’ll jump in at this point to say that my husband, David, is my Mr. Darcy. In fact, before I met David, my best friend’s mother (who was reading Pride and Prejudice at the time) told me that the guy I was currently dating was my “Mr. Wickham” but that my “Mr. Darcy” was just around the corner. As it turned out, just months after this exchange, I met Dave, but unlike Elizabeth Bennett’s initial reaction of disdain, mine was nothing short of love-at-first-sight. Don’t ask me how I knew, but from the moment I walked into that half-empty BYU classroom and David turned around in his chair and smiled at me in that perfectly genuine way of his, I knew. I could feel the rest of my life about to unfold.

There’s a part in The Happiness Project in which Gretchen Rubin talks about her feelings for her husband, Jamie. She explains that, to her, he exists in epic proportions, like a hero from Greek Mythology. I immediately related because I feel the same way about my David. I’ll save my love letter until our anniversary next month, but, suffice it to say, I adore him. Or, to get my Austen on, we have been “incandescently happy” in our marriage these past seven years.

But here’s the catch: while these feelings of intense love and appreciation for my husband are entirely wonderful and healthy, the undercurrent of unworthiness that so often accompanies them is anything but. For instance, the seemingly innocent thought, “I’m so lucky to have him,” often holds a darker side -a side that says, “I’m so lucky to have him because I really don’t deserve him.” It’s funny, because the thing I probably love the most about my husband is his great esteem for me, and yet, deep down, I don’t believe that his feelings for me are truly deserved or completely based in reality. And so I’ve gone on, year after year, with a distant feeling of shame or unworthiness in my marriage that has sometimes ebbed to an almost inaudible echo of an echo, but that has sometimes risen to an almost deafening shout.

Which bring us back to Austenland. In the last scene of the movie, the Mr. Darcy character (Henry Nobly) shows up at Jane’s apartment. He tells her that his love wasn’t, in fact, scripted. “The night of the ball you said you wanted something real. I’d like to think I am real. Is it possible that someone like me can make you happy? Will you let me try?” To which our disbelieving heroine replies, “No. See, people don’t do this. This is my fantasy. This isn’t…” And then, with conviction, Mr. Nobly cups her face in his hands and says, “Have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? Jane…you are my fantasy.”

 It hit me then. (Okay, to be honest, it didn’t hit me until my second viewing of the movie, but, eventually, it did hit me.) I. am. Dave’s. fantasy. It was an incredibly empowering thought. His feelings for me are every bit as valid as my feelings for him. And I’m convinced that by remembering this, or, more importantly, by believing and internalizing this, I will transform my life and my marriage for the better. Without turning this into a lengthy post about shame and worthiness, I’ll just share a little bit about what I’ve been learning from author Brene Brown in her book, Daring Greatly. Self-love is foundational to any relationship. It takes self-love to be “real” and to be vulnerable and to really connect with others. And love is what grows out of this honest and respectful connection. So self-love isn’t just good; it’s essential and it greatly magnifies our ability to wholeheartedly love those around us.

So, the next time I catch myself thinking, “How did I ever get him?” or “He does so much more for me than I do for him” or even just a, “Dang! I’m lucky to have him,” I’m going to force myself to repeat these words and I’m going to try to really believe them: “He is lucky to have me. I enrich his life deeply. I am worthy of love and I am going to approach the people in my life from a place of worthiness. I am David’s fantasy as much as he is mine.”