Session 4 - Being Married Perspective

Transcription of session 4 – Love and married, research interview conducted by Miss Sleeping Beauty. Interviewee: Princess Jasmine Din

Sleeping Beauty (SB): “Morning Princess Jasmine Din, please can we confirm that you are aware your session is being recorded for research purposes?”

Princess Jasmine Din (PJD): “Yes, Miss Beauty, we can.”

SB: “Great, thanks so much for offering your input as part of my research into love and marriage, and for travelling all the way from Disneyland to the land next to Far Far Away. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your participation.”

PJD: “It’s a pleasure Miss Beauty; I love everything to do with the advancement of freedom of expression and opinion. There’s nothing worse than being caged away from the world and all its intricacies and delights.”

SB: “I’m so grateful for your perspective. I feel similarly, we must discuss things and get them out into the open so we can really make fully informed decisions in life, especially on the big one of “I do, forever”. I think some people underestimate the work and time involved in that statement.”

PJD: “So true Miss Beauty. When I first met Ali it was truly incredible. I mean, how many girls get whisked around the world on a flying carpet? He literally knew how to sweep a girl off her feet, unfortunately, later on; I had to learn that there is a lot he sweeps under that carpet too. Metaphorically speaking you understand. He just battles with communication, and, as most of the world knows, it took Genie forever to get Al to tell me the truth; and the whole beggar to Prince Story has taken him for a shock. Shame, initially he simply tried to avoid looking as ignorant as he was about royalty and I had to try not to know it all. Such a challenge. Eventually we put him on a full: “how to be royal” course, naturally his free soul didn’t like it at all. It really has involved a lot of self-discipline and patience and perseverance from everyone, but we’re slowly finding the balance between two very different worlds to create a whole new world. It has not been easy at all.”

SB: “If it’s so difficult and life-changing, then how are you managing to keep going?”

PJD: “I realise it’s a cliché; but, we really do genuinely love each other. He’s my best friend. He’s the only person in the world that I can’t and won’t white lie to. We talk about it. He’s frustrated, we talk about it. I’m annoyed, we talk about it. Personally, I prefer writing about it, but Ali isn’t a big reader so we’re both learning how to communicate and we stick to the even bigger cliché: Do not go to bed angry or with anything unresolved, and respect each other whilst moving to a resolution. After trying the decided resolution, if it doesn’t work, then we try another. We have realised that we are on a life journey together, it’s not a week, a month, or a few years, it’s for the entire length of our lives on this planet. When we’re having a really tough moment, one of us will remember that we’ve already conquered phenomenal cosmic evilness in Jafar, so the rest is really minor in comparison. We also both know that there isn’t a “way out” option. We know that we are together for a higher purpose and for the betterment of a Kingdom. That Kingdom needs to flourish and expand, whilst being filled with positive, loving and community-orientated people. If we aren’t practicing what we expect of our people, then we would be hypocrites. We have far too much moral integrity to be hypocrites. We also have fantastic advisors, now that Jafar is out the way as the ex-advisor to the King. Kicking out the Evil One has made life so much smoother for us all. We will always be indebted to the incredible Spirit of our Genie. We truly loved him. That love and respect for such wonderful Spirit and letting it permeate amongst us always is also a way in which we cope. Our centre is in that goodness and the hope that what we start and what we role model will overflow into the Kingdom. Overall, I guess its Love and the unified service of a higher purpose than ourselves that ensures we manage to keep it together and rise above the challenges.

SB: “Ah yes the Genie. He was so wonderful. My condolences for your loss.”

PJD: “Thanks Sleeping Beauty. His passing was a shock to us all, sadly that’s what happens when you are free, you make earthly choices and it is hard. He was so used to serving and loving that I think once he was free he felt lonely and purposeless. I cannot imagine how difficult a struggle it must have been, so heavy on the heart. Maybe it was pride that stopped him from coming back to us, or maybe the negative people of the world got to him, we’re not sure, but we truly loved him. He was always great at humour and fabulous entertainment, we were sad when he chose to leave and ‘be free’, but it was his choice and you always give those you love what they choose when they want it so badly. Dealing with the loss and the grieving so early in our marriage has prepared us for how we will handle things in the future. We mourn and grieve in different ways and it has been both frustrating and enlightening to learn each other and respect each other and try to be there for each other. When we both hit a wobbly at the same time, then we part to heal and return to chat about it afterwards. There is no special pill or Giant Book of The Right Way when it comes to mourning or marriage, this we have learnt very very quickly. Our dear friends Beauty and The Beast have a significantly different type of marriage to ours, but theirs works too. What we have in common is that all four of us put in the time, love, commitment and respect needed to create joy in our homes. I still miss Genie a great deal and I don’t believe that heartache will ever disappear and I don’t think I want it to, because that would mean that the joy and love he gave me would have disappeared with him.”

SB: “Wise words Princess. Have you learnt anything new about yourself in the context of marriage?”

PJD: “What haven’t I learnt! My word! I can be extremely judgmental; I’ve had to significantly tone down my manner of assessing situations. I have learnt that my over-active imagination must not be allowed to fester. If I have a problem, or I’m perceiving a situation as something I don’t like, I have to tell Al right away, speak to him about what’s going on inside my brain and get his take on it. In order to do that, I’ve had to learn to trust. I didn’t realise how much I battle to trust and, of course, I think my husband is the sexiest most awesome man on the planet, so adjusting to my ridiculous levels of jealousy has been a killer. We have to go to all these Kingdom functions and the most gorgeous women from all over the lands arrive and spend time ‘chatting’ to my husband. I hate it. I really do. I wish I could lock him in the palace for my interactions alone. Heh heh, that really has been a struggle. I was always so independent and did what I wanted too. I was also an only child who got her way for everything, and now independence becomes selfishness and only child traits have warped into jealousy and selfishness too. It has caused quite a few rows between us, but I’m working through it. It has been amazing to learn these things about myself. Between you and I though, it felt glorious at the last function because we had a touring concert and the lead singer decided to speak to me all evening and Al had a mini-fit. We laughed about it before we went to sleep that night, realising that we clearly do have a childish desire to have and to hold!

Another thing I have learnt about my previously independent self is that I am completely romantic. I never thought I was. I was always into academic reading and expanding my knowledge to be a queen, intellectual discussions to be able to interact with other heads of Kingdoms and perpetually interested in my gardening and menagerie. I turned down so many romantic suitors that I didn’t realise I was simply waiting for the right one to woo me. And boy is Al great at that! I get poetry, songs, precious little notes, the odd breakfast in bed and sneaky weekends away when we can escape palace duties. He’s bought me roses and sometimes he just stands there staring at me and he tells me that he just can’t believe how much he adores me, that he never knew someone like him would have the Grace of such amazing Love in his life. I cry, I melt, I become such a girl and my heart wants to escape my chest so it can nestle next to his heart, safe and loved. The romance side has been a beautiful thing to learn about myself. Having Al be the one to bring it out of me has been magical. At dinner the other night with Beauty and the Beast, Belle mentioned how it had to happen that we would end up romantic, after all, we grew up with lyrics like “tell me princess when did  you last let your heart decide?”, “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme… just a little change, small to say the least, both a little scared, neither one prepared…ever as before and ever just as sure as the sun will rise”, “when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are, your dreams will come true” and she made me laugh when she sang “you wanna kiss da girl” with all the Jamaican flare of Little Mermaid’s Sebastian. She had a very valid point though, you can’t grow up hearing lyrics like “I’m never gonna give you up” and “it’s got to be perfect” without internalising it within your subconscious to manifest in some way in the future. I simply had no idea how much I would love being loved truly. It makes me relieved and proud of myself that I turned down all those suitors who were after the crown and not the whirlwind journey of loving someone.”

SB:  “Well done you. Sadly, though, we’re running out of time and I know you like to visit the children’s ward whilst you are here, so to close off this session, would you mind telling me a bit about the way you have found it best to approach your long-term journey of love with Prince Ali?”

PJD: “Well, our story is different. Neither of us comes from a ‘normal’ background. Neither of us grew up with a Mother. My father is more reliant on his advisors than any other Sultan or King I know of. For all his jovial love of life and the simple things, and as much as I love him dearly, he is not the best role model for a solid relationship. Al grew up around orphanages and those are run like a business and the advisors run our Kingdom like a business. So we have used what we know as our approach to the strategy, so to speak, for the roll out of our marriage. It honestly functions like a business partnership really. We have monthly budget meetings. We do annual plans and quarterly follow-ups. We schedule in leave from the madness, we invest in training for how to be the best we can be with each other. We have weekly partners’ dinners and daily meetings on all the little stuff. If we need to take minutes when we speak, to be at full attention for the other person and to make sure we remember things, then we do. Our minds are so busy with palace duties and diplomacy and learning the ropes for before father’s retirement that we make sure we write it down and diarise it and make sure that our marriage is scheduled right in there before all the other stuff. We are partners, which means: we are both fully and jointly liable in all respects, from finances to leave to productivity and our successes and failures. We are each other’s most invaluable and important asset, and we treat each other in a way that you would have seen in the press coverage of our outings that shows we mean business. We mean to love each other as a verb and not only as a wishful thought. Being married is a job for us, a job where we are creating and earning what we desire for every day of our future. Some may see it as ‘untraditional’, but in this world of more stress and strain and craziness than ever before, we know we are weak, learning and still so young, so we need the structure, and, quite honestly, I don’t think that the ‘traditional’ boss and wife set-up is helping anyone except the ‘boss’; and marriage is not about ‘Who’s the Boss’, in our opinion anyway. . . Oh yes time is flying, I must be on my way to the other wing. It’s been lovely chatting. I’ll get my secretary to give you a buzz to set up the next one. Take care Miss Beauty.”

SB: “Thanks Princess, it’s been enlightening indeed. I look forward to our next meeting. Keep well.”