Killing the Disney Princess Fantasy in Relationships: From Extraction & Control to Sovereign Love

We dismantle the Disney princess fantasy and show how to move from extraction and control toward sovereign, mutual, love‑centred relationships. We name the childhood roots, the subtle control strategies, and the grief work that restores agency and real intimacy.

• defining the princess fantasy and rescue myth
• why the programming lands on unmet needs
• how waiting to be chosen delays growth
• pedestalising partners and the ring illusion
• subtle control, overfunctioning and protest
• repairing trust and using conflict for growth
• grieving the past to return to the present
• shifting to what we bring into relationships
• practical steps for boundaries and agency

Feel free to email me if you've got any questions, or if you want some support with bringing more of 'you' into your relationships. Check out Sovereign Relationships, where I'll help you get from extraction, transactional, and fantasy-based relationships into mutual, sovereign, embodied love.

Chapters

• 0:00 Tempo: 120.0

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:26

Hello, hello. Welcome to this episode, which is all about killing the Disney princess fantasy and moving from transactional-based relationships that are based on extraction and control to more mutual and sovereign love-based and self-growth-oriented relationships. Oh my gosh. This is something that really affects women, really affects our relationships. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but anyway, I've got to craft in it now. So I am going to talk you through what is this Disney princess fantasy. Why does the programming work? How does this fantasy and program show up in daily life? How we try and uphold the fantasy with subtle means of manipulation and control, and how to dissolve this spell that we're under. So please know, as usual, I'm saying all this with a massive dose of love, understanding, having gone through most of it and uh deconstructed it myself, made all the freaking, not even mistakes, but hiccups and learn from them. And this is also relevant not to just intimate relationships with our partners. And I am talking mostly heterosexual relationships, but it's it's also relevant to our close friendships that we really value as well. So this is really about how do we move into relationships where we're bringing more of ourselves. The focus isn't what we're getting, but the focus is how much love am I embodying? What am I bringing? How am I cultivating love rather than trying to extract something from someone or something outside of ourselves? And I'm also not saying everything we have is within us, and we can just operate on a mountaintop and be totally fine. That's not it. What I'm saying is we can bring more and more love to our relationships, and relationships are what we need. Need, need underlined. We cannot escape this. And our relationships are where we were hurt and where we've been hurting, and relationships are where we get to heal. Sometimes we need to do our healing in isolation for a bit, and at some point it's really essential to get back into relationship and practice these skills with people, really, because that's that's where the juice is and that's where the love really, really amplifies. We do have to bring it rather than focus on extracting it. So yeah, big dose of love, big dose of compassion. These wounds are very, very freaking tender. The programming is very, very strong, and we do live in a culture that centers men. That's what patriarchy is. But it is within us all as women, we are projecting our true masculine, we're distorting it, we are upholding it in all sorts of different ways. So this whole podcast, actually, like everything I'm talking about in every episode, is that we're coming home to our true nature. Okay, so let's go for it. This is killing the Disney princess fantasy from extraction and control to sovereign love. So, starting off, what is the Disney princess fantasy in relationships? So I'm talking mainly heterosexual relationships here, but it not always. So I just need a bit of creative license with you with your ear. So yeah, this fantasy is built on a deep longing to finally, finally feel loved and contained and met and okay. So underneath this fantasy are very real, very tender and core fears of loneliness, abandonment, emptiness, a fear of not existing, and a perpetual lack of self-trust, a lack of belonging, and a lack of internal resourcing. So the fantasy basically promises that if we're chosen or rescued by a man, all of that wounding is going to ease and we're gonna feel complete and it doesn't work because it's a fantasy. It's it's a fabrication created in the absence of genuine love, containment, and presence. Now we can ease these wounds, we can process them, we can feel a sense of peace and complete within ourselves, and we can bring that into relationship, and then the relationship's gonna push uh deeper stuff up as well, as the love amplifies and cultivates. So I'm not talking about relationships are a fantasy, I'm talking about this sense that somebody else is gonna rescue us and it's gonna take away magically these feelings and these pains and heal these wounds. That can be done, but we need to come into a realistic picture and realistic relationship with ourselves and others in the process. So for many women, this fantasy it sticks to this gaping father wound and mother wound as well, but this gaping father wound of never been met, validated, or protected in the way we needed. And yes, there is lots on the mother wound, but there is this gaping father wound as well. And so many of us have experienced it, and it really runs our attachment template and drives the people that we choose to be in relationship with in order to try and heal ourselves. So add to that the submission programming and domestication of women, which is be pretty according to the male gaze, be self-sacrificing, palatable, supportive at the expense of our own career, pleasing, chosen. Oh, the list goes on. I can't, I can't bear to say anymore. Um, so in this episode, I'm I'm exploring how this fantasy forms, how it quietly runs our daily lives and relationships, and how we can begin to dissolve it in a way that's in a real devotion to a more genuine, sovereign love within that feels much deeper, much more real, and much more fulfilling for both ourselves and the people we're in relationship with. Okay, so why does this programming work? I've already spoken to it a little bit, but basically, yeah, it lands on real unmet needs. This deep ache and longing for emotionally present parents and a sense of genuine belonging and home being a sanctuary. And so this fantasy gets created when we're little that maybe someone will come, or maybe in the future everything will be okay, and maybe we'll get helped. And we create a fantasy, and everyone's fantasy is a little bit different, but holding on to that fantasy tends to get us through the unbearable vacuum of love that isn't there. We have to cope somehow. So this fantasy sort of gets created in childhood, it's a childhood fantasy of being okay and being rescued by someone else coming. And it really offers quite a simple solution for our psyche. And if you think about the cartoons that we watch, if you think about our social structures, if you think about how we talk to, especially little girls as well, uh, one of the things that we get told as little girls is oh, this little boy is is hitting you in in class or in the playground. Oh, that means he likes you, but he's just too scared to say. I mean, my gosh, there is programming and reinforcement for being treated badly, and that meaning someone likes you. There is loads of these little things, by the way, that once we start working, we can uncover. And they just, you know, they they don't run us anymore. So couple that with this big fantasy of the white wedding, and it's not a fantasy, it's a reality, but we tend to fantasize that that will be the day. That's it. It's the ring, which is a marketing strategy. Again, we can have a ring if we want, but if we're just realistic about what it means, it means my gosh, okay, I'm committed to stepping into myself in this relationship and bring in more and more of myself. That means I'm gonna be vulnerable, that means I'm gonna be exposed, that means I'm actually gonna be met and meet somebody. Whoo, okay, that means in conflict I'm gonna stay with myself and not emotionally vomit on my partner. It means I'm gonna have to look at where all my rage is coming from. So it means all of these things. It does not mean oh, you're rescued, you're chosen, and everything's gonna be okay. What it often actually means is man expects certain things, woman expects certain things, and those expectations are not communicated until after the marriage or after people are living together, and then it all goes uh a bit tense and and child parts of us start interacting, and anyway, I'll get into that, but I'll stay on track with why this programming works. So, yeah, it's it's kind of shiny this fantasy in this programming. It offers the promise of being set up in life, and yes, it's a certain structure, but there's no substance to it. So it offers a kind of simple, shiny solution in a way, to feeling lost in life and not knowing our path. And the fantasy says if we're chosen and adored, everything will finally feel okay. And it doesn't work like that. So, yeah, it's embedded everywhere in films and books and social media and family stories, so it can feel like the truth and not conditioning. And our nervous system can get temporary relief from being in this fantasy and talking about this fantasy, so we can cling to it even when it hurts. We can cling to relationships when there's just a smidgen of feeling okay or a smidgen of being chosen, and it really has us in a pickle. So, yeah, okay. So let's talk more about how the fantasy shows up in daily life. So, yeah, we've got waiting to be chosen or rescued, and this is specifically how women are programmed. Like we can choose, and we need to choose, but this program of waiting to be chosen, the fantasy of it that being swept off our feet, um, and our life properly starting when when a man arrives and commits and proposes and kind of takes us from our current life into this sort of new life. And what that means is that we tend to put our dreams and growth sort of on hold until we're chosen. There's a sense that um our life will really, really begin when we meet someone. And it's going to begin a new chapter, yes. But it's the waiting. It's the waiting that gets us. And that waiting is mirrored in our attachment, waiting for mum to finally not be busy, waiting for mum to finally stop dissociating, waiting for mum to finally get on our level and ask, are we okay? How are we? to meet us, to connect with us, waiting for dad to see how awesome we are and tell us about the the wider world and tell us how we might be placed in it. All those things we're waiting, waiting, waiting. And obviously that program just fits right into that wound. Then we have putting men on a pedestal. Uh, this is our patriarchal culture, it's male-centric. And yeah, again, it's sold to soothe our deep aches and loneliness. I'm not sure how this is going to bloody work when men are also really, really shut down and wounded. I'm not sure how we can expect them to soothe our own deep aches and loneliness when they can't even feel theirs, like generally, nor everybody. But it it's a myth. It's looking at it now at 49 and looking back on my life and all the all the overculture and family stories, that is ridiculous. And and this waiting, the longing for the one, I've realized this there's not the one, there's plenty. There's actually loads of people we could uh connect with, loads of people we resonate with, but are we actually prepared to do the work for this awesome, love-based, self-growth-oriented, magical sex relationship? Uh yeah, we just have to put the work in, and no one can make it as okay for us, really. So the we're also busting the myth uh that the right one will make everything inside finally stop hurting. And the only way that's going to happen is if when we meet someone, we're both committed to our self-growth and we both do our work. Uh, finally, we have the illusion of the ring. The ring. We all know that long wintered movie where they chase the ring. I think there's several metaphors to that. But anyway, that's what women end up doing. The ring, the thousand pounds, the thousands of pounds ring. Who freaking cares? If that's what you want, fair enough. But who cares if you're gonna end up scrubbing toilets and doing is washing for the rest of your life? No freaking thank you. So we've got the illusion of the ring, the wedding, the house, and the and the kids, and that means set up, and that somehow equals safety and worth and identity and social status, and finally feeling okay. If you put all those things in place and don't actually do the personal work and lean into ourselves and really be with each other, then all those things I can promise you are worthless. They're worthless, and it's a trap and it's a prison. And some of us know that before, and some of us only know that when we go into it and try it. So you might know it if you're in it now, and women who are out the other side and have got have got divorced, uh, might have kids as well, all know that it's a load of crap. So, yeah, we we come at it different ways, but it will dissolve in the end. So, anyway, this this fantasy becomes like a silent template that we all measure ourselves against and relationships against, often unconsciously, until we can actually realize it's a load of crap. Okay. So, how how do we try and uphold this fantasy as women? Like we often do it quite sneakily and quietly, and in a very sort of uh emotionally competent looking way. We're we're quite clever and manipulative. And again, ladies, sisters, I mean this with a massive dose of compassion. I've done it, I've unwound it, I've been there, I've done the things. So, how we uphold this bullshit subtle control and management, trying to manage his responses by over-functioning and trying to get him to see our perspective and agree with it, and get him to kind of see how things are in our world and and see things the same way. And we do that in ways that can be really quite manipulative because women tend to be more articulate, we tend to be more emotionally intelligent, we tend to kind of run rings about our male partners, tend to, not always, but yeah, and the overfunctioning again, that is just socially rewarded and managing his responses, yeah, it's it's a common one. Okay, and all of it's there to try and make him sort of fit the fantasy rather than seeing who he actually is, and we might not like that, or we might not be able to see it because all we see is wounding and danger, and we're not going to get what we want, so we try and manipulate and change and control. The final one is hoping he'll go to therapy, wake up and realize he's the problem. Well, he's probably part of the problem, but we cannot focus on that. We have to focus on ourselves. What am I doing? What am I bringing? Where do I need to improve my skills? If if we're doing that and he is not in, then the only thing that's going to happen is the relationship will end because there's no hold on it. There's nothing to hold us in it. If we if we're working with those parts of us that long to be loved and long to be met on and are trying to get that from someone else, the way to do it is to bring them back into our body and meet those parts ourselves. If we have a partner that isn't willing to work with us. If we do have a partner that's willing, we still have to basically develop a secure attachment and connect with those parts of us. But then we can bring them, then we can stay with each other in those moments when it gets really heated and actually utilize conflict and disconnection as a way to cultivate more love and love each other and love ourselves. So it is all possible, but we've got to come out the fantasy of what relationship is meant to be. So when control fails, raging, protesting, trauma dumping, expressing in really uncontained and really quite harmful ways when we can't get what we want, or we don't get the fantasy that's been promised, that really damages trust. Uh, what we also do is suppress ourselves. That's we can suppress the truth, our own truth, in fear of abandonment or the relationship ending. And we also can hold back our own growth in order to stay in relationship. I've heard several women several times, not several, more than several times in their personal work say, well, you know, if I really go for this, then my relationship won't hold. And my answer is always, well, yep. We just need to deal with those fears, heal those wounded parts of yourself, and that will feel okay. It's just at the time we're coming from younger places and we're scared of being alone. But actually, being alone is much better than being in a relationship with someone where we're where we're in a fantasy with a fantasy ship, let's call it. So then what we do is extraction and control. So what we're trying to do is extract safety and worth and being seen by him rather than meeting ourselves and sourcing from within. Oh, this feels like a lot now. I'm talking through it, but it really, it really is possible. I hope you're still with me. Uh it might maybe take a few times to listen to this because there's a lot in it. I have packed a lot in so that you can really understand where your fantasies are, where your reality is, and what you need to do. Because people stay in dead, uh struggling relationships for years and don't know what's happening and don't know what to do about it. So finally, how do we dissolve this spell? So we acknowledge the function of the fantasy, know that it was there to fill the lack of parenting temporarily. It was there to protect us from the pain of what we didn't have. However, now we're adults, we can grieve what we didn't have, we can make space for it and really feel yeah, I didn't get the parenting or the presence or love I needed. And that pain can come out. It's it's like a doorway out of the fantasy, it's not a punishment for ourselves at all for having the fantasy. We just need to acknowledge and love ourselves back into the present, into the reality we're in. We often need quite a lot of reassurance in our system for that, that killing the fantasy is not gonna kill our heart, any romance, any tenderness or vulnerability. It's also not gonna um kill real love at all. It's not gonna stop us getting a relationship at all. It's actually gonna ensure that we go into relationship and choose partners and resonate on a frequency that is more realistic. So, what it's by killing the fantasy, we're making space for more genuine embodied love between two adults. And so finally, what we can do is we can orient to what we're creating rather than longing for something from somebody else to make things okay. We can shift our focus from will he choose me? Will I be chosen? To what am I bringing to relationship? What am I bringing to my relationships? So if you are in a relationship, that's great. You can think about what you'll bring in now. If you're not in an intimate relationship, you can think about what you'll bring into your friendships or what sort of relationship do you want to create? And it gives it gives us back the agency, it helps us to align our actions, it helps us to, when we go on dates, to think, is this a match for me? Rather than just thinking, does he like me? Is he gonna propose? Is he is it gonna be all these things? It's what am I bringing and what do I want to create? So yeah, that helps us restore our boundaries and our truth and bring ourselves to the relationship. Okay. Oh, that is everything. I hope that was useful. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to email me if you've got any questions. You just go to my website and contact. Or if you want some support with bringing more of you into your relationships, just go to the link in the show notes. It's under sovereign relationship work, where we'll get you from extraction, transactional, and fantasy based relationships into mutual, sovereign, embodied love. Okay. I'm gonna be sharing much more relationship stuff soon. So again, I hope you enjoyed this and I hope it was useful. And I will see you next time.