The Happily Ever After Complex

So, you watched the final episode of How I Met Your Mother. If you didn't, stop reading because I'm about to spoil everything for you.
I watched the final episode, and like most humans with a heart, I was annoyed. I desperately wanted Ted to actually stop chasing after Robin and move on with his life already. I wanted Robin and Barney to work out, and not just because I'm in love with Neil Patrick Harris and I want his on-screen relationships to work out just as much as I want his off screen relationship to work out. Personally, I was pulling for Robin and Barney to have a long and happy marriage with a surprise baby. I also didn't want The Mother to be DEAD. Essentially, I wanted everyone to live happily ever and that just the problem. No one really lives happily ever after. Ever.
I feel like most of our television shows and movies depict everyone living happily ever after. The hero accomplishes the long arduous task. The boy gets the girl. The girl gets the boy. Sure, some semi-important character, Fred Weasley, Dumbledore, Prim, Augustus, might have died, but the Dark Lord was vanquished, the corrupt government was toppled, love triumphed. There is rarely an ending of any story that leaves everyone in despair.
How I Met Your Mother took all the growth and development the characters accomplished through the years and threw it away. Barney regressed to his womanizing ways, Ted never let go of Robin, Robin bought back all the dogs she'd gotten rid of.  I think, myself included, that everyone was annoyed that the writers threw out the progress but, what everyone was more annoyed about, was the fact that Ted and The Mother and Robin and Barney never got to live happily ever after. Life is unhappy and hard enough without having to see the people you live through vicariously onscreen suffer as much as you do. However, I think the writers of HIMYM were really onto something. Life isn't flowers and roses and happiness. I don't know what it's about, but it isn't that. So there's no reason why our entertainment needs to reflect that. In the end, what's more thought provoking and what can you take away lessons you can apply to your life? An unattainable happily ever, or a real life scenario you can truly relate too and struggle with?
Scroll Away!
A.