The Soulmate Myth
There is no such thing as one Soulmate in our lives, out there waiting for us.
If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, surely by now you realize I’m a hopeless romantic. However, I don’t believe in the concept of one ‘Soulmate’ to fill that missing piece of your puzzle.
There are a few reasons why.
One is the simple fact that throughout our lives we are constantly changing, and hopefully also growing as people. Following this theory, my Soulmate of today would be much different than the one I should have had 10 years ago.
I’ve been in relationships with people I’ve fallen for immediately, and those that took a much longer time to develop, some of those were with people I was not even initially attracted to — until I got to know about their insides. There is no one way to find someone.
Another reason is I think people get caught up in the physical intensity of love and feelings. Physical desire becomes mental desire and sometimes it all gets out of hand, and turns into a destructive cycle if we are fighting to be with someone who is not right for us.
Sometimes we think we’ve found our Soulmate, but only because we haven’t found ourselves yet. We get wrapped up in being the image someone else has created for us.
Our hearts are not very smart.
They steer us wrong all the time, many of us learn as kids that we can’t take everyone at face value, and some of us stubborn ones (like myself) are still learning this.
No dear, not everyone owns a magical winged horse, and can fly off into the night and hang out with pixies every night. Yeah, I’m still bummed too.
I have come to believe that we have these connections in life for learning purposes. It’s not Fate’s fault if we don’t get it the first time, or the 10th time even. We keep getting chances to learn the same lessons, until either we do, or we own our flaws — say fuck it, and die old & happy like Joan Rivers.
When I was 19, I dated a guy who was 33. I know, I know, we should have been on different levels mentally, and just the fact that he wanted a serious relationship with me was a major red flag. I can say that easily now, but back then I would have challenged you to a Gladiator battle to prove that this man was meant to be my Forever & Ever.
After 3 years, he broke up with me. I can no longer remember exactly why, maybe I’ve blocked that out. What stands out more now in my mind was my reaction after that happened. I sank down into one of the lowest and most pathetic holes of self-loathing and depression I’ve ever been in.
I can remember this one time after our break-up, I was crying on the dining room floor in the middle of the night, and it was the bad cry — the ugly one where you are sobbing uncontrollably, in your own dimension of Hell. Shoulders heaving, shaking, as I was sinking into the ground, unwilling or unable to get up.
He was one of my Soulmates. I continued to cling to him, but as a husk of my former self, and continued to try to make it work on and off for another year, until one day, I found myself again and cut him loose.
That was the Atlas Shrugged time in my life. Looking back, the biggest irony is that as I was reading that very book, one of the most notable books on individualism and free thinking, I was busy giving all of my power away to someone else.
The problem — my problem — was this: I started dating at such a tender age, 12 to be exact, that my identity became tied up in whoever I was currently in a relationship with. I was never single for long, therefore my overall sense of self changed quite a bit in my early years.
I saw Soulmates all around me, since I wanted to ‘save’ everyone, they all became my next potential Soulmate. Casual dating was not something I was very good at, and I tended to attract more of the soul-sucking kind of intense guys to me.
It was always the ones who needed the most fixing. In the end though, they all helped to fix me.
We all have a great many ‘potential’ loves in our lives — the little ones who leave an indentation, the great big ones that can bury us alive, and some lucky few of us get to experience something that we can build a house on.
The Soulmates are the ones who leave you with tattoos covering you in all the places where you hurt the most.
Intensity does not mean you should be together. Neither does passion, or romance, or even fidelity. If each of us had to wait around for one person in the whole entire world to find us, well, there would be a lot less hope of ever being happy in a relationship.
I believe throughout our lives, we have the potential to create more and more meaningful relationships. Ones that move far beyond the realm of what is the ‘fun’ stuff, like sexual chemistry, and romance (though these things are indeed very important); and more into the realm of learning to love fully, with respect, and understanding, in a mutually giving partnership as we learn more about each other.
The Soulmates you don’t quit on are the ones who show us the best mirrors in themselves.
Now, I only want someone who is interested in breathing with me, helping me grow into a better person. I have extended this thought to all the relationships in my life. There is no space for anything less.
Tell me — do you believe in Soulmates? Have you ever found one? I would enjoy hearing your thoughts.
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Originally published at thecrumbsofmylife.wordpress.com on January 9, 2016.
