The Myth of a Soul Mate — The Myths Series

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The Myth of a Soul Mate — soul mate think­ing is one-sided think­ing. Bet­ter to find a mirror.

Of Wayne’s many books, the one clos­est to today’s top­ic is: This End­less Moment

I’m going to be semi-quick with this one.

Peo­ple have heard of “the soul mate” — the “one per­fect per­son for me” crap–it’s a major movie and book theme, after all–so they fran­ti­cal­ly run around try­ing to find this myth­ic being.

There’s a flaw to this idea, however.

I’ve heard var­i­ous “takes” on this theme — peo­ple describ­ing what they are look­ing for in a “soul mate” — and every time, what’s actu­al­ly being said is some­thing I call “place­hold­er theory.”

Place­hold­er the­o­ry is: “I was late for a meet­ing, so I (prayed, made an affir­ma­tion, etc.) and I drove into the park­ing lot, and just as I did, some­one pulled out!”

That person in the waiting car is what I call a “placeholder.”

Because the sto­ry-teller is so impor­tant, the oth­er per­son­’s only job is to “wait”… to hold a place for this spe­cial, spe­cial person. 

Odd­ly, when I sug­gest to said spe­cial per­son that they too must have been a place­hold­er for anoth­er, “stronger” per­son, they get right annoyed with me. “Me? A place­hold­er? That would be… wrong!”

No kidding.

When it comes to soul mate lan­guage, if you lis­ten care­ful­ly, you’ll dis­cov­er that the per­son sought isn’t some­one “just per­fect,” nor “just right.” The per­son being sought is “Some­one who will do exact­ly what I want and be exact­ly who I want them to be.” 

In oth­er words, it’s Peter Pan look­ing for Wendy. Or vice versa.

It’s like Place­hold­er The­o­ry because the “seek­er of the soul mate” is the one in charge, dic­tat­ing the terms, and the “place­hold­er” is just sup­posed to be sit­ting around, wait­ing to be found.

A servant, if you will. A foil.

This is not to say that we should­n’t seek com­pat­i­bil­i­ty when engaged in mate-picking. 

The List of 50, a tool in my book, Find Your Per­fect Part­ner, is all about this. When you cre­ate your list respon­si­bly and with­out short-cuts, you dis­cov­er that many peo­ple are a fit your tem­pera­ment and nature. 

I guess 5% of the pop­u­la­tion will fit, once you actu­al­ly know what you are look­ing for. 

That being said, after you’ve found a “com­pat­i­bil­i­ty fit,” the real work of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and inti­ma­cy begins. You can read about that in The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever.

Not so with the soul mate as described above. That’s not relationship — that’s manipulation.

I knew a woman back in Sem­i­nary. When I first met her, she was mar­ried to a psychiatrist. 

She told me (using “per­fect part­ner” lan­guage) that she’d ini­tial­ly been attract­ed by his good looks, and then by how smart he was. She was excit­ed, as she thought she was real­ly smart — they could actu­al­ly dis­cuss stuff! 

The mar­riage last­ed less then 6 months. 

Why did it end? “He argues with me. He was sup­posed to sup­port me and make me feel good about myself!”

She said that she want­ed to find a hus­band like me: I’d laugh and shake my head, because every time I chal­lenged her — and I do chal­lenge my friends — she’d piss her­self right off, and stop talk­ing to me to pun­ish me. 

I found the silence refreshing. 

That sum­mer she got a job at a camp, and in short order audi­tioned (the audi­tion being first of din­ner, and then between the sheets,) the entire male board of direc­tors, and then the staff, look­ing for her soul mate (There were near­ly 20 of them…)

None suit­ed her — none were, she told me, suit­ably com­pli­ant and inter­est­ed in being her soul mate. 

But she did­n’t give up. She got to the last guy in the place–the janitor–on the last few days of her job. He was per­fect, she told me. “He lis­tens to me! He tells me I’m doing great! He prais­es me end­less­ly! He’s per­fect!” She mar­ried him.

A few years lat­er she showed up on my doorstep, teary-eyed. She’d filed for divorce. Why? “He nev­er has an opin­ion! All he does is agree with me! He nev­er calls me on my stuff!”

I just smiled.

You see, her ver­sion of “male soul­mate” is: Does what I want. Builds me up. Agrees with me. Prais­es me as the smartest per­son in the room. End­less­ly. And with­out reci­procity on my part. 

We’d sug­gest that the actu­al pur­pose of being in rela­tion­ship is to be with a per­son who pro­vides a “talk­ing mir­ror” for what you are doing. Not judge­ment, not a cri­tique, just “feed­back.”

And key to this: you pro­vide this mir­ror­ing to your part­ner, same para­me­ters. No demand for cheer-lead­ing, no “Aren’t you just the most spe­cial thing?” Feed­back. Com­pas­sion. Car­ing. In dia­logue.

As we’ve endlessly said, if your relationships never seem to last, have a look at yourself and your balance.

You only get what you are will­ing to give. 

There are no “spe­cial peo­ple” in ele­gant rela­tion­ships. Part­ners are not there to make you feel bet­ter about your­self, or to do your bid­ding. True, ele­gant part­ners wit­ness both our whole­ness and our frag­ment­ed-ness — not to fix us, but sim­ply to be a witness. 

And vice versa. 

Thus, the only “soul mate” I want is some­one who agrees that we’ll each work on our­selves first, and will do so through inti­mate dia­logue with each oth­er. We’ll remain curi­ous about each oth­er, with­out try­ing to change the oth­er or con­trol the oth­er, and espe­cial­ly with­out becom­ing depen­dent on the other. 

My part­ner is, above all, my equal.

And her name is Darbella.

Are we “soul mates?” Nah. Inti­mate part­ners, engaged in intra-per­son­al growth through dia­logue. Of course! For 42 years, and counting!

This week, have a look at what you are look­ing for, or expect­ing, from your prin­ci­pal rela­tion­ship. See if you can hold your ego in check long enough to real­ly go for the depth.

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