One of the unique things we share with couples preparing for
marriage is what we affectionately dub, “the Soul Mate myth.” Somewhere in the
weaving of our cultural tapestry in America, a piece of fabric was sown in
proclaiming that in order to be eternally happy, each person must find his or
her soul mate – the one special person out there meant specifically for them.
The myth contends that if you find your soul mate, you will go through married
life with ease. Of course, the natural response for many people who experience
trouble in their marriage is to resort to the belief that they must not have
found their soul mate. If they had, they wouldn’t be experiencing marital
strife. And thus, they dissolve the marriage and begin looking for their true soul mate.
In our humble opinion, the idea of a soul mate is entirely
off the mark from reality and truth. From our 31 year journey through married
life, we’ve had our share of discord and trouble. We’ve not been unscathed in
our marriage. What we’ve had to learn is that it takes effort, care, and hard
work to learn how to love and take care of each other, especially with our own
individual idiosyncrasies and differences. Being happily married does not
require finding your soul mate – it requires making deliberate, conscious
decisions to love each other, even during those times when our spouse is not
necessarily the most loveable person.
We’ve come to believe that if we want a soul mate, then we
must be willing to change, amend, adapt, and alter our conception of who that soul mate is. The truth – again, just our opinion here – is that our soul
mate is the person we choose to love day in and day out despite
how he or she might be behaving at any particular moment. Our soul mate is the
person with whom we choose to honor our vows – to love them in those proverbial
good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, for better
or for worse. And honoring our vows, while extremely difficult work at times,
is the path to true soul mate-hood.
In other words, there is no person with whom everything will
automatically “click” and work perfectly. It will always come down to the
degree and amount of hard work and effort we are willing to put into the
relationship. And we must realize the only person we can change is ourselves. When
we die to self and give 100% of everything we have to the person we’ve pledged
our lives to, that’s when the real magic happens. If we had truly realized this
at the beginning of our marriage, perhaps we’d have weathered those initial
storms of adversity a bit better.
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