I’ve been a marriage and family counselor and therapist for more than 40 years and one of the most common concerns I hear from women is this: “Where are all the good men? I’m a quality woman who has a lot of offer a partner, but I can’t seem to find my soul mate.” I offer guidance in my book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationships and Why the Best is Still to Come. The good news is that men are more interested than ever before in finding a partner where they can have a full, deeply satisfying, relationship for life.
With 360,000 new people coming into the world each day, you’d think it would be easy to find the one partner that is right for you. So, why are so many people frustrated trying to find a partner who they can share their lives with and how can you find a soul mate that is right for you?
Let me begin by telling you a little bit about my story. I’m an only child. My father and mother got divorced when I was nine years old. I was a short, nerdy, kid who had a difficult time making friends. By the time I went to college, I had gotten the hang of the dating game and in my senior year met the woman I would marry. But like many first marriages, ours didn’t last. I dated a lot after that but found it difficult to find a compatible partner. I eventually remarried, but that relationship was short-lived.
Now, if you’re a marriage and family counselor it’s more than embarrassing to be handing out advice to others when your own love life is a disaster. I decided to get some help with my life and went to a therapist. I also read everything I could and finally figured out how to find the soul mate I longed to be with. I met and fell in love with Carlin and we have been together now for nearly 40 years. Here are the steps we discovered:
- Get clear about what you really want and what you won’t tolerate.
I assumed that when the right person came along, I’d know it and I just had to wait for the right person. Wrong! I sat down and wrote out all the things I really wanted in a relationship, including, someone I could trust to be there for me in the good times and the bad, someone I could have fun with, someone who had worked out her wounds from previous relationships, someone who shared my quirky sense of humor, someone who liked to read, was interested in being physically and emotionally healthy, enjoyed walks on the beach, romantic dinners, and most of all liked sex, and was a compatible partner.
On the flip side, I wrote down that I didn’t want a smoker or someone who couldn’t learn to love my two children or someone who expected me to be the sole breadwinner or someone who was easily angered (like my previous wife). If you’re not clear about what you truly want and don’t want, you’ll never find your soul mate.
- Make relationship a priority.
I had a good job and loved to work. It fulfilled me and gave me my purpose in life. But I realized I had to make relationship a priority if I was going to have one. Many women I know, though, become so focused on finding that special someone, that they don’t pay attention to finding their calling in life. Others get so focused on their career that they are too busy with work to put energy into their love lives.
- Surface your negativity.
Although I would have said, “I want to have a partner to share my life with,” I realized I had a lot of negative baggage that I’d accumulated about actually having what I said I wanted. I looked deeply inside and brainstormed all the negative thoughts that swirled around inside including: I don’t want to get burned again, I don’t have time for all this dating crap, women want to tie you down, I can’t imagine committing to having sex with only one woman for the rest of my life, I’m not really attractive enough to attract the woman I want. And three more pages I won’t bore you with here. But it’s important to get the negativity out where you can see it. Otherwise, it stays hidden and undermines everything you do.
- Recognize that there are 5,284 perfect partners waiting for you.
Most of us grew up with the romantic notion that there is a “one and only” just for us. That notion has some unforeseen drawbacks. It creates an underlying fear that we’ll never find the right person, that needle in the haystack (but this haystack is as big as the entire world). It also creates a tendency to move on to someone else rather than getting to know someone well. Even when we find someone, we second guess ourselves. We find fault and move on looking for “the one.”
The truth is there are many potential soul mates. Don’t get hung up thinking there is only one. That thinking works in romantic movies. It’s deadly for finding your soul-mate in real life.
- Become aware of your distorted love filter.
Although I had a list of the qualities I wanted in a partner, I realized I also had a subconscious filter that drew me towards certain kinds of women that weren’t right for me and away from others that were. I realized I was drawn to fiery women who were risk takers, but were disasters to live with. My ex-wife was like that. Shortly after we met, I found that she slept with a loaded gun under her pillow. I should have fun like hell. (Hope you caught the typo in the previous sentence. I should have run like hell, but didn’t. I left it in to illustrate the power of our subconscious mind.) Instead, we had a passionate, crazy, year together and got married even though we nearly killed each other with our fights. I also excluded women who were nice and loving, but seemed boring when I first met them.
Cleaning up our filter so that we aren’t subconsciously excluding partners who might be right for us and getting hooked on those who are disasters, can keep you on the right track.
- Beware of the evolutionary magnets that draw you to some and away from others.
Even though Carlin had all the qualities of I wanted, the “chemistry” just didn’t feel right. When we met she seemed nice, but there wasn’t the pizzazz I was used to having. Well, it turns out pizzazz is another name for evolutionary-based magnets that are built into our brains to perpetuate the species, not help us find our soul mates.
First, she was five years older than me. No big deal my conscious mind thought, but evolution pulls us toward youth and beauty. Second, she was slightly taller than me. Again, she had the 20 out of 20 on my list of wants and 0-10 on the list of can’t tolerate. But, something just didn’t feel right when I had to look up to her.
Yet, we hung in there with each other, talked about our discomforts, and soon sparks were flying and we both knew “we were the one.” Both of us nearly walked away from a relationship that continues to get better through time. Don’t miss out on the perfect mate because the chemistry isn’t there at first, that they don’t seem to be the type that turns you on.
- Clean up your old beliefs from the past.
We all have issues from the past that keep us from finding and holding on to our soul mate. Many of us have been married before or had serious relationships that didn’t last. We all grew up in families, most of which were less than good models for soul-mate love. All of them can cause distortions that keep us from finding and keeping our soul-mates.
In fact, one of the hidden reasons we pick the partner we pick is to heal the wounds from the past. However, if we don’t recognize how the issues from our previous relationships, including how we were influenced by our mother’s and father’s relationship with us and with each other, we will find ourselves looking for love in all the wrong places.
If you don’t understand the past and clean it up, I guarantee it will muddy the waters and you won’t find your soul mate.
While these seven learnings were easy to write down, they took us years to learn, and we benefitted from some years of counseling to actually put them into practice. We wrote about our experiences in The Enlightened Marriage. I’m offering a special discount to readers, here. I look forward to your comments and questions.
This article first appeared on Jed’s blog. Photo by Jasmine Wallace Carter from Pexels
