Mary's Maxims

On Becoming Your Own Soulmate

Photograph by Sylvie McKnight-Milles

     I was in a stupid relationship in my 20s. He was the tortured artist type; by proxy, I became emotionally tortured. I was never, ever “first” in his life. Every year, on my birthday, without fail, we would make plans to go out to dinner. I would get all gussied up and he would say nothing. Then…the increasing depression would land like a thud in the middle of whatever table, in whatever restaurant I had chosen in which to celebrate my trip around the sun.

    It seems that only the sun and I were celebrating, as each of those birthdays, while I was with him (and there were far too many), ended with me in tears, him drinking a case of beer and listening to his albums reminding him of an old girlfriend he was still pining for.

      Why didn’t I leave? Why did I just keep going farther and farther down the hole like a movie montage with The Depression Hit Parade in the background? I like to help people and I thought I could help him.

    Guess what…I couldn’t and you can’t either. The Hallmark Man is a myth. If he is a brooding cowboy with a closed-off heart, he is going to STAY a brooding cowboy with a closed-off heart.

     No matter how many Apple Festivals you create to save his ranch, he is NOT going to change…but you are. You will change and it’s not going to be good.

Tortured Artist, Lonely Poet, Brooding Cowboy, …it’s not going to end well for you. Get out NOW.

     Say these words with me, “I cannot read his damn mind.   If I am the only one compromising, I am compromising myself and my principals.  It is not 1954, we equally share the household chores. Every other night, the TV stays off, the computer stays off, the phones are put away and we communicate with one another”.

     If he is resistant to these relationship assisters, is he “the one”? If you have to BEG for these to be put into place, time, after time, after time…hello!

 This means something. It means, “This is not right, and I am moving on…not to someone else but to time with myself and friends. Not another relationship until I have figured myself out, my needs, my wants, and my dreams”. I don’t think this is selfish at all. I think it’s what we all need to give ourselves permission to do. If you can’t give yourself permission, I give it to you.

Live your life. Be free. Be your own soulmate.