Sunday, September 25, 2016

On Soul Mates and Best Friends


September is a big month for me.  For me, it starts down all the good stuff in the year.  It's my Anniversary, then my birthday, then we're almost to October and "Holidays, here I come!"

I wished my husband a Happy Anniversary and said on Facebook:

I can sit here and write a tome about soul mates, best friend, yada yada. But I won't bore all of our friends. The best decision we ever made was making the dedicated real effort to make God the 3rd person in our relationship, and giving up our "selves" for each other. Each year actually gets better and better. How crazy is that?

Happy 14th Anniversary David. I love the heck out of you, you goofy white man.


Honestly, I wouldn't write a tome about best friends and soul mates, because I don't believe in that.  I read an article a few years ago written by a Robin O'Bryant called "I'm Not Married To My Best Friend." and I said "THIS! YES!"

My husband is not my best friend. My best friends are Kelli, Anna, Barbara, Chrissy, Vicky, Heather M., etc. etc. These are my ladies.  My husband is my PARTNER. It's a higher calling.   We work hard to make it work. That part is relatively new.  We've been together 14 years married (17 together) & these past 2.5 years have been better than any other year. We had bad times.  We worked our asses through them.  It sucked. We almost gave up.  We dug deep, we let God lead (for real. But I'm not going to preach to you today) and we gave up the reigns to Him to make us work.  It works.  It's WORK. It's not easy, it's not free and there's no magic to it.

There are no soul-mates here either. I don't agree with that term.  I see people married 2, 3, 4+ times and I think "Wait, wasn't # 1 your soul mate? Wasn't # 2? Then # 3?"   They're your "soul mate" until you both stop WORKING at it, and then they're a mistake and your "real" soul mate is out there somewhere, waiting for you to find them.

Malarky.  You find someone you like and are sexually, emotionally & intellectually attracted to, someone you love and can see spending the rest of your life with, and then comes the work. Every day you remember that you chose them as your partner and you WORK.

You stop being selfish.

It's not about what they can do for you, it's about what you can do for them.  DO that for them, and pray you selected someone who will DO THAT for you too. This is key.  Make sure they work as hard as you do. Equal respect and work. BUT YOU PUT IN THE WORK. Don't let them all the work and you don't do all the work.  Don't be lazy. Don't let the other person make all the decisions and then resent them for it.  Don't be the person making all the choices and resent them for not making choices.  Respect them and their likes, even if it's not something you like as much.  Don't run them over with your likes & needs and ignore every single thing the other person wants to do.  (I just saw a dating relationship end over this last point.)

My husband is a nerd. He's goofy. He talks too much sometimes. He can sense when something is wrong with me the second he sees me and will pull it out of me in a minute flat.  He thinks I'm funny and intelligent.  He thinks I'm sexy. I think he's sexy, smart, a good father.  A good man.

We Work.