Deano’s answer to: “How do I forget a former lover?”

The soulmate, to me, is a conception of the human desire for laziness in all things that are most important. The idea being, that if someone is your "soulmate", that the relationship will be easier/more fulfilling/help to complete you.

This is bad for all kinds of reasons:

• Like marriage, thinking of finding the soul mate as an "end" to one's relationship problems is kind of like thinking that knowing how to swim is the same thing as being able to breathe underwater.
• It puts an external value or limitation on one's sense of completeness. Tom Cruise is a dick(*): you complete yourself, and don't let that Scientolojerk tell you any different.
• Being in love may make you happier, or more contented with your life. But it does not make your life easier. Suddenly, you have responsibilities to and for another human being. Even if it's just scheduling a mutually agreeable date night, it's more work than entertaining yourself. A lot of the time, that work is worth it, but it's not a case of meeting a magical person who fits your needs – it's meeting the person who you are best able to communicate those needs to, and whose needs you can reciprocally understand.
• When you have the potential to say "I thought he was my soulmate, but I was wrong", you're externalizing the blame for relationship issues, or failures. Own your problems, and your weaknesses. Work on them, alone and with your next partner. The only way to get a soulmate is to be a soulmate, and the only way to be a soulmate is to become one. It's a process.

In short, it's bad to think that relationship issues aren't your fault or responsibility, or that finding the right person will prevent such issues from happening in the future. Be honest with yourself and your partner. Negotiate the rules of your relationship. Stick to the rules until they no longer make sense. Then, renegotiate, even if that means agreeing to part ways.

It never gets easier, but it never stops being worth the effort.

How do I forget a former lover?