Soul mate - or love of your life

Is your partner your soul mate - your best friend?

Are you lucky enough to consider your partner your best friend? Do you realise that your relationships are (life) teachers? When we can think of past relationships, it is good to reflect on what we have been taught and learned as life lessons because life changes us and hopefully we become better people with compassion and understanding.

Soul mate and best friend

This is what I longed for all my life. My wonderful husband R of almost 29 years is my best friend and soul mate (and you can have more than one in your life). We talk comfortably about every subject under the sun and share a love of music of all kinds. We are supportive of each other - yet we both know that each of us had former ‘loves of our lives’, and we talk easily about them at certain times. Today our former spouses both came up gently in conversation in our daily walk.

First dating days

Do you remember your first major long-term love of your life? You may have married them, you may have just been dating. But the feelings of being head-over-heels, ‘I would do anything for you’ were the foremost thought. 

In my teens I had a crush on G at 14, then my first serious romance with M1 at 15, then another with M2 at 17, and J who I met at 18. For me, I knew the moment I met J that we were meant to be together  and that we would marry. I was 20, almost 21, when we married and he was four years older. This photo was a different world and a different time … where you dressed up for dinner. In the seventies candles on tables were in fancy used wine bottles such as Mateus Rosé. 3 course dinners and dancing. And the ‘Gatsby’ tie, pin-stripe suits and platform shoes for both men and women were all the rage.

I am 19 in this photo - almost 50 years ago. I sewed my own evening dresses as did many girls of my age. And I was wildly in love at the time.

Death, a different perspective and (life) teachers

Although our relationship did not survive and J died long ago, (July 28 is the anniversary of his passing), it is interesting how I feel about it now that I am so much older. The anger has dissipated into compassion, but the grief visits from time to time. With the wisdom of the years, and being happily married to R for 29 years, thoughts naturally turn to those we loved and lost. For at this time of life, one never knows how much time we have left - and the truth is, we all do our best with what we know at the time. All our relationships are (life) teachers.

I thought it was forever

When I married J, I thought it would be forever. But I didn’t know about the trauma legacies - the severe mental and physical trauma experienced by J in addition to generational trauma. He also carried painful physical scars hidden by clothing. In addition my own trauma was so well masked - it was hidden from myself until my late fifties when my body broke down. No-one knew, and I didn’t either. We both needed to be loved and feel safe for different traumas - but we didn't know that. I naively thought that love and being an obedient wife was enough to 'fix someone', but it all fell apart; and I grieved all those years and still feel some of that grief and loss of youth from time to time. As we cannot go back in time, I now choose to see what I can learn from my life.

Both our lives were filled with trauma responses

Looking back, and with all my experience on both sides of the therapy chair and working with clients, I realise that both his and my responses and way of life were all trauma responses. And no-one bothered to notice the truth, nor had an inkling of what trauma I was experiencing. It was so long ago.

A 'Sliding Door' dream

Recently I had one of those ‘Sliding Door moments’ dreams where I saw my life with J if things had been different - I witnessed a whole lifetime. And it was a wonderful dream - even the first child that miscarried was alive and both children had happy lives. I can remember every detail of the dream and where we lived in the dream.

Reflections of the present

My dear present husband will never forget the love he has for his late wife, even though we have been married longer than they were. And that is how it should be, for they had beautiful children together who are all kind to me and she is reflected in them.

So, this post is a reflection with the wisdom, understanding and learning of the years of the innocent young girl in this photo, and acknowledging how it was such a different time - and that the girl in the photo did not know what to do at the time, nor was there support to access if she could. They both just did the best that they could with what they knew at the time. So thank you J for being a love of my life and a (life) teacher. I choose now to remember the special moments. May you rest in peace. And thank you to R for being such a kind, supportive and loving husband. A life blessing. - Karen Words and photo COPYRIGHT Karen Curran.