AInstead of seeking perfection, try this instead
I knew I had royally screwed up.
This marriage that had been tethering for the last 7 years was coming to a crashing halt. I couldn’t understand why because I was with someone who was a perfect fit for me.
We had a lot in common, shared similar values, had similar ambitions and came from similar families. We were able to support each other and help each other get where we were trying to get to in life.
She made me laugh, made me feel more at ease and shared the same humor as I did. We laughed about the same things, found the same things intriguing and engaged around similar topics. We saw the world the same way and had a shared vision for the future.
So naturally, when things fell apart, my life went into a tailspin. Telling you that I didn’t know how to cope would be an understatement.
Once the relationship ended, I blamed myself endlessly and beat myself up mercilessly for the relationship ending
How could I have ruined the perfect relationship, I thought to myself? How did I let the perfect partner get away? How did I breakup with my soulmate or someone I considered to be the “one”.
I spent the next ten years of my life trying to figure out what went wrong and regretting the marriage had ended and that I had screwed up so badly.
I had to figure out a way to make amends with the fact that I had broken up with my perfect partner. I had to cope with the breakup to the perfect person who I had so many good memories and shared such a great life with.
How did I manage to recover over the years? What helped me cope? What might help you cope if you’re in a similar situation of having lost half your heart? How do you deal when the “one” is no longer in your life? When you go from soulmate to heartbreak?
I’m going to try to save you years of heartache and pain by sharing with you all the things that I did.
This breakup got me reading hundreds of books, writing millions of words about heartbreak, and talking to many different therapists on different couches.
Let me help you get a piece of your life back so you can have some peace of mind and get to the point of acceptance about the “one” who got away.
I want to remind you that the person you put on the pedestal may have been “the one” but they are not the only one. As much as you may believe there’s only one person out there for you and only one person like your ex, that’s simply not true. The cliche of many fish in the sea is truer than the scarcity that our mind leads us to believe.
Also, that perfect person may not have been the perfect person for you. If my ex was the perfect person for me, we likely would not have found ourselves separating and divorcing. You don’t end marriages and relationships with your perfect partner! There were issues, flaws and problems which I refused to see but existed during the relationship.
We put on rose-tinted glasses when reflecting on past relationships and see it in the best light when in fact there were so many small things wrong that we simply sweep them under the rug mentally. My perfect partner and I had many disagreements and fights as well. We got under each other’s skins. We knew each other’s weak spots.
We were similar in lots of ways which may have caused us more problems than one would expect. We thought the same, argued the same, carried the same wounds, and fought the same way. It wasn’t healthy for the relationship or us.
She was actually not the perfect person for me, had lots of flaws, and ultimately called for the relationship to end. I had just told myself a story repeatedly that she was the perfect person when she wasn’t.
What I was doing was self-sabotaging and beating myself up because the relationship had ended. Since I felt guilty about the whole thing, I put her on a pedestal and made myself the villain in the movie. I forgot about all the problems and incongruencies in our marriage in favor of a fantasy story that I told myself.
Here’s the real story and what I want to share with you.
There are no perfect partners.
Stop wasting your time regretting your perfect partner who you broke up with because they weren’t perfect.
While you’re at it, don’t spend your days looking for that perfect relationship either. Anything you do that makes you believe that someone or some relationship is perfect is doomed.
Don’t even look for that perfect person! They don’t exist.
And moreso, the point of the story is that you cannot find happiness or stability or safety in another person. No one is going to save you.
Once you realize this, you can live a life base on reality, not fantasy.
There are no perfect people out there so let’s stop chasing perfect people and relationships. Let’s stop beating ourselves up and regretting them when they end.
What can we do instead?
Let me suggest finding perfection…within ourselves.
You can do better at choosing partners. You can do better at showing up in relationships. You can do better in communication, caring for your partner, and loving them.
The person you dream of and hope to meet is going to be sorely disappointing. They don’t exist and if you think they do, get ready for major heartbreak and disappointment.
Yes, there are some people who are more compatible for you than others but your job isn’t to seek out perfection in compatibility.
It would be so much more productive if you just worked on becoming the best person you can.
Don’t look for perfection or cry that you lost that perfect man or woman.
Take matters into your hand. Become the person you want to date and live with. Become the person you want to love you.
You have no control over other people but you — you are another story. You have the power to become the perfect lover, the perfect spouse, the perfect partner.
You have the power in your hands to become the perfect partner.
Don’t strive for perfect partners and cry over the ones that came into your life and left. People come, people go.
You will always be there. If you spent more time on working on becoming the best version of yourself, you will find the anchor, safety, stability, love in you and no one can take that away from you.
Instead of seeking out the perfect partner and having to face the possibility things could sour or end, work on becoming the perfect partner.
Don’t regret losing the perfect partner. Commit to becoming the best one you can.