Wet Spots and Life’s Ten Pound Flaming Turds

I struggle with the concept of soulmates. It implies that there is just one person who is ideal for you. This seems unnecessarily cruel. What if you live in California and your soulmate is a shepherd in Egypt? The odds of living happily ever after with your 1 in 7 billion soulmate is about as good as me becoming a published author (I have no intention of EVER seeking publication). Sorry, but I have been married to the same wonderful woman for almost 18 years and can honestly and thankfully say I am glad she isn't my soulmate.

Having a soulmate implies that you have the ideal relationship with this person. There is little to no arguing, you both have similar goals, you like the same music, you share parenting views, and your in-laws live on another continent. So, if you're with your soulmate, you should expect to wake up every morning with lovebirds singing outside your window. You smile, stretch, and yawn enjoying the glow of the remaining endorphins left over from your passionate and frenzied lovemaking the entire night before. The previous evening is always romantic. You and your soulmate enjoy a quiet dinner with charming and flirtatious conversation followed by a trip to the bedroom where you make love in the glow of candle light. The lovemaking is always perfect as you both cum repeatedly and neither of you have to sleep in the wet spot when you finally slip into blissful slumber. (tip: unless one or both of you goes off like Old Faithful at climax you should be able to cover the love stew spot with a hand towel) With thoughts of the previous evening sending a delicious shiver through your loins, you rise out of a somehow unsoiled bed. Seeing that you're now awake, squirrels slip in your open bedroom window and bring you your bathrobe. Humming a post coital tune you go downstairs where your soulmate has already made breakfast, but before you eat, more frenzied love making (just not on the dinner table you pervs, people EAT there). After breakfast and afterglow you have a sexy shower together before you both go off to work.

Sounds perfect right? WRONG! Real love is forged in the fires of adversity, compromise, and the frequent desire to hit your mate over the head with a 10 pound sledge hammer. Having a soulmate would be boring. How do you and a soulmate learn to weather the sick kids, financial issues, and sexual droughts resulting from a calendar full of playdates, soccer games, and little to no alone time? Answer? You won't. Your relationship will fold quicker than a Victoria's Secret in Amish country. If everything in your relationship is ideal you won't have a fucking clue when the less than ideal outside world launches multiple 10 pound flaming turd-like problems at you and your fairytale relationship. It is the friction, the differing opinions, the mutual hate for each other's in-laws, and the occasional yelling and screaming fight which tempers a relationship. The world and its problems will break a soulmate relationship quicker than a dollar store vibrator overheats in a porno movie.

So what evidence do I have? My wife and look like we don't belong on the same planet let alone in a marriage that is pushing 20 years. My wife was raised in a church and taught Sunday school. I'm surprised that I'm not struck by lightening on the rare occasion I enter a church. My wife grew up in a town known as, "The Cowboy Capital of the World," and was raised on country music. I FUCKING HATE country music, redneck, and cowboy culture. My wife likes Hallmark movies and romances. I like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Pink Floyd's "The Wall," "This is Spinal Tap," Monty Python, and Mel Brooks movies. My wife enjoyed middle class security growing up. I was raised in the shadow of domestic violence and food insecurity. We have worked hard at our marriage, our rough edges smoothed with experience, compromise, and bouts of quicky love making because the kids will want something else in a couple minutes. It's not perfect, but I would bet on my marriage over any relationship between two soulmates. Fuck, we'd probably kick the soulmate couple's asses when they refer to themselves as such and on the hunch that they probably have a "Live, Laugh, Love" print hanging somewhere in their home. Both would set us off

Look, if you believe in soulmates, good for you. The problem with perfection is it doesn't have the foundation and battle proven strength of a relationship that has survived personal differences while simultaneously weathering the 10 pound flaming turd level problems life throws at them. I don't need a soulmate, I need a friend, sex partner that knows how to keep both of us out of the wet spot, and someone who is willing to forgive my legion of fuck ups. You can have your soulmate, I will take my, "Well this Kinda Sucks but We'll Get Through it" mate and enjoy another 20 years together.