Death of a Soulmate and a Paragon

by Dr. David McMillan

            Fay, remember Fay, Fletcher’s wife, she called me and said that Fletcher had told her about his last session with me and about the story of the tree that died and about our theories about her needing a divorce. She had Fletcher’s permission to come see me, would I see her. I agreed.

            She walked into my office, stood in the middle of the room and looked around before asking where she should sit.

            I said, “I take the rocker. That’s my chair. You can sit wherever you like.”

            She sat on the couch nearest me.

            “I appreciate how you’re helping Fletcher” she said. “He told me that you won’t let him assume he knows what I’m thinking and he must ask me. I really appreciate that. I see that he deserves the same respect in return.

            “And no, I don’t want a divorce. That’s what you conjectured with Fletcher last week. Right?”

            “Yes,” I said. “But I told him to ask you whether or not that was true.”
            “And he did. Thank you for that, but you were right about one thing. He has been a hard man to love for years I thought that was okay. I believed that God made us to be together. That God made Fletcher for me to love. He was my soulmate. Loving him and having his children was the reason I was put on this planet.

            “You were right about another thing. In your story about the tree that died because you put round-up on the poison ivy growing up its trunk and that you weren’t aware of what you had done to the tree’s tap root and you missed the critical time to heal it and flush out the root system with water and the tree died. Remember that story you told Fletcher?”

            “Yes,” I said.

            “Well you are right about that. I reached a bad place. I was tired of Fletcher’s big personality. Our children are mostly grown. I was hanging in our marriage by a thread. I had no influence on Fletcher. He didn’t listen to me. But that’s noting new. I know how to manage him and I’ve done it for years. The thread that has held me in our marriage is that faith in God that Fletcher was my soulmate. I was put on this planet because I believed God meant for us to be together and I thought Fletcher believed that too. I thought our marriage bond was a sacred gift to us both. I was the only woman on this earth who could handle him and I thought he knew that and that he adored me. But I found out that wasn’t true.”

            “Really,” I said. “It seems to me that he adores you and doesn’t want to lose you.”

            Fay’s face turned bright red as she shouted, “Then why did he f _ _ k that whore?!”

            “I haven’t heard that,” I said.

            “Fletcher doesn’t know that I know this,’ Fay said. “My friend Carla told me. She and her husband were in couples’ counseling and he confessed that he and Fletcher screwed a whore in Las Vegas three years ago when they were on a golf trip together. They were drunk and they called a whore to come to their room when they were on a golf trip together. I suppose Fletcher thought that I would never find out and what I didn’t know won’t hurt me.

            “I don’t know who I’m most angry at, Carla for telling me or Fletcher. I wish I didn’t know but I do. That was the last straw, the poison that is eating at the root of my marriage and I don’t know if I have the strength to overcome his betrayal.

            “Why would he do this to me? I could’ve gotten AIDS. He never thought about that. He didn’t think about our marriage and his promise to me or God. How could he do this to me? I thought he was better than other men that way.”

            “And now you know he’s not,” I said.

            “And I’m so disappointed. I don’t think I can forgive him for what he did to my faith in God and our marriage. The last time something like this happened to me, I was twelve. I was a good little girl. I made straight A’s. I followed the rules. I told the truth and I believe that my parents, teachers and ministers told the truth to me and that I could believe them.

            “My parents told me that Easter was about Jesus and the Resurrection, not the Easter Bunny, but that Santa Claus was real and I believed them. Each year it got harder and harder for me but I believed them. No matter what my friends said, no matter how they laughed at me for believing, I believed. I was determined to believe. I believed in God and some people thought that was foolish. And I believed just as much in Santa Claus.

            “When I was twelve, I confronted my father around Christmas time. I said, ‘Daddy, I know you will tell me the truth. I have always believed you. You have never lied to me. That’s what you’ve always said to me. I’m going to ask you this one last time and I will believe whatever you tell me because I know you won’t lie to me.

            ‘Daddy is there a Santa Claus?’

            “When he told me there wasn’t a Santa Clause, it took me ten months to get over that. I loved believing in Santa Claus. I love believing in God and I loved believing in my soulmate. And I found out Fletcher is just another man who thinks with his dick.

            “I should’ve known. He’s only focused on what he wants. He never thinks about how other people might feel. I should’ve known that the selfish bastard couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

            “Perhaps this is a good thing that you found out,” I said.

            “Are you out of your mind? How can this be a good thing?”

            “I think that it might be a good thing to know that your marriage is a real and authentic relationship, not an unrealistic myth. You should know who Fletcher is and you should help Fletcher wake up from his narcissistic trance and you need to be liberated from having to be perfect.”

            “What do you mean, be liberated from having to be perfect?”

            “I think that there are five types of relationship dysfunctions or I call them knots and relationships often fall into these patterns or scripts that we repeat and we get trapped inside these scripts saying and doing the same unhelpful things. These scripts become deadly, boring and familiar.”

            “What are these types?”

            “There’s the distancer/pursuer.”

            “I’ve heard of that one,” she said. “I’m the distancer and Fletcher is the pursuer. I need my space to work things out in my mind and Fletcher wants to talk it out and fix it right now. He always wants sex and he pursues me and I sometimes do, perhaps not as much as I should. Sometimes when I don’t want to and he does, I look for something he did for an excuse to say no. I’m not proud of that but I do. So I’m the distancer and he is the pursuer. What’s your other types?”

            “Well there is the paragon/screw-up type,” I said.

            “So, we know Fletcher is the screw-up in this scenario.”

            “Yes, that’s right,” I said.

            “That must mean I am the paragon.”

            “That’s how I see it.”

            “Explain that to me.”

            “Fletcher, he’s a mess.”

            “I got that,” she said.

            “Fletcher,” I said, “the mess, needs the approval and blessing of a person who the world sees as a good, responsible, kind, careful person, because Fletcher knows he’s not.”

            “He’s actually said as much. He told other people that if I have been willing to put up with him over the years, he must be okay.”

            “Yes, your affiliation makes him feel good about himself and serves as a cover for his lack of self-awareness and his often-crude personality. Your marriage and your acceptance of him means he’s okay just as he is and he doesn’t have to change.”

            “But he does need to change.”

            “Of course, he does, but as long as he knows he has you, you compensate for the messes he makes. Somehow he knows you will pick up after him.”

            “And I do,” Fay said.

            “You need this impulsive man. The risks which he impulsively takes are ones you would never consider. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be you. Your life has been an adventure because of him. Life with Fletcher is exciting.

            “The good girl, straight A, fine Christian that you are would never say or do things Fletcher does. You are too concerned about doing the right things. Your perfection covers his ADHD self and his impulsiveness makes your life interesting.”

            “But I’m not perfect,” she said.

            “I know that, but Fletcher doesn’t.”

            “I suppose you’re right. Fletcher always says I’m perfect. Until I found out about the prostitute, I thought he worshipped me. And I guess I liked that. I think my self-esteem depended on that.

            “Okay I see. I was the paragon to his screw-up.”

            “Would you like to see yourself as a mess like Fletcher? Would you like to express your real feelings and thoughts and not be so imprisoned by trying to be perfect?”

            “I see why you said I might like to be liberated from having to be perfect. Yes. And I would like that,” she said.

            “What are your other three types?” she asked.

            “They are the maximizer/minimizer,” I said.

            “Oh, I’m the maximizer,” she said, “I always imagine the worst and Fletcher, the minimizer, is always saying ‘it’s no big deal’.”

            “Then there is the giver/taker,” I said.

            “I think we are both givers,” she said.

            “I do too and you steal self-esteem from the takers who are kind enough to let you feel important.”

            “I suppose you’re right.”

            “The last one is hero/damsel,” I said. “Some couples form around the rescue Trauma Triangle.”

            “I think I know how that works,” she said. “I was a poor girl on scholarship to U.T. He was the football hero from a wealthy family, set to go into his father’s business. He rescued me from poverty and gave me a fine home. I never had to work a day in my life. He thinks I should be grateful and have sex with him whenever he wants it.”

            “Yes, you get it,” I said. “In this type of relationship, the hero becomes a bully and the damsel becomes an ungrateful bitch.”

            “And,” she said, “the damsel looks for a new hero to rescue her from the bully.”

            “Usually,” I said.

            “That’s what I did,” she said. “I saw this play out in myself when I went to consult an attorney for divorce. He used some of the same hero words that Fletcher used when we married. ‘Don’t worry, honey,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of you’ and then he asked for a $10,000 retainer. When I asked him how much this divorce would cost, he said, ‘Don’t think about that. There’s plenty of money to pay my fees.’ And suddenly, I saw what heroes do. They protect the damsel, me, for a price and I don’t want to pay that priced. The price Fletcher or this lawyer demands. I’m not a helpless damsel. I’m a strong smart woman. I can figure this out myself. I won’t take crap from Fletcher and I won’t let this attorney exploit my tragedy.”

            “Okay, so what are you going to do?” I asked.

            “With your help, and I’m not paying you a $10,000 retainer, with your $225 an hour fee, half as much as the attorneys, I think I can save my marriage. That’s what I want to do. I just don’t know how.

            “Your types of relationship have taught me that first, I’m not a helpless damsel and second, I’m a screw-up too, not a paragon. I’ve used my perfect image to intimidate Fletcher as much or more than he has used his strength and money to intimidate me.

            “So what happened to us soulmates, the perfect couple?”

            “You have carried that burden of soulmates, that perfect ideal couple too long and you are being crushed under its weight.”

            “I can see that,” she said.

            “Relationship have stages,” I said. “I see ten.”

            “I can guess them,” she said. “The beginning…”

            “That’s what I call the conception stage.”

            “That would be the infatuation stage,” she said.

            “Yes, the soulmates, the perfect couple stage,” I said. “In this stage the partners tend to imagine that they are a magic perfect fit.”

            “Yes, that’s what we did,” she said.

            “So, you got the first stage, right,” I said.

            “Next, would be the stages in the middle,” she said. “And last would be the end stage.”

            “I call that the termination stage, death of one partner or divorce.”

            “Okay, so what’s in the middle?” she asked.

            “That’s where things went wrong with you and Fletcher,” I said.

            “The second stage is what I call the contract stage,” I said. “This is where both people don’t say it, but they feel a sense of buyers remorse. They look at the contract and read the fine print.”

            “That’s when, after I accepted his big diamond, I met his father. What a SOB, he was. And I wondered what I was getting into. But I never said a word. I put a smile on my face and grinned at all of my future father-in-law’s crude jokes.”

            “Yes, that’s the second stage,” I said. “It was the third stage where you failed.”

            “What’s that called?”

            “I call it the authority stage. In business school, they refer to the four stages of a business, forming, storming, norming and performing. My third stage is the storming part of the relationship. In this stage you fight for your place. Who’s in charge of what.”

            “We didn’t have that stage,” she said. “We agreed from day one that I was in charge of the home and children and he would make the money.”

            “And because you skipped that stage, you didn’t kill your soulmate myth. It has persisted until now.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You weren’t and aren’t perfect for each other, at least not in a good way,” I said. “Maybe you enabled and encouraged your worst selves, his wanting to be impulsive with no consequences and you wanting to be worshipped as perfect. That wasn’t a good thing.”

            “Oh, I see,” she said. “Yes, that didn’t serve either of us.”

            “Fletcher is not a perfect anything,” I said. “And he will be the first to tell you. His problem is that he hasn’t until now, when he was about to lose you, he hasn’t believed he needed to work to be a better person.”    

            “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “When I found out he paid a prostitute, I saw him for who he is. He’s just a man who wants to get laid and he can lose his way like the next man. I had no magic hold over him.”

            “No, you didn’t,” I agreed.

            “And I’m not a saint or a paragon. I’m just as much a screw-up as Fletcher but in a different way.”

            “I don’t think he would ever believe you would say that,” I said.

            “Until right now, I never thought this,” she said. “So, if we missed stage three where most couples fight, what do we do now?”

            “You fight,” I said. “And that’s what you’re doing. You burst your soulmates perfect marriage bubble. You see who you are and who he is without rose-colored glasses. And it hurts. Love hurts.”

            “Yes, it hurts bad,” she said. “I don’t like what I see in him or me or in how we built our marriage. I do want a divorce from that.”

            “I think you might both want to divorce your fairy tale relationship. There is no such thing as a soulmate. Authentic relationships are difficult. They require constant renegotiating as both people grow and change.”

            “I’m going home tonight,” she said, “fix dinner for the two of us and toast to the death of my soulmate.”

            “I hope Fletcher will join you.”

            “Oh, you didn’t tell me about your other relationship stages.”

            “I’ve written a book on that, If Romeo and Juliet had Lived.”

            “I don’t want to read your book. Tell me about the other stages.”

            “There’s stage four, the evaluation stage. You are merging into that stage. Here, you realize that your myth of your happily ever after marriage is not true. You must decide whether to keep going with your flawed marriage or leave it.

            “If you get past stage four, the fifth stage is the accountability stage. You touched on that stage today. This is the stage where you realize that you are what’s wrong with your marriage. It’s not your partners fault anymore than it is yours. And to fix your marriage, you must be accountable.

            “Stage six is a brief honeymoon stage which I call the communion stage. Without acrimony and blame, couples fall in love again. Then stage seven is the mission stage. It can last thirty years. This is the career, raise a family stage. You have each other’s back. There is little time for your relationship. The rewards come in being a team together.

            “Stage eight, the generativity stage, is when the couple askes the Peggy Lee question, ‘Is that all there is?’ The mission has been accomplished, so, what now is the purpose of being together? Having more is no reason. Fame and fortune are irrelevant at this stage. If you find a reason, you get to stage nine, the authenticity stage, the stage where the partners know the end is just out of sight. There is little time left. This is the bucket list stage. And you know the tenth stage.”

            “Thanks for this,” she said. “I think we’ll be back.” 

            The advice I gave Fay about relationship types come from other well-known relationship types like Distancer/Pursuer, Maximizer/Minimizer, the Trauma Triangle (the basis of my Hero/Damsel). The Giver/Taker and the Paragon/Screw-up are original to me.

            I developed the ten stages of relationship. Eight of them are knockoffs from Eric and Joan Erickson’s eight stages of human development.