In a recent Oprah.com poll, 60 percent of respondents said they believe in the idea of each person having one soul mate who has the ability to "complete" you—like Tom Cruise's line from the movie Jerry Maguire. "That's a myth and if you think about it, you'll see it for yourself," Gary says. "Only you can complete yourself. No one can complete you for you."
Gary says that if your marriage is solely based on the "dynamic of romantic attachment"—that your partner has the exclusive ability to complete you—you will be disappointed when the "honeymoon phase" passes. "You begin to see, eventually, that all of your expectations that you put on someone else were unrealistic," he says.
A spiritual partnership, Gary says, strives for more than just marital vows to provide material comfort. "If you want to have the kind of relationship that your heart yearns for, you have to create it. You can't depend on somebody else creating it for you," Gary says.
Published 01/24/2007
