Missing Miss-ter Right

February, the most romantic month of the year, all about heart-shaped chocolates, red roses, pink champagne, and life-long hopes of love and passion. For most people the presence of a life partner is key to their potential for happiness. You can’t be a psychic or card reader without being painfully aware of that.

I’ve lost count of how many people have come to me for a reading casually “wondering what lies in store”, but no matter what else you tell them the request for a romantic prediction will raise its head in ninety percent of those readings.

If a reader predicts something then a client will consciously or subconsciously go out and look for it, and what we look for we tend to find even if we have to be a bit flexible about the details and suspend all logic and commonsense in the process. Logic and commonsense might be questionable words in some of the more esoteric circles, but as far as I’m concerned we were given a mind to use it not ignore it – particularly in the search for lifelong happiness.

When a reader predicts anything it is always done to the best of that reader’s ability, at that time, on that day, yet if the reader should slightly misinterpret one small detail in a message it can completely alter the meaning.

A friend of mind has given me permission to share the following story. A single lady who was always a hopeful romantic, she went to see a reader to discover whether the right person was on their way into her life. The reader gave her a description of a man that she would soon meet. She gave her his name, his profession, and an accurate description of his character and appearance.

My friend met this man and everything the reader said, including his name, was absolutely correct and they got married. The only thing the reader didn’t pick up was that he was a compulsive liar who lived in a dream world. My friend believes that had she not received this prediction she would have taken more notice of the warning signs and been less inclined to dismiss things that worried her. She doesn’t blame the Reader because she takes responsibility for asking for the Reading and acting on it, but I don’t think she would go and ask such a question again.

I know that this is a slightly unusual situation, but by the same token it shows the dangers of trying to live life before it happens, and suspending your commonsense in favour of a message provided by an ordinary human being. It also shows the dangers of making the presence of another person in your life key to your personal happiness to the point where you will suspend judgement, logic and instinct to try to fill that romantic gap.

We all have hopes and expectations and even without a predictive reading we can subconsciously allow those expectations to colour our approach to life and miss the good things because what was delivered wasn’t what was expected.

Another story I’ve never forgotten was told to me nearly forty years ago. A schoolteacher was about to be married and we asked her how she met her fiancé. It transpired that she’d met him in the bar at university, unbeknownst to her (and him) their friends had set them up. He came into the bar and was casually aimed at the bar stool next to hers, and their friends sat back to watch the fireworks. Fireworks there were! They hated each other on sight. It would have ended then and there had they been able to get each other out of their minds, but they couldn’t. They kept bumping into each other even though they didn’t want to, and eventually they gave up and began to talk. Talking turned into love and led to the impending wedding.

I don’t know how that love story worked out, but it does show that romance isn’t always instant or delivered in the type of package you expected. It also shows that no matter how accurate a prediction you receive or how hard you look for the right person, if one or both of you is in a foul mood that night or you don’t immediately click it could all be over before it’s begun and you may never realise that Mr or Miss right has just exited stage left in a cloud of tension.

If you’re lucky enough to realise the expectation of meeting in a blaze of heavenly violins on the perfect starlit night does, that doesn’t come with a cast iron guarantee of a lifetime of romance and passion. I am the lucky owner of a beautiful memory of a perfect unexpected meeting and an immediate ‘knowing’ that this was him. That was over seventeen years ago, we’ve been married for sixteen of those years and it has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination. Any ‘right’ couple will tell you that it’s fantastic until life, work and kids get in the way. Reality can be a real drain on the romance bank.

My parents were together for fifty years but they only survived the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – and outrageous children – because their love wasn’t just real it was gritty and determined. That may not sound romantic but it worked for them and so far it’s working for me. Stubborn determination is a great asset in a romantic relationship!

I don’t mean to be the Valentine party pooper, but prediction is one thing, romance is another, but real life is what happens every day and it will test you both to find out whether your love is worth fighting for and you need to fight alongside the right person not with the wrong one.

Many people also believe that there is only one right person predestined to come into your life, and they pontificate about happily ever after in a Cinderella kind of way, but how do we know that Snow White and her handsome prince survived the antics of the Seven Dwarves or that the wicked witch didn’t get through their security with two more poisoned apples?

At the end of the day, somewhere on the way down the birth canal we morph into human beings with all the compulsory faults and weaknesses of the human condition – along with all the amazing qualities human beings possess. So it doesn’t matter how predestined your life partner is when you’re in the Spirit World you are meeting a human being who isn’t going to be able to keep up the initial romantic whirl forever and ever amen.

Over time you will also go through a series of personal situations that will change your character and theirs, which means that the people you are in even five years time will be subtly different from the people you were when you met. In twenty years time the difference could be considerable. There’s nothing wrong with any of this providing you can both cope with the changes and assimilate them into the relationship, in fact it’s healthy, but not all couples manage to do this and then sadly there may be a need to move on.

At this point many people feel cheated that the ‘right’ relationship didn’t work out, and they can also feel very depressed that now Mr/Miss Right has ridden off into the sunset there is nothing more to look forward to. It’s truly heartbreaking and emotionally devastating to feel that the right person didn’t want you in their life anymore; as most of us know. As the product of one broken marriage I feel that my saving grace was in discovering spiritual thinking, which says that there is always another opportunity to be happy - if you will.

When a great relationship comes into your life enjoy every second of it and as time moves on work at it and do everything in your power to make it work. However, if that relationship goes wrong and no amount of talking can save it, then accept that one or both of you have chosen not to move forward together. Let it go with as much grace as possible and don’t convince yourself that this was it and there will never be another great relationship out there for you.

Don’t look back on the relationship and question it, convincing yourself that you were an idiot to go into it in the first place and you’ve wasted a number of years of your life on a huge mistake. If you’re optimistic and open to happiness you can get over the hurt and pain and move forward into a completely different relationship in which you can be equally happy, if not more so.

Amongst my many anecdotes about romantic relationships are three stories of people who met in their seventies and fell head over heels in love, declaring that this was the best relationship ever! Before you shriek at the idea that you have to wait another fifty, forty, thirty, twenty years for the right person to appear, these are people who had thought that they had a great deal of happiness before that and were amazed and delighted to find something even better in their post retirement years.

What can we do to ensure that we get the best out of romantic relationships however long they last?

We can realise that it doesn’t matter how hard another person tries, if we aren’t predisposed towards happiness then no one else will be able to make us happy. Happiness is a choice, don’t be the person who focuses on the single cloud in a blue sky. We can do our utmost to ensure that we don’t bring a lifetime of baggage into each new relationship, and that we don’t make each other the victims of other peoples’ actions. We can focus on the good things and the good times, if necessary keep a journal and make sure that you record all the positives about the relationship, rather than just the irritations and lost opportunities.

We should remember that we are all human beings and that Mr or Miss Right won’t be any different, even the perfectly programmed Data in Star Trek the Next Generation couldn’t get romance right. Don’t seek perfection in an imperfect world, you can’t deliver it and you can’t expect it. Try to do your best and to focus on the best that the other person can deliver.

Don’t subsume yourself in the relationship and lose all sense of self. Your partner fell in love with you and it’s unlikely that they’ll remain in love with someone who’s buried that persona under the desire to please. If someone doesn’t love the person they met and tries to change you then they weren’t in love with you in the first place, they were just looking for a piece of clay to mould into a suitable partner.

Don’t pretend you’re someone you’re not to please the perfect person; sometimes when we try to deliver what we think another person wants it’s our own impression we’re delivering and has nothing to do with them. Plus you have to ask yourself whether you’ll be able to keep up the act for a lifetime. A lifetime of pretending to enjoy football or shopping – imagine!

Be open about who you are and your needs, you have a right to be happy and compromise is a fifty-fifty situation; no one should compromise one hundred percent of the time. If you’re true to yourself and honest about who you are from the word go then your partner will be getting to know you not a figment of your imagination. Work on good communication and understanding of who the other person is, their needs and desires, their drives and determinations. If you find yourself constantly wishing that someone would change then logically they’re not the right person for you because you want to turn them into someone else. Love is a warts and all scenario however much we may wish otherwise.

Remember that you have a life outside the relationship and the happier you are with that life the more positivity you will bring home. If something external to the two of you is making you miserable then if possible change it so that it doesn’t have a negative effect on your emotional life. You must put the two of you first, and you both have to do that.

If you do your best to make yourself happy then you will be a more understanding less demanding partner; you won’t be asking someone else to be the be-all-and-end-all of your world – an impossible job description if ever there was one.

At the end of the day no matter how accurate the prediction or how wild the romance life moves forward away from those moments and sustainability and realism are key to a long-term partnership. It isn’t just about meeting the right person it’s about being the right person, and being prepared to compromise so that the rightness continues. While you’re waiting for the right person enjoy life as much as you possibly can so that you’re in a good place when cupid eventually looses that little arrow.

If you’re alone this Valentine ’s Day then put on your sequins, check your hair in a mirror, blow yourself a kiss and go out and party, and while you’re partying don’t be a hopeless romantic – be a hopeful one! Faint heart never won fair maiden or got that knight out of his shining armour and into your boudoir, nor did staying indoors. Happy hunting!

© Deb Hawken - First published in High Spirit Magazine February 2009