Dear Jolene:

Glad you did all this thinking. Yes, I do think you are “getting the right idea about motivation” and other things. Your thinking is leading me to the following thoughts:

1. Self image/public image: a person sees himself (or herself) the way he wants to see himself and presents that image to others best he can. When others reflect back to him the desired image, the person is satisfied. When another person challenges that desired image, the person is dissatisfied.

2. Desired image/who is this person…? When the two are the same, this is an authentic, honest person. When the two are significantly different, then what do we believe, the desired image or who the person is. A desired image is often not the same as who that person is. As we try to understand the latter, we have to filter through all the person says in favor of his desired image, see the bigger picture.

Let’s look at how you view the other woman in his life: “She is someone who seems VERY happy and cheerful ALL the time and someone who EVERYONE seemingly loves.  She’s quite popular and she seems SO kind to EVERYONE…she likes him SO much and also she is SO beloved by everyone that he likes the idea of dating the ‘Most Liked’ and ‘Most Popular’ girl”- reads to me that her desired image was well transmitted to you and that you… almost believe that she really is always very happy.

Notice this: you wrote that she treats him as if he was perfect (“to her, he is perfect”) and that she is most popular and “beloved by everyone”- isn’t it possible that she treats everyone as perfect, and that is why she is liked by everyone? And if so, she is not authentic, not honest, isn’t she? Communicating to everyone that they are perfect takes away from her credibility.

It is also possible that she is not beloved by everyone.

I don’t think you really know who she is. You know her desired image. Maybe he himself suspects her honesty as she worships him.

Notice this: you wrote, “when they first met she told him she thought he was his soulmate (and who knows, perhaps they are)”- notice what you wrote in parenthesis: you are considering the possibility that they are soulmates, that she was correct, when they first met. You are considering this possibility as true even though you have concrete evidence that it is not true: “He said he was not in to her, that it just ‘wasn’t there’ and that he wasn’t ‘in to her as a total package'”.

To be soulmates, both have to believe in the idea. He clearly does not. Yet you ignored that evidence.

I hope you post again, anytime.

anita